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It looks like there’ll be more celebrations like this over the next three days – politicalbetting.co

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  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Well there's a surprise:

    The European Commission has rejected a UK compromise proposal on the Northern Ireland Protocol that would require the EU to take a more flexible approach to the issue of food safety and animal health, RTÉ News understands.

    https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0507/1215936-northern-ireland-protocol/
  • AndreaParma_82AndreaParma_82 Posts: 4,714
    London results as they are scanned

    https://www.londonelects.org.uk/im-voter/live-results
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    Cookie said:

    DavidL said:

    Curtice analysis:

    "The results so far from the BBC's key wards shows that Leave and working class areas are moving more strongly to the Conservatives than are Remain and more middle class places.

    In the most Leave voting areas where the last local elections were in 2016, the swing from Labour to Conservative is averaging 12 points. In contrast, in the most Remain voting areas there is currently hardly any swing to Conservatives at all.

    In those wards where the last electoral contest was in 2017, there is a four point swing to the Conservatives in the most pro-Leave areas, but a 5 point swing to Labour in the most pro-Remain wards.

    This latter pattern means that we can anticipate some Labour gains in places where the last election was in 2017.

    In the most working class wards the swing since 2016 is averaging 12 points, whereas it is only 3 points in more middle class areas.

    In wards last contested in 2017, the swing to the Conservatives is 4 points in the most working class areas, while there is a 4 point swing to Labour in the most middle class ones.

    These figures illustrate the lack of progress that Labour has made in reconnecting with working class voters since the general election."

    So it just might get less bad as the results become more southern.

    Put aside the Leave areas for a moment. Seeing no swing for or against the Conservatives in the areas which are performing worst for the Conservatives is an astoundingly good result for a party which is in government. After being in government for 11 years, even the areas which hate it most aren't moving against it.

    Saying this is just down to the vaccine is all well and good, but it's saying that this is all down to the government getting the biggest call of all right - when it's loudest opponents were urging it to do the reverse. So 'just' is doing a lot of work in that analysis.

    I say this as one who has swung against the Conservatives over the past year.
    Oh I agree and it is even worse when you realise that the areas where there is no swing against are areas where the Tories did exceptionally well in 2017. Hanging on to those gains is a phenomenal result. Big swings in their favour from such a base is incredible.
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704
    I can't see any way Starmer will undo this gordian knot. The left and the right of the labour party are just in a fight to the death over it's soul.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    Never heard of "Heritage" until this morning - they came fourth in Hartlepool!
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    edited May 2021

    eek said:

    Late to the fray, but I'd like to claim some bragging rights for my Hartlepool prediction yesterday, as I wasn't far off:

    I expect Tories to sail home in Hartlepool with a majority of around 6,000. It will be a Labour massacre, but still unsurprising. Labour will lose some 2019 votes through indifference, some 2019 Labour will go Tory, and virtually all of the 2019 Brexit voters that bother to turn out will go Tory. Bad news for Labour, but not signifying a great deal in the medium to long term.

    Were it not for the fact both Rochdale and myself called it without seconds of the byelection being announced I would give you that.
    Thanks for the faint praise! I was also convinced from the moment it was announced that the Tories would win easily. But as I live currently in the deep south, I said nothing, preferring to leave it to the local NE experts like you.
    Oh it wasn't meant as a dig - I hope you took some of the money Ladbrokes were offering on a 2000+ majority.

    Being so close - it has been obvious to me that the Labour party really don't understand how bad their situation really is and it's only now they can deal with the fact they have 15-20 more seats than they should have (and they really do need to thank Farage for that) and work out policies that would allow them to keep a few of them.

    They also need to make sure that expectations are set that they are going to lose Batley and Spen well before the election is called - and say use it to kill the left by giving one of their preferred candidates the chance to win it.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Brom, bellwether*.

    A wether is a castrated ram.
  • HarryFreemanHarryFreeman Posts: 210
    Record postal vote turnout in Edinburgh​

    There has been a record turnout among postal voters in Edinburgh, BBC Scotland has learned.
    A total of 89.2% of people who had registered to vote by post returned their ballots.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    ping said:

    MaxPB said:

    IanB2 said:

    Suggestions that when the vaccine programme moves below 40, we may be ditching AZN?

    Yes, it's very likely. I expect the announcement will come with the approval of Novavax as that will plug the supply gap of not using AZ.
    35-40’s are already getting AZ

    Had mine yesterday.
    The official decision hasn't been made yet but is expected within a few days.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    Never heard of "Heritage" until this morning - they came fourth in Hartlepool!

    I voted for them in Woking/Surrey - the candidate was ex-Ukip.
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704

    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    6m
    This is another key test for Starmer. Will he now purge Momentum. If you can be a member of Momentum and a member of Labour then the party has zero chance of recapturing seats like Hartlepool.

    He should have done that already. It will be even harder now.
    I kind of agree. The issue is will the Corbyites feel enboldened or not after last night.

    The old 'winning cures everything' is the key story. If Starmer was 'winning' he would be stronger to shout them down.

    Thats harder to do now.
  • El_CapitanoEl_Capitano Posts: 3,870
    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390585426931499013

    When pundits who ‘explained’ why Vote Leave’s plan to realign politics was mad/stupid/impossible now give post hoc ‘explanations’ for why it’s all so logical/inevitable … ignore their babble… Pundits = noise not signal. Eg ‘the centre ground’ DOES NOT EXIST, it’s pundit fiction

    Classic Dom :lol:

    Is this Boris being lucky again? Now is the time for Dom to claim some reflected glory in the triumph, not throw his toys out the pram when no one is listening. He knows that, Boris knows that. The media may once again be disappointed.
    Feels a bit like that. And...

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390594515505930241

    KS is a beta-lawyer-gamma-politician, like ~all in SW1 he obsesses on Media Reality not Actual Reality, he’s played the lobby game (badly) for a year WITHOUT A MESSAGE TO THE COUNTRY, now the pundits will a/ savage him, b/ tell him he needs to focus on them more, more exclusives!
    Whereas Dominic Cummings, of course, is not a SW1 pundit. He's an EC1 commentator. Entirely different creature.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390585426931499013

    When pundits who ‘explained’ why Vote Leave’s plan to realign politics was mad/stupid/impossible now give post hoc ‘explanations’ for why it’s all so logical/inevitable … ignore their babble… Pundits = noise not signal. Eg ‘the centre ground’ DOES NOT EXIST, it’s pundit fiction

    Classic Dom :lol:

    Is this Boris being lucky again? Now is the time for Dom to claim some reflected glory in the triumph, not throw his toys out the pram when no one is listening. He knows that, Boris knows that. The media may once again be disappointed.
    Feels a bit like that. And...

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390594515505930241

    KS is a beta-lawyer-gamma-politician, like ~all in SW1 he obsesses on Media Reality not Actual Reality, he’s played the lobby game (badly) for a year WITHOUT A MESSAGE TO THE COUNTRY, now the pundits will a/ savage him, b/ tell him he needs to focus on them more, more exclusives!
    Whereas Dominic Cummings, of course, is not a SW1 pundit. He's an EC1 commentator. Entirely different creature.
    The point he makes about swing voters not being moderate is a very good one.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    ridaligo said:

    New thread damnit ...

    FPT

    So Labour lefties think that the reason they lost Hartlepool was because they weren't loony lefty enough? And the response to the huge defeat there is to double down on Corbyn policies? If that is the case they are deluded beyond belief. Sorry, Jezziah, but your diagnosis is so, so wrong.

    In trying to hold both the metro elite and the working class Labour vote together SKS has an impossible task: you can't take the knee wrapped in the Union flag and please both constituencies; you end up alienating both of them. He needs to choose, as Casino mentioned upthread.

    Despite people on the left of centre deriding the "culture war" as non-existent, to me it is very real. I was amazed by last evening's discussion on here that so many people had never experienced the impact of wokeness as work. I work for a large US (East Coast) global corporation and our senior management and HR are obsessed by it - our cooperate intranet is like the BBC home page with article after article on E, D & I. Maybe smaller UK firms have yet to be afflicted by it but if anyone has access to the CIPD magazine you will get an idea what is coming in terms of UK HR - the CIPD has bought into the woke agenda hook, line and sinker.

    This stuff is not going away. The people of Hartlepool may not be exposed to it in the workplace (yet) but they can see the way it is affecting popular culture and they don't like it.

    For now, the Conservatives have parked their tanks on Labour's lawn when it comes to government spending and Boris is seen as standing up for traditional British values. Labour's only response to government spending is to spend more, which lacks credibility, and it appears to be actively against traditional British values.

    So what does Labour do? Is the plan to sit and wait for the Tories to implode (most likely when the COVID spending chickens come home to roost), keep the fragile coalition together and hope that by that time demographics have worked in its favour? It might work but it doesn't really address the fundamental issue of where it stands on the British values question.

    Blair won for a reason; when the time came, mainstream Britain was not repelled by Labour. It is now.

    I have worked in HR for many years. I am instinctively right of centre politically. Sorry to break it to you, but diversity and inclusion is not about "wokeness", it is about the fact that it has been clearly proven that diverse teams are more innovative, and paradoxically perhaps, more cohesive. Maintaining the team profiles (particularly senior ones) of yesteryear that were dominated by middle aged white men is not in any organisations' interest. Most companies are recognising this, though it is a difficult challenge to address without "positive discrimination" or "affirmative action" (as it is called in the US) which is illegal in this country. One of the ways to challenge it is to promote literature and documentation that promotes the change. Hope that helps!
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,840
    Selebian said:

    Pulpstar said:

    My Dad said the Tile Hill North

    https://bit.ly/3vSHKMv

    box was good for the Tories in Coventry. Street more nailed on than a nailed on thing.

    I lived in Tile Hill for a time, as a student. Mobile phones were just coming in and predictive text had a habit of changing it to "Vile Hill" and the name kind of stuck amongst us. Wasn't a big student area, more typical red wall, I guess. I wouldn't be at all surprised at Tories doing well there, now. Would have been deep red when I was there.
    He expects Labour to absolutely smash Earlsdon. Problem is for Labour, at least in Coventry there are more places like Tile Hill than Earlsdon.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,753
    Charles said:

    DavidL said:

    Floater said:

    BROKEN, SLEAZY TORIES ON THE RISE!

    :open_mouth:

    So - it's not curtains for the tories just yet?
    They are just papering over the cracks.

    But sofa so good.
    The electorate are very practical.

    "We've gone to all the expense of putting the bloody wallpaper in so we might as well get some use out of it before the next guy replaces it"
    Maybe. Has anyone asked Liz what she thinks about it?
  • HarryFreemanHarryFreeman Posts: 210
    edited May 2021
    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390597348666060801?s=20

    Politics will for a while resemble DC/GO vs EM: two groups focused on the media but not as good at it as Blair, neither focused on country or *being a serious gvt*
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390585426931499013

    When pundits who ‘explained’ why Vote Leave’s plan to realign politics was mad/stupid/impossible now give post hoc ‘explanations’ for why it’s all so logical/inevitable … ignore their babble… Pundits = noise not signal. Eg ‘the centre ground’ DOES NOT EXIST, it’s pundit fiction

    Classic Dom :lol:

    Is this Boris being lucky again? Now is the time for Dom to claim some reflected glory in the triumph, not throw his toys out the pram when no one is listening. He knows that, Boris knows that. The media may once again be disappointed.
    Feels a bit like that. And...

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390594515505930241

    KS is a beta-lawyer-gamma-politician, like ~all in SW1 he obsesses on Media Reality not Actual Reality, he’s played the lobby game (badly) for a year WITHOUT A MESSAGE TO THE COUNTRY, now the pundits will a/ savage him, b/ tell him he needs to focus on them more, more exclusives!
    Whereas Dominic Cummings, of course, is not a SW1 pundit. He's an EC1 commentator. Entirely different creature.
    A massively successful political campaigner, probably the best since Bad Al Campbell. Didn’t get to that position by sitting in the Village bubble.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    It's good but why the translation? Why assume posters on here are unable to grasp the original ancient greek?

    The contempt for the audience is palpable and will lose you much affection and respect.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    Pulpstar said:

    Selebian said:

    Pulpstar said:

    My Dad said the Tile Hill North

    https://bit.ly/3vSHKMv

    box was good for the Tories in Coventry. Street more nailed on than a nailed on thing.

    I lived in Tile Hill for a time, as a student. Mobile phones were just coming in and predictive text had a habit of changing it to "Vile Hill" and the name kind of stuck amongst us. Wasn't a big student area, more typical red wall, I guess. I wouldn't be at all surprised at Tories doing well there, now. Would have been deep red when I was there.
    He expects Labour to absolutely smash Earlsdon. Problem is for Labour, at least in Coventry there are more places like Tile Hill than Earlsdon.
    Worked at Warwick Uni between 2013 and 2018. Bus route went via Earlsdon and Tile Hill, Earlsdon always seemed "posher" :)
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    Never heard of "Heritage" until this morning - they came fourth in Hartlepool!

    Another "splitter" group of ex-UKIP nutters who would like us to all return to the 1930s where working class folk knew their place and touched the forelock to their betters.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    tlg86 said:

    Never heard of "Heritage" until this morning - they came fourth in Hartlepool!

    I voted for them in Woking/Surrey - the candidate was ex-Ukip.
    Ha ha! Poor old LibDems same SEVENTH in the by-election :lol:

    :lol::lol:
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    While we are all busy writing the obituaries for Labour, I would be fascinated to see the comment thread following the 2005 Tory GE election defeat (did PB exist then - are the threads archived anywhere?).

    End of the Conservatives?
    Lib Dems to replace Conservatives as main opposition?
    UK has forever moved away from Tory politics?

    Labour have major problems. But nothing lasts forever.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Another election, media again shown to be out of touch...not just labour that needs to get off the twatter.

    Not just the cash for cushions, but the circle jerk over Big Dom pyscho drama.

    You may be right, but you are a bit previous. The fat lady has yet to sing either about Dom or about cushions, and both issues remain potential threats to Johnson.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    I MAY need to change my Avatar before the weekend...
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    Never heard of "Heritage" until this morning - they came fourth in Hartlepool!

    I voted for them in Woking/Surrey - the candidate was ex-Ukip.
    Ha ha! Poor old LibDems same SEVENTH in the by-election :lol:

    :lol::lol:
    The Freedom Alliance - "end lockdown now" or something - came last, behind OMRLP.
  • NemtynakhtNemtynakht Posts: 2,311
    Floater said:

    Burgon

    Incredibly disappointing defeat in Hartlepool.

    We are going backwards in areas we need to be winning.

    Labour's leadership needs to urgently change direction.

    It should start by championing the popular policies in our recent manifestos - backed by a large majority of voters.

    https://twitter.com/RichardBurgon/status/1390550418208563202

    Remind me what happened in 2019?

    Popular policies that led to historic defeats. I said it yesterday and will repeat. Burgon is less charming than Starmer! Take that in? He is the politics of Corbyn with the personal appeal of a kick in the nuts.
  • HarryFreemanHarryFreeman Posts: 210

    More hype.

    https://twitter.com/nickeardleybbc/status/1390568240888287234?s=20


    Nick Eardley
    @nickeardleybbc
    Scottish Tory source: We have made our whole campaign about the peach ballot and the early indicators are the message has landed to pro-UK voters
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839

    eek said:

    Late to the fray, but I'd like to claim some bragging rights for my Hartlepool prediction yesterday, as I wasn't far off:

    I expect Tories to sail home in Hartlepool with a majority of around 6,000. It will be a Labour massacre, but still unsurprising. Labour will lose some 2019 votes through indifference, some 2019 Labour will go Tory, and virtually all of the 2019 Brexit voters that bother to turn out will go Tory. Bad news for Labour, but not signifying a great deal in the medium to long term.

    Were it not for the fact both Rochdale and myself called it without seconds of the byelection being announced I would give you that.
    Thanks for the faint praise! I was also convinced from the moment it was announced that the Tories would win easily. But as I live currently in the deep south, I said nothing, preferring to leave it to the local NE experts like you.
    Yes, it was a slam dunk for the Cons. The margin was worse than I expected though. Ah well.

    So, a Yeir for Keir, yes?

    That's what I think anyway. We need eye-catching 'untory' policies plus a leader with personal cut-through, and over the next 12 months or so Starmer must show he ticks the latter box. If he can't, we'll have to make a change.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
    Evidently. It's 35 years since I composed Latin verse, could not even attempt it now.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 59,540
    Selebian said:

    Labour have major problems. But nothing lasts forever.

    Very true.

    Did you mean Labour?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
    Evidently. It's 35 years since I composed Latin verse, could not even attempt it now.
    Actually 45 years. Fuck I am old
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,457
    eek said:

    eek said:

    Late to the fray, but I'd like to claim some bragging rights for my Hartlepool prediction yesterday, as I wasn't far off:

    I expect Tories to sail home in Hartlepool with a majority of around 6,000. It will be a Labour massacre, but still unsurprising. Labour will lose some 2019 votes through indifference, some 2019 Labour will go Tory, and virtually all of the 2019 Brexit voters that bother to turn out will go Tory. Bad news for Labour, but not signifying a great deal in the medium to long term.

    Were it not for the fact both Rochdale and myself called it without seconds of the byelection being announced I would give you that.
    Thanks for the faint praise! I was also convinced from the moment it was announced that the Tories would win easily. But as I live currently in the deep south, I said nothing, preferring to leave it to the local NE experts like you.
    Oh it wasn't meant as a dig - I hope you took some of the money Ladbrokes were offering on a 2000+ majority.

    Being so close - it has been obvious to me that the Labour party really don't understand how bad their situation really is and it's only now they can deal with the fact they have 15-20 more seats than they should have (and they really do need to thank Farage for that) and work out policies that would allow them to keep a few of them.

    They also need to make sure that expectations are set that they are going to lose Batley and Spen well before the election is called - and say use it to kill the left by giving one of their preferred candidates the chance to win it.
    Agreed. Though I think Labour has a much better chance in Batley & Spen than in Hartlepool - both because of the timing and because of the area. I reckon it will be close. I write as a true Yorkshire man, despite my current location.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,414
    What are the views on high turnout in Scotland? Does it auger well for Nicola (I presumed so?)
  • pingping Posts: 3,724
    I don’t understand why the govt was so slow on red listing india.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57016110

    Let’s hope this isn’t a disaster.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826


    Stop the count. 😂

    Actually don't.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    Another election, media again shown to be out of touch...not just labour that needs to get off the twatter.

    Not just the cash for cushions, but the circle jerk over Big Dom pyscho drama.

    You may be right, but you are a bit previous. The fat lady has yet to sing either about Dom or about cushions, and both issues remain potential threats to Johnson.
    The flat stuff is still a potential issue, but all the drama about things like Boris shouting something during heat of an argument stuff, people in Hartlepool don't care....as everybody has done something like that.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,414



    Stop the count. 😂

    Actually don't.
    Why is there a little laughing face next to Laurence Fox? Is even the internet laughing at him?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839
    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    It's bad, no question. But let's not neglect how GOOD it is for the blues. Labour haven't given this seat away, the Cons and Johnson have won it.

    4 top reasons in no particular order -

    Leave
    Vaccines
    "Boris"
    Pork
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    I MAY need to change my Avatar before the weekend...
    Or you're going to have to design Starmer one of your Corbyn style bar charts.
  • HarryFreemanHarryFreeman Posts: 210

    What are the views on high turnout in Scotland? Does it auger well for Nicola (I presumed so?)

    Not necessarily so.

    2014 Indyref turnout 85%

    2016 Holyrood turnout 55%
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,840
    Selebian said:

    While we are all busy writing the obituaries for Labour, I would be fascinated to see the comment thread following the 2005 Tory GE election defeat (did PB exist then - are the threads archived anywhere?).

    End of the Conservatives?
    Lib Dems to replace Conservatives as main opposition?
    UK has forever moved away from Tory politics?

    Labour have major problems. But nothing lasts forever.

    The Conservatives might, only one minor rebranding since 1685.
  • WhisperingOracleWhisperingOracle Posts: 8,480
    edited May 2021
    Don't like the sound of this, at all. Very much hope the Mail is doing its usual exaggeration.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9553339/Blaze-rips-tower-block-flat-Grenfell-style-cladding-100-firefighters-battle-flames.html

    "Blaze rips through east London tower block flat 'with Grenfell-style cladding' as 100 firefighters battle flames

    Crews were called around 9am after eighth, ninth and tenth floors set alight"
  • ChameleonChameleon Posts: 3,886
    edited May 2021

    What are the views on high turnout in Scotland? Does it auger well for Nicola (I presumed so?)

    Normally I'd say yes - SNP voter apathy seemed higher than other parties according to the polls, so high turnout means they got their vote out.

    But I've seen other places report a big grey vote - which is bad for the Nats.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797

    Don't like the sound of this, at all. Very much hope the Mail is exaggerating.

    "Blaze rips through east London tower block flat 'with Grenfell-style cladding' as 100 firefighters battle flames

    Crews were called around 9am after eighth, ninth and tenth floors set alight "

    At least it was 9am and most residents would be awake. 4am in the morning would be a very different story.
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 2,179

    What are the views on high turnout in Scotland? Does it auger well for Nicola (I presumed so?)

    Its hard to tell, my experience of high turn out in NE Scotland is that it tends to favour the Tories. Either way I think its going to be close. On the other hand it looks like a scare is coming for the Lib Dems in Shetland.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243

    Selebian said:

    Labour have major problems. But nothing lasts forever.

    Very true.

    Did you mean Labour?
    :smiley: But the full demise of Labour needs a credible replacement and (probably) a non-FPTP electoral system.

    There is of course precedent for one of the main parties to be replaced under FPTP: 2021 - to be seen as the year of the Lib Dems began to take their rightful place as the natural party of government?

    [Checks most local election results... Oh!]
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,092
    It feels like a total realignment has taken place in UK politics in the last five years. OGH ends his header: "This exactly the divide we saw over Brexit." The traditional Left/Right divide hardly accounts for what we're seeing.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,755
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
    Evidently. It's 35 years since I composed Latin verse, could not even attempt it now.
    Actually 45 years. Fuck I am old
    My knowledge of Latin poetry doesn't extend much further than "Ego pedicabo vos et irrumabo."
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839

    I can't see any way Starmer will undo this gordian knot. The left and the right of the labour party are just in a fight to the death over it's soul.

    It is difficult but Starmer will try his damndest. He's a fighter not a quitter.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021

    Don't like the sound of this, at all. Very much hope the Mail is doing its usual exaggeration.

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9553339/Blaze-rips-tower-block-flat-Grenfell-style-cladding-100-firefighters-battle-flames.html

    "Blaze rips through east London tower block flat 'with Grenfell-style cladding' as 100 firefighters battle flames

    Crews were called around 9am after eighth, ninth and tenth floors set alight"

    They are....it was a proper fire, but fire service there quickly, all sorted now. fuse box caused a fire, one person in hospital, expected to make a full recovery.

    The building apparently had the dodgy cladding, work was due to start this week to remove it.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    What are the views on high turnout in Scotland? Does it auger well for Nicola (I presumed so?)

    Not necessarily so.

    2014 Indyref turnout 85%

    2016 Holyrood turnout 55%
    Yes but isn't the view that the high Ref1 turnout explains why yes got as high as it did?
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    I MAY need to change my Avatar before the weekend...
    Or you're going to have to design Starmer one of your Corbyn style bar charts.
    You might want to change yours Philip. You often claim not to be of the extreme right, but your avatar looks like something Tommy Robinson might have as a tattoo!
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,080
    Sandpit said:

    tlg86 said:

    DavidL said:

    tlg86 said:

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390585426931499013

    When pundits who ‘explained’ why Vote Leave’s plan to realign politics was mad/stupid/impossible now give post hoc ‘explanations’ for why it’s all so logical/inevitable … ignore their babble… Pundits = noise not signal. Eg ‘the centre ground’ DOES NOT EXIST, it’s pundit fiction

    Classic Dom :lol:

    Is this Boris being lucky again? Now is the time for Dom to claim some reflected glory in the triumph, not throw his toys out the pram when no one is listening. He knows that, Boris knows that. The media may once again be disappointed.
    Feels a bit like that. And...

    https://twitter.com/Dominic2306/status/1390594515505930241

    KS is a beta-lawyer-gamma-politician, like ~all in SW1 he obsesses on Media Reality not Actual Reality, he’s played the lobby game (badly) for a year WITHOUT A MESSAGE TO THE COUNTRY, now the pundits will a/ savage him, b/ tell him he needs to focus on them more, more exclusives!
    Whereas Dominic Cummings, of course, is not a SW1 pundit. He's an EC1 commentator. Entirely different creature.
    A massively successful political campaigner, probably the best since Bad Al Campbell. Didn’t get to that position by sitting in the Village bubble.
    Here's the thing though.

    Dom and Boris are incredibly good at campaigning, but a lot of the evidence of the last few years is that they're much less good at governing. Dom's reforms cut through Whitehall like a knife through water.

    That doesn't matter right now. Will it matter later?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    kinabalu said:

    I can't see any way Starmer will undo this gordian knot. The left and the right of the labour party are just in a fight to the death over it's soul.

    It is difficult but Starmer will try his damndest. He's a fighter not a quitter.
    LOL very droll.

    Well done on winning our bet.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
    Evidently. It's 35 years since I composed Latin verse, could not even attempt it now.
    Actually 45 years. Fuck I am old
    My knowledge of Latin poetry doesn't extend much further than "Ego pedicabo vos et irrumabo."
    Forceful irrumation has always struck me as high risk. Catullus at his filthiest is not Catullus at his best, I prefer the ones about his boat and his brothers funeral.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    ping said:

    I don’t understand why the govt was so slow on red listing india.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57016110

    Let’s hope this isn’t a disaster.

    Hopefully not: "There is no evidence this version of the Indian variant is resistant to current vaccines, a source has told the BBC"
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,441
    ping said:

    I don’t understand why the govt was so slow on red listing india.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-57016110

    Let’s hope this isn’t a disaster.

    What is difficult to understand? They were waiting for the PMs trip, until they realised they had to cancel it.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,839

    kinabalu said:

    I can't see any way Starmer will undo this gordian knot. The left and the right of the labour party are just in a fight to the death over it's soul.

    It is difficult but Starmer will try his damndest. He's a fighter not a quitter.
    LOL very droll.

    Well done on winning our bet.
    Cheers. Interesting times. A new politics. Strongly favouring the Cons right now and for now.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    edited May 2021



    Stop the count. 😂

    Actually don't.
    Unfortunately it looks like the Count has been stopped :disappointed: Although he is within touching distance of beating Rose, Lozza might be a step too far...

    And ahead of the nuttier Corbyn and Gammons :smile:
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    Well there's a surprise:

    The European Commission has rejected a UK compromise proposal on the Northern Ireland Protocol that would require the EU to take a more flexible approach to the issue of food safety and animal health, RTÉ News understands.

    https://www.rte.ie/news/brexit/2021/0507/1215936-northern-ireland-protocol/

    They are still insisting on alignment, which the UK has "long rejected"

    The UK still thinks equivalence is the sensible way forward. But apparently that doesn't eliminate the need for checks because "equivalence" doesn't mean "equivalence". Or something.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 2,699
    IshmaelZ said:

    Sean_F said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
    Evidently. It's 35 years since I composed Latin verse, could not even attempt it now.
    Actually 45 years. Fuck I am old
    My knowledge of Latin poetry doesn't extend much further than "Ego pedicabo vos et irrumabo."
    Forceful irrumation has always struck me as high risk. Catullus at his filthiest is not Catullus at his best, I prefer the ones about his boat and his brothers funeral.
    Ave atque vale (Hello and goodbye). Did it for O-level half a century ago. Just the right sentiment for Starmer and, appropriately, addressed to a 'brother'.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Cookie said:

    While Labour councillors have been banging on about Free Palestine on the campaign trail...the government talking about the bins.

    A new battle plan will mean that every home in England will stick to the same system to recycle plastic, paper and other materials.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14875570/council-end-barmy-recycling-postcode-lottery

    I hear so much genuine anger that different areas do this differently. This is an anger I simply can't understand. It's the work of minutes to understand your own area's recycling system. Still, the government appears to be responding to a genuine demand here.
    People perceive the different rules as unfairness. I agree that it's trivial, but people like to have equal treatment.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    glw said:

    Cookie said:

    While Labour councillors have been banging on about Free Palestine on the campaign trail...the government talking about the bins.

    A new battle plan will mean that every home in England will stick to the same system to recycle plastic, paper and other materials.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14875570/council-end-barmy-recycling-postcode-lottery

    I hear so much genuine anger that different areas do this differently. This is an anger I simply can't understand. It's the work of minutes to understand your own area's recycling system. Still, the government appears to be responding to a genuine demand here.
    People perceive the different rules as unfairness. I agree that it's trivial, but people like to have equal treatment.
    It is much more important to many people than if their town is going to be twinned with Palestine to show solidarity....
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    I MAY need to change my Avatar before the weekend...
    Or you're going to have to design Starmer one of your Corbyn style bar charts.
    You might want to change yours Philip. You often claim not to be of the extreme right, but your avatar looks like something Tommy Robinson might have as a tattoo!
    I don't have any tattoos but if you think that it says more about you than it does me. When I changed it many people here across the political spectrum said they liked it.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    MaxPB said:

    IanB2 said:

    Suggestions that when the vaccine programme moves below 40, we may be ditching AZN?

    Yes, it's very likely. I expect the announcement will come with the approval of Novavax as that will plug the supply gap of not using AZ.
    Any news on when Nova might get approved?

    It's like watching false starts at the 1976 Olympics, before the rules changed.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Cookie said:

    While Labour councillors have been banging on about Free Palestine on the campaign trail...the government talking about the bins.

    A new battle plan will mean that every home in England will stick to the same system to recycle plastic, paper and other materials.

    https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/14875570/council-end-barmy-recycling-postcode-lottery

    I hear so much genuine anger that different areas do this differently. This is an anger I simply can't understand. It's the work of minutes to understand your own area's recycling system. Still, the government appears to be responding to a genuine demand here.
    I'm not bothered about councils doing their own thing (local democracy, innit?). I do wish our council would give a proper guide on which plastics are recyclable. Most things have the little number symbols now, so it would be a simple list: 1,2,5 yes, others no, for example.
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766
    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.

    Interesting. I know it is a non-PC thing to say but it infers susceptibility to Boris Johnson's message is proportionate to the lack of education of the overall electorate. Combine this with the more educated folk that would never vote Labour (particularly the more prosperous) and it is a cynical but winning formula.
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,232
    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.

    Might be good for Labour in the long term assuming people are getting more educated. Perhaps Boris should revisit Theresa's plan of bringing back the Eleven Plus.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021

    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.

    Interesting. I know it is a non-PC thing to say but it infers susceptibility to Boris Johnson's message is proportionate to the lack of education of the overall electorate. Combine this with the more educated folk that would never vote Labour (particularly the more prosperous) and it is a cynical but winning formula.
    Not this nonsense again...at its core it age related....when people in their 60s plus were 18, only ~10-15% went to uni, people in their 30s, its closer to 50%, so basing on who is "educated" and who isn't is comparing apples and oranges.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960



    Stop the count. 😂

    Actually don't.
    Even if they did, I think Khan wins on 2nd prefs.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Ouch

    https://twitter.com/jonnyross05/status/1390603925536088067

    Conservatives GAIN 12 seats in Dudley whilst Labour LOSE 11 seats.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Floater said:

    Ouch

    https://twitter.com/jonnyross05/status/1390603925536088067

    Conservatives GAIN 12 seats in Dudley whilst Labour LOSE 11 seats.

    Just look at the changes on the map

    https://twitter.com/ElectionMapsUK/status/1390603750465748992
  • Nigel_ForemainNigel_Foremain Posts: 13,766

    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    I MAY need to change my Avatar before the weekend...
    Or you're going to have to design Starmer one of your Corbyn style bar charts.
    You might want to change yours Philip. You often claim not to be of the extreme right, but your avatar looks like something Tommy Robinson might have as a tattoo!
    I don't have any tattoos but if you think that it says more about you than it does me. When I changed it many people here across the political spectrum said they liked it.
    I thought I was being nice to you there Philip! OK, so in more detail, historically skulls are associated with the far right. The Nazis referred to them as "Totenkopf" (think I have spelt that correctly) or "death's head", and it was most notably used as insignia for the SS. It is also favoured by white supremacists. Skinheads often use skulls as "cool" insignia and I think they are also used by Combat 18. Obviously if you are comfortable with those associations....
  • MattWMattW Posts: 18,080
    kinabalu said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    It's good but why the translation? Why assume posters on here are unable to grasp the original ancient greek?

    The contempt for the audience is palpable and will lose you much affection and respect.
    Beautiful ambiguous comment for the non-linguists :smile:
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,080

    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.

    Interesting. I know it is a non-PC thing to say but it infers susceptibility to Boris Johnson's message is proportionate to the lack of education of the overall electorate. Combine this with the more educated folk that would never vote Labour (particularly the more prosperous) and it is a cynical but winning formula.
    Could just be another age marker. If you are currently in your 60s, a fair chunk of your cohort left school with no qualifications, because they didn't stay at school long enough to get them. Leave school now, and it's pretty much unthinkable.

    And it's not "somewheres are thick". If anything, it's the other way round- people move around for HE and the sort of jobs that only happen in big cities, and that forces a degree of rootless cosmopolitanism on them.

    Which is the difference between an economic drift right with age, and one based on values. There are goodish reasons to expect the first, but not the second.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,080

    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.

    Interesting. I know it is a non-PC thing to say but it infers susceptibility to Boris Johnson's message is proportionate to the lack of education of the overall electorate. Combine this with the more educated folk that would never vote Labour (particularly the more prosperous) and it is a cynical but winning formula.
    Not this nonsense again...at its core it age related....when people in their 60s plus were 18, only ~10-15% went to uni, people in their 30s, its closer to 50%, so basing on who is "educated" and who isn't is comparing apples and oranges.
    Partly, but not entirely. There is plenty of history about the socio-demographic appeal of populist agendas
  • SlackbladderSlackbladder Posts: 9,704
    Cicero said:

    Alba unlikely to get a single seat. Tories doing better than expected in Scotland.

    Interesting....
  • HarryFreemanHarryFreeman Posts: 210
    Betfair SNP seat bands

    Current favourite is 64-65 at 3s, 62-63 at 3.3 and 66-67 at 4.6s.

  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    kinabalu said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    It's good but why the translation? Why assume posters on here are unable to grasp the original ancient greek?

    The contempt for the audience is palpable and will lose you much affection and respect.
    I'd struggle to translate the original using my (albeit limited) ancient Greek.

    Because it's in Latin...
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    edited May 2021
    Endillion said:



    Stop the count. 😂

    Actually don't.
    Even if they did, I think Khan wins on 2nd prefs.
    Brian Rose leaving it late for his surge is he?
  • GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,695
    Cicero said:

    Tories doing better than expected in Scotland.

    That's not something you would ever have expected to hear 20 years ago and I guess that's a crumb of comfort for Labour. Nothing lasts forever and in the end politics always moves on...
  • TudorRoseTudorRose Posts: 1,662
    Laura Pidock on BBC now is one of the best exemplars of Labour talking too much and listening too little.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    kinabalu said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    It's good but why the translation? Why assume posters on here are unable to grasp the original ancient greek?

    The contempt for the audience is palpable and will lose you much affection and respect.
    I think you have browser rendering issues. I am seeing cuneiform.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    ping said:

    Disaster for Labour.

    I quite like Starmer, but something has to change.

    I MAY need to change my Avatar before the weekend...
    Or you're going to have to design Starmer one of your Corbyn style bar charts.
    You might want to change yours Philip. You often claim not to be of the extreme right, but your avatar looks like something Tommy Robinson might have as a tattoo!
    I don't have any tattoos but if you think that it says more about you than it does me. When I changed it many people here across the political spectrum said they liked it.
    I thought I was being nice to you there Philip! OK, so in more detail, historically skulls are associated with the far right. The Nazis referred to them as "Totenkopf" (think I have spelt that correctly) or "death's head", and it was most notably used as insignia for the SS. It is also favoured by white supremacists. Skinheads often use skulls as "cool" insignia and I think they are also used by Combat 18. Obviously if you are comfortable with those associations....
    No I'm not ok with that association. 🙄

    The association I'm going for, which I have done for a while, is pirates not anything extreme like that. Based yes on pirates being 'fun' nowadays but mainly on the "libertarian pirate island" remarks that kept being made.

    I did a Google Image Search of pirate + cross of St George and this was the most suitable image I could find.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Leave, to be fair to Rose, his was the only political ad I watched. It was so daft I was unable to stop watching so I could report on it accurately here.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758
    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    IshmaelZ said:

    Northstar said:

    Yes, indeed :smile:

    In honour of the glorious win in our new heartland of Hartlepool, I’ve had a go at immortalizing the political moment epigrammatically in the traditional manner of the old: with an elegiac couplet or two. Ahem:

    INSTAR MERITUM:

    principis aurata muros candescere charta
    ______ingemis, et quanti quis dederitque rogas.
    heu, tibi quid paries, partes cum sede repulsae?
    ______aurea dum spectas, moenia rubra cadunt.


    A WELL-EARNED IMAGE:

    ‘The PM’s walls in Number 10 gleam bright with gilded leaf!’
    _____you wail, and quiz ‘How much, and who’s been doling?’
    Alas, what good’s a party-wall when your party’s lost its seat?
    _____While it’s at walls of gold you gape, the Red Wall keeps on falling.

    As a onetime classics scholar I must say this is rather good.

    Perhaps we can have a mournful farewell to Starmer done in the style of Catullus?
    Outstandingly good.
    Thank you. I do know a little bit more than just copying and pasting.
    Evidently. It's 35 years since I composed Latin verse, could not even attempt it now.
    Actually 45 years. Fuck I am old
    You stopped composing Latin verse before I was born.

    Does that help?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341

    Floater said:

    https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/status/1390591421044887553

    Latest from Sir John Curtice: In places last contested in 2016, there is a swing of 10 points from Labour to Tory in places where relatively large numbers of people have no qualifications, whereas there is a slight swing to Labour in places with a large number of graduates.

    Interesting. I know it is a non-PC thing to say but it infers susceptibility to Boris Johnson's message is proportionate to the lack of education of the overall electorate. Combine this with the more educated folk that would never vote Labour (particularly the more prosperous) and it is a cynical but winning formula.
    Two problems with this thesis: Firstly it is not cynical for any political party to try to get any voters to vote for them. That's their big job. Either all parties are cynical in this way or none are.

    Secondly Walton, Bootle and Knowsley don't seem particularly under Boris's spell but don't have conspicuously high levels of HFE and PhDs either. It's much more complicated than that.

  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274

    Endillion said:



    Stop the count. 😂

    Actually don't.
    Even if they did, I think Khan wins on 2nd prefs.
    Brian Rose leaving it late for hah surge is he?
    I am sure he will be on YouTube shortly claiming the deep state dis something / voting irregularities...
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Cicero said:

    Alba unlikely to get a single seat. Tories doing better than expected in Scotland.

    Wonder whether the Tories are winning from the SNP other unionists or No voters that only turned out for the referendum.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Grant shapps on at 5pm this evening to announce Airbridge scheme #2....shakes head..
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