Labour has a bigger problem in seeking power than Scotland: the Midlands…. – politicalbetting.com

Dura_Ace said:

TOPPING said:

I would hope that USAF pilots never get that tired .

Of course they do. A 391st Strike Eagle crew flew a 15+ hour mission over Afghanistan. That's over 15 hours strapped into ejection seats, releasing weapons, multiple air-to-air refuelling, talking to AWACS, TAC, etc. How tired do you think those two were?

I have hallucinated from fatigue while flying many times. I was once convinced the carrier deck was tree lined on both sides on a night landing.

MarqueeMark said:

rcs1000 said:

MarqueeMark said:

LostPassword said:

I'm wondering how this compares to, say, 1987, which was the most recent other time that the Tories had a majority larger than 50.

Is this simply what you would expect when one party is so far ahead of another in the national vote, or has the Labour vote become so concentrated in the big cities, and therefore inefficient, that there's an actual difference?

Maybe Labour's problem is just to become more popular, and the electoral geography will look after itself.

The nearest the Tories got to winning a seat in Stoke in the 1980's was missing by 5,000 in Stoke South in 87.

The Tories won Nuneaton in the 80's by 5,000 or so. It is now 13,500.

So this level of shift is unprecedented.

I'm not sure it's that unprecedented: seats change and politics change. In the mid 1980s, there were mining villages where the Conservatives would have gotten zero votes.

Now the Conservatives party has changed, as has Labour and as have the villages themselves. And now they may well be Conservative majority seats.

Other seats have gone the other way. Cambridge used to be a Conservative seat. Indeed, many University seats were Conservative.

If Boris were to can student loans, they would be again!

ydoethur said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Is that why Leon’s now babbling about aliens? I thought it was just alcoholism.

SandyRentool said:

williamglenn said:

Rail services to come under unified state control

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57176858

"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."

Jezza fulfilling a manifesto commitment.

On top of that, you even had one of his loony left mayors seizing his local airport for the proletariat.

Nigelb said:

I hadn’t realised the bellows organ was probably around in the 4th Century.
https://twitter.com/OptimoPrincipi/status/1395082491816468481

@ydoethur ?

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

Alistair said:

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

It's because the Conservatives primary motivation is winning and rubbing their opponents faces in it.

They laugh at their opposition's principles and continue to remain in power.

squareroot2 said:

On thread Labours biggest problem is morale. Reading Quendon Letts in the Times demonstrates that the Party are led by someone in whom there is no confidence. One of the heirs apparent was given a serious working over nay verbal slaughtering by Penny Mordant yesterday so that excludes Rayner. Next in line is Rachel Reeves.....

Foxy said:

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

Yes, it is curious, it is almost as if printing money to spend on the North has always been Conservative policy, alongside a zero carbon economy, nationalisation, and state subsidy of industry.

Of course, discontent may grow when the bills come in.

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

Anabobazina said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Jonathan said:

williamglenn said:

Rail services to come under unified state control

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57176858

"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."

Boris brings back British Rail.

Expect a decline in rail passenger numbers from now on.

Well there will be less demand because of hybrid working.

But great to see the end of franchising - a ludicrous system.

Casino_Royale said:

Jonathan said:

Alistair said:

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

It's because the Conservatives primary motivation is winning and rubbing their opponents faces in it.

They laugh at their opposition's principles and continue to remain in power.

What is the point of power for if it means doing things that you were against five minutes ago?

The Thatcherite right is clearly dead in British politics.

The primary purpose of the Conservative Party is power - by gaining and retaining power it blocks out radicals and allows it to conserve and preserve more

Philip_Thompson said:

Sandpit said:

kle4 said:

Seeing stories on Fury-Joshua et al, am I the only one who finds Boxers engaging in trash talk to be really boring and tiresome? I can't figure out if they mean it, because they get all worked up, which I guess I get but just looks childish, or they just go through the motions as it is part of building a narrative for a fight, in which case it is just childish and boring. Sure, personality is needed to make things more interesting, but I don't know how effective it really is at building hype - wrestling would be the place to go if trash talk is wanted.

They’re all trying to ape Mohammed Ali from 50 years ago - except that most boxers today don’t have the intelligence, wit, or sense of humour to do it like Ali did, so they fall back on rudeness and insults.

There’s going to be an almighty bunfight over this bout though, with Deyontay Wilder winning his arbitration case to be next in the ring with Fury. There will be an awful lot of money, and possibly even a belt, exchanged to make the big fight happen in August.

The logical solution for me seems to be that Wilder gets to be first to fight the winner of Joshua v Fury.

He'd then have a shot at winning all 4 belts, not 1. Surely a much bigger payday too.

Charles said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Sandpit said:

kle4 said:

Seeing stories on Fury-Joshua et al, am I the only one who finds Boxers engaging in trash talk to be really boring and tiresome? I can't figure out if they mean it, because they get all worked up, which I guess I get but just looks childish, or they just go through the motions as it is part of building a narrative for a fight, in which case it is just childish and boring. Sure, personality is needed to make things more interesting, but I don't know how effective it really is at building hype - wrestling would be the place to go if trash talk is wanted.

They’re all trying to ape Mohammed Ali from 50 years ago - except that most boxers today don’t have the intelligence, wit, or sense of humour to do it like Ali did, so they fall back on rudeness and insults.

There’s going to be an almighty bunfight over this bout though, with Deyontay Wilder winning his arbitration case to be next in the ring with Fury. There will be an awful lot of money, and possibly even a belt, exchanged to make the big fight happen in August.

The logical solution for me seems to be that Wilder gets to be first to fight the winner of Joshua v Fury.

He'd then have a shot at winning all 4 belts, not 1. Surely a much bigger payday too.

I don’t watch boxing - never seen the appeal of watching two blokes beat the sh1t out of each other

But what i don’t understand is how come we keep having these “belt unification” bouts. Surely once the belts are unified that’s it - it can only happen once and then the winner of the next bout takes the lot?

Or do they just create new belts so they can have another “unification” fight (presumably it makes more money)?

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Casino_Royale said:

Jonathan said:

Alistair said:

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

It's because the Conservatives primary motivation is winning and rubbing their opponents faces in it.

They laugh at their opposition's principles and continue to remain in power.

What is the point of power for if it means doing things that you were against five minutes ago?

The Thatcherite right is clearly dead in British politics.

The primary purpose of the Conservative Party is power - by gaining and retaining power it blocks out radicals and allows it to conserve and preserve more.

This has been the case for hundreds of years, and why its the most successful political party in the Western world and can be so flexible in its policy prescriptions.

Alistair said:

Charles said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Sandpit said:

kle4 said:

Seeing stories on Fury-Joshua et al, am I the only one who finds Boxers engaging in trash talk to be really boring and tiresome? I can't figure out if they mean it, because they get all worked up, which I guess I get but just looks childish, or they just go through the motions as it is part of building a narrative for a fight, in which case it is just childish and boring. Sure, personality is needed to make things more interesting, but I don't know how effective it really is at building hype - wrestling would be the place to go if trash talk is wanted.

They’re all trying to ape Mohammed Ali from 50 years ago - except that most boxers today don’t have the intelligence, wit, or sense of humour to do it like Ali did, so they fall back on rudeness and insults.

There’s going to be an almighty bunfight over this bout though, with Deyontay Wilder winning his arbitration case to be next in the ring with Fury. There will be an awful lot of money, and possibly even a belt, exchanged to make the big fight happen in August.

The logical solution for me seems to be that Wilder gets to be first to fight the winner of Joshua v Fury.

He'd then have a shot at winning all 4 belts, not 1. Surely a much bigger payday too.

I don’t watch boxing - never seen the appeal of watching two blokes beat the sh1t out of each other

But what i don’t understand is how come we keep having these “belt unification” bouts. Surely once the belts are unified that’s it - it can only happen once and then the winner of the next bout takes the lot?

Or do they just create new belts so they can have another “unification” fight (presumably it makes more money)?

You have two belts.

The Organisation that controls belt A says you must fight Joe Slugger
The Organisation that controls belt B says you must fight Slow Jogger.

As this isn't the WWE you can't take part in a Triple threat match thus you have to drop one of the belts.

IanB2 said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Small correction, Thatcherite unpopularity as in the sleazy Major years!

squareroot2 said:

IanB2 said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Small correction, Thatcherite unpopularity as in the sleazy Major years!

I still recall to this day the moment it was made known that John Major had been shagging Edwina Currie. I had mixed emotions of being sort of impressed at someone who had seemed so grey and so straight, shocked at his choice and saddened at the revelation and the damage it would do to his charming wife.

YBarddCwsc said:

IanB2 said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Small correction, Thatcherite unpopularity as in the sleazy Major years!

Small correction (for extra Pb.com Pedantry marks.)

Jeffrey & Mary Archer live in the Old Vicarage, Grantchester (referenced in the Rupert Brooke poem).

So, they live in Barton ward, not Trumpington.

IanB2 said:

squareroot2 said:

IanB2 said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Small correction, Thatcherite unpopularity as in the sleazy Major years!

I still recall to this day the moment it was made known that John Major had been shagging Edwina Currie. I had mixed emotions of being sort of impressed at someone who had seemed so grey and so straight, shocked at his choice and saddened at the revelation and the damage it would do to his charming wife.

Yes, it took Major shagging Edwina for the Tories to lose the ward with the most expensive houses in Cambridge. Twenty five years later with another shagger riding high and the Tories struggle there even to beat the Greens for third place!

YBarddCwsc said:

IanB2 said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Small correction, Thatcherite unpopularity as in the sleazy Major years!

Small correction (for extra Pb.com Pedantry marks.)

Jeffrey & Mary Archer live in the Old Vicarage, Grantchester (referenced in the Rupert Brooke poem).

So, they live in Barton ward, not Trumpington.

Stuartinromford said:

IanB2 said:

squareroot2 said:

IanB2 said:

IanB2 said:

Casino_Royale said:

Stuartinromford said:

Gallowgate said:

tlg86 said:

Stark_Dawning said:

Can someone help me with something I can't get my head around? Boris has a majority of 80. In 1983 Maggie had a majority of 144. Yet Boris won a load of 'Red Wall' seats that Maggie couldn't get close to. So where are all the seats she had that he doesn't?

Cities. E.g. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_West_(UK_Parliament_constituency)#Elections_in_the_1980s

In 30 years the Conservative vote share has gone from 42% to 12%. Just shows.

Lots of cities used to have a nicer more middle class seat- Bristol West, Leeds North West, Portsmouth South, that sort of place, which was reasonably reliably Conservative. There were similar seats in outer Inner London- Lewisham East and West were classic marginals for decades.

Partly the areas changed- big family houses were converted into flats, so a different demographic lived there. Partly, there has been a drift of educated urbanites away from the Conservatives for decades; Johnson just out rocket boosters under it.

Take Cambridge. A Conservative seat until 1992, and only just lost then. Now there aren't even really any council wards where they are in a competitive second place.

Both Oxford seats were conservative until 1983, Cambridge until 1992 and Bristol West until 1997.

The urban well-educated upper middle classes haven't just drifted away from the Conservatives over the last 30 years: they've detached completely and gone into outer space.

Yes, I helped out when the LibDems first took Trumpington ward from the Tories - a ‘posh’ village with many expensive large detached houses semi-detached from the city itself. Where Jeffrey Archer lives. It was archetypal Cambridge Tory territory, never lost by them since the war, with during my student days the Tory typically pulling in twice the vote of the second placed candidate. It comfortably resisted the boom years of the early SDP.

The LibDem gain took the depths of Thatcherite unpopularity and some energetic campaigning to pull off. It remained a LibDem/Tory marginal thereafter, and the Tories did win it back at least once.

I was stunned to look up the 2021 results recently - in elections when the Tories had a significant national poll lead - to see that the voting figures for broadly the same ward were LibDem 1200, Labour 900, Tory 500, Green 350. Indeed the leading Green actually beat the three Tories, so you could argue they were worse than in third.

Small correction, Thatcherite unpopularity as in the sleazy Major years!

I still recall to this day the moment it was made known that John Major had been shagging Edwina Currie. I had mixed emotions of being sort of impressed at someone who had seemed so grey and so straight, shocked at his choice and saddened at the revelation and the damage it would do to his charming wife.

Yes, it took Major shagging Edwina for the Tories to lose the ward with the most expensive houses in Cambridge. Twenty five years later with another shagger riding high and the Tories struggle there even to beat the Greens for third place!

To be fair, there's a lot of new housing in Trumpington, which is a data point against the "people in new houses vote Conservative" theory.
But the fate of Cambridge Conservatives shows what can happen to parties- ending up with a point where you are not even irrelevant. Hard to see a way back, absent an unpopular Lib-Lab government and the right campaigner in the right place.

Sandpit said:

moonshine said:

Foxy said:

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

Yes, it is curious, it is almost as if printing money to spend on the North has always been Conservative policy, alongside a zero carbon economy, nationalisation, and state subsidy of industry.

Of course, discontent may grow when the bills come in.

The UK Tesla Gigafactory will likely be churning out cars and batteries before the next election, with thousands of direct high quality jobs and perhaps tens of thousands of indirect ones to support it. And it’s not going to need state subsidy, just a pair of shiny scissors applied to red tape.

This is the kind of investment that will hopefully mean the money printing and state supported/nationalised industries will not have to last much longer.

Yes, what a lot of people are missing - and it’s the fundamental difference between Conservative and Labour parties - is that the investment that’s coming is mostly private sector investment, creating private sector jobs. Government are mostly creating the conditions for investment then getting out of the way.

That’s obviously in contrast to how the government have reacted during the pandemic, which has been to spend whatever is necessary to solve the immediate issue.

noneoftheabove said:

The government is failing on our airport terminals and needs to fix the problem today.

Passengers from red list and green list countries queue side by side in poorly ventilated indoor conditions for several hours. Of course the virus and variants will spread between them. It is an obvious weak point in the travel system and therefore a massive risk to the whole economy.

And it is really easy to fix. Govt pays the terminals/airlines whatever is needed to move all red list flights to 3-5 selected terminals across the country, and bars them from elsewhere. Those terminals would not be allowed to process green list flights. The cost of that surely cant be more than tens of millions for the summer, irrelevant compared to the ongoing costs of extended lockdown.

Charles said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Sandpit said:

kle4 said:

Seeing stories on Fury-Joshua et al, am I the only one who finds Boxers engaging in trash talk to be really boring and tiresome? I can't figure out if they mean it, because they get all worked up, which I guess I get but just looks childish, or they just go through the motions as it is part of building a narrative for a fight, in which case it is just childish and boring. Sure, personality is needed to make things more interesting, but I don't know how effective it really is at building hype - wrestling would be the place to go if trash talk is wanted.

They’re all trying to ape Mohammed Ali from 50 years ago - except that most boxers today don’t have the intelligence, wit, or sense of humour to do it like Ali did, so they fall back on rudeness and insults.

There’s going to be an almighty bunfight over this bout though, with Deyontay Wilder winning his arbitration case to be next in the ring with Fury. There will be an awful lot of money, and possibly even a belt, exchanged to make the big fight happen in August.

The logical solution for me seems to be that Wilder gets to be first to fight the winner of Joshua v Fury.

He'd then have a shot at winning all 4 belts, not 1. Surely a much bigger payday too.

I don’t watch boxing - never seen the appeal of watching two blokes beat the sh1t out of each other

But what i don’t understand is how come we keep having these “belt unification” bouts. Surely once the belts are unified that’s it - it can only happen once and then the winner of the next bout takes the lot?

Or do they just create new belts so they can have another “unification” fight (presumably it makes more money)?

Anabobazina said:

dixiedean said:

Anabobazina said:

dixiedean said:

Next the buses.

Always been regulated in London and run by TfL. Even Mrs T didn’t believe in privatising London buses - thank god. One of the finest bus networks in the world.

No comfort to the rest of us paying £4.50 to travel 3 miles from the nearest stop 1.5 miles away.
But we rejoice in your good fortune.

The buses up north are shit. An embarrassment in most cities. I do agree they should be regulated by TFManchester TFNewcastle etc.

Fishing said:

On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).

So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.

Philip_Thompson said:

Fishing said:

On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).

So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.

Cars are probably a big one.

For years now all Labour wants to talk about are the railways. In one way the Tories sorting out the railways may be self-harming politically, since the more Labour talks about railways, the more Labour is just talking to them in cities.

If you drive around, but one party only wants to talk about public transport and acts like the very notion of driving is evil, then what does that say about what that party thinks about you?

Philip_Thompson said:

Fishing said:

On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).

So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.

Cars are probably a big one.

For years now all Labour wants to talk about are the railways. In one way the Tories sorting out the railways may be self-harming politically, since the more Labour talks about railways, the more Labour is just talking to them in cities.

If you drive around, but one party only wants to talk about public transport and acts like the very notion of driving is evil, then what does that say about what that party thinks about you?

Casino_Royale said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Fishing said:

On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).

So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.

Cars are probably a big one.

For years now all Labour wants to talk about are the railways. In one way the Tories sorting out the railways may be self-harming politically, since the more Labour talks about railways, the more Labour is just talking to them in cities.

If you drive around, but one party only wants to talk about public transport and acts like the very notion of driving is evil, then what does that say about what that party thinks about you?

I can say with experience that anti-car sentiment is very strong at the top of the public sector and within transportation.

Part of that is self-interest, of course. The latest is to major on the fact that electric cars will still be very bad for pollution due to the Oslo Effect of tyre and brake friction particulates and road dust emissions; tail pipe gas being only about 50-60% of it.

noneoftheabove said:

Charles said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Sandpit said:

kle4 said:

Seeing stories on Fury-Joshua et al, am I the only one who finds Boxers engaging in trash talk to be really boring and tiresome? I can't figure out if they mean it, because they get all worked up, which I guess I get but just looks childish, or they just go through the motions as it is part of building a narrative for a fight, in which case it is just childish and boring. Sure, personality is needed to make things more interesting, but I don't know how effective it really is at building hype - wrestling would be the place to go if trash talk is wanted.

They’re all trying to ape Mohammed Ali from 50 years ago - except that most boxers today don’t have the intelligence, wit, or sense of humour to do it like Ali did, so they fall back on rudeness and insults.

There’s going to be an almighty bunfight over this bout though, with Deyontay Wilder winning his arbitration case to be next in the ring with Fury. There will be an awful lot of money, and possibly even a belt, exchanged to make the big fight happen in August.

The logical solution for me seems to be that Wilder gets to be first to fight the winner of Joshua v Fury.

He'd then have a shot at winning all 4 belts, not 1. Surely a much bigger payday too.

I don’t watch boxing - never seen the appeal of watching two blokes beat the sh1t out of each other

But what i don’t understand is how come we keep having these “belt unification” bouts. Surely once the belts are unified that’s it - it can only happen once and then the winner of the next bout takes the lot?

Or do they just create new belts so they can have another “unification” fight (presumably it makes more money)?

Each belt has different rules on who you need to fight and when to keep the belt. Fail to meet the criteria, lose that particular belt.

YBarddCwsc said:

RochdalePioneers said:

On topic, its a great header @MarqueeMark

The Tories have won all these seats and kept their traditional southern seats because they are the OR party. You can vote Tory - and be welcomed doing so - if you support this or this or this or that. Labour absolutely could copy this and reconnect with their former hinterlands but only if they drop the zealotry and absolutism.

Its impossible for millions of Labour voters to vote Labour - despite liking some of their policies - because they can't agree to this AND this AND this and in disagreeing with part of it they aren't a class traitor or sell out.

Is that really right?

I know it sounds as though I am making this up .... but one of my Cambridge friends, whose house was plastered with Corbyn posters in GE 2019, is a multi-millionaire venture capitalist whose 4 children went to Eton.

Treachery or not, he had no difficulty in reconciling his personal life choices with Corbynism++.

MarqueeMark said:

Jonathan said:

Alistair said:

Jonathan said:

The curious thing about the Tories implementing UKIP or Labour policies they previously bitterly opposed or spending money like it's water is that none of their traditional supporters seem to care at all. They seem quite happy. Weird.

It's because the Conservatives primary motivation is winning and rubbing their opponents faces in it.

They laugh at their opposition's principles and continue to remain in power.

What is the point of power for if it means doing things that you were against five minutes ago?

The Thatcherite right is clearly dead in British politics.

They are doing what the voters want. It's why they get their votes.

By 2019, implementing Brexit was what people wanted. Even many of those who voted to Remain. So what do Labour do? Offer us a Leader of the Opposition who spent 2016-2019 trying to come up with every weaselly way he could to thwart Brexit. Result? Hartlepool...

The Government has had some mis-steps on Covid. But it saved the NHS as a resource to protect the nation. It was there, through the spikes of infection. It protected the private sector as best it could, using the alien-to-us furlough scheme. "Whatever it takes." It meshed the best of Government drive and demand with the best of market delivery to get us the vaccines, then used the public sector to get them in arms.

Result? A mid-term set of council election results predecessors could only dream of.

Fishing said:

Casino_Royale said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Fishing said:

On topic, an interesting article. It raises the question of whether there are any Midlands-specific policies that Labour can adopt. Backing, or at least accepting, Brexit is one. The Midlands is car-dependent, so maybe building more roads? House prices aren't as high as in the south, so housebuilding probably wouldn't work. Embracing the flag has been insincere and embarassing. And regional aid would probably not work either as it's not as deprived as the north (and I imagine the parts that are, vote Labour anyway).

So I don't think there's a magic bullet for Labour here, certainly not under Starmer.

Cars are probably a big one.

For years now all Labour wants to talk about are the railways. In one way the Tories sorting out the railways may be self-harming politically, since the more Labour talks about railways, the more Labour is just talking to them in cities.

If you drive around, but one party only wants to talk about public transport and acts like the very notion of driving is evil, then what does that say about what that party thinks about you?

I can say with experience that anti-car sentiment is very strong at the top of the public sector and within transportation.

Part of that is self-interest, of course. The latest is to major on the fact that electric cars will still be very bad for pollution due to the Oslo Effect of tyre and brake friction particulates and road dust emissions; tail pipe gas being only about 50-60% of it.

I get the impression that ditching the unrealistic green targets would be very popular outside London. Or at least implementing them by forcing people to stop driving and get their boilers changed when they work fine will be extremely unpopular. I just wonder which country will be the first to break the collective hysteria.

RochdalePioneers said:

Philip_Thompson said:

Anabobazina said:

Time_to_Leave said:

Gallowgate said:

williamglenn said:

Rail services to come under unified state control

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-57176858

"The government has announced the biggest shake-up in the UK's railways since privatisation in the mid-1990s. The reform plan will see the creation of a new state-owned body, Great British Railways (GBR), which will own and manage rail infrastructure."

Is this just a rebrand of Network Rail, or something more?

It’s much more. At the minute, many rail franchises have to run their services using what passengers pay them. They of course price in the implied risk of that.

This takes that away and runs the whole thing via the Government, with companies paid a flat fee to run each service. Structured correctly, if it works, they will then of course be held to account for trains running properly, which is the bit they claim to be good at.

It’s a good idea and the right balance. Can’t possibly have been dreamt up by a politician.

And it gives the public one arse to kick under a unified GBR brand - instead of having several companies with different protocols, brand names and fare structures, blaming each other.

It will be popular.

And it will put more onus on the Treasury to fund the railways, which the Treasury will prioritise Schools N Hospitals, so investment will fall and the railways will ossify and passenger numbers will fall.

Passenger numbers will never recover back to the pre-covid height because the demand to commute long distances 5 days a week has gone. It was proving impossible to meet demand on some routes where you couldn't fit longer trains and no paths for more services. A reduction in bums pressed against partitions will help.

The challenge for the industry is how to remove all the remaining structures of privatisation - still there despite NR having been state owned and maintenance in-house for ages. We can't wire up new routes because Railtrack let all the knowledge and experience go away and Network Rail has its hands tied in ludicrous layers of expensive contracts.

Very little is changing from a passenger facing perspective - perhaps the good franchise names (LNER, gWR, Cross Country, Northern, Southern) will become permanent but thats about it as the DfT have been a dictatorship for a decade anyway. Its the back office side that has to change.