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BoJo’s “vaccine bounce” seems to be over but Starmer remains in negative territory – politicalbettin

A little bit later than usual we now have the leader approval ratings from the latest Opinium poll and the trend charts for Johnson and Starmer are above.
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SKS has the same problem: what's he for and what does he want? Other than being PM I really am not clear and I pay more attention than most. Hence the large don't know figures.
Is Starmer capable of turning that around. Perhaps that could be the next QTWAIN header?
This is surely true, the Tories know the best path to re-election would be destroying the NHS and killing elderly voters.
https://twitter.com/HugoGye/status/1414545579196231684
“Let me be clear. The Prime Minister and the Home Secretary gave license to the racists who booed the England players and are now racially abusing England players.
@BorisJohnson and @pritipatel are like arsonists complaining about a fire they poured petrol on. Total hypocrites.”
https://twitter.com/angelarayner/status/1414498287097454592?s=21
I’d say she is drunk but it was posted at 9am. What is she thinking?
This marvelous football team that was meant to unite us is going to leave us much more embittered, and racially divided, and both sides are stoking it. We are now France, but without the World Cups as consolation
An interesting way to stick up for a party colleague.
https://twitter.com/TheFergusonWay/status/1414493674377859073/photo/1
At present it's pretty much a score draw. We would be unwise to bet on it staying that way by 2023-4.
The Tories want to kill the poor and destroy the NHS has been a meme of the far left since long before Brexit.
She has made a genuine apology and demonstrates to @HYUFD how it is done but he is too pig headed and stupid to realise it
Let’s focus on Pullman. He’s a clearly brilliant man, who has written wonderful books. It may be aimed at older kids, but the Dark Materials trilogy is a mature, beautiful meditation on faith, and history, and childhood, done with grace and flair. And it has a driving plot. It is deservedly a global bestseller
And yet. Someone this intelligent honestly believes Boris Johnson WANTS the NHS to collapse. An utterly preposterous thought. How can he think that?
A toxic cocktail of Brexit and social media has sent him mad. That’s my only explanation. I welcome others
LAB still don't look like a plausible alternative government. Starmer offers nothing but criticism and negativity, no alternative direction.
The government is a bit useless but for the time being the voters don't trust any alternatives.
To quote OGH "in terms of predicting electoral outcomes it's the proportion saying they are satisfied that is key. Whether they "don't know" or are not satisfied is irrelevant - they are not ready to be positive."
Indeed the recent roll backs of the Lansley reforms suggest an opposite direction of travel.
They say 'Oppositions don't win Elections, Governments Lose Them' well IF these next few months are horrendous following the decisions announced today then you might well see that happen.
On the flip side if the vaccines continue to do their job and the country as a whole remains cautious but sensible, the NHS doesn't struggle and public confidence in the decision making at the top is there then you could see a big bounce at the next election.
These next few months are massive.
Next breaking news: water is wet. More at 11.
Same with the education committee Tories horrified at the poor attainment of WWC pupils yet seem to think that repeatedly voting to reduce funding for the schools they go to, repeatedly attacking teachers and exams (too easy) and voting to keep them dirt poor (no we won't keep feeding them in the holidays, we can't afford it).
I would have more respect for them if they were open about it. We don't like poor people and won't pay for them. The likes of Ben Bradley get mocked when they say poor people will spend handout cash on drugs but at least he is open. the rest are frit.
The only thing that's new is that Twitter lets the loudest mouths get amplified and puts people in a feedback loop of having their own views echoed back to them.
And they have the audacity of accusing the Conservatives of being the ones prosecuting a culture war.
On that we simply don't know.
There clearly is pent up demand. A Roaring Twenties is possible.
However, so is disappointing growth as folk pay down debt, shortages and inflation all at once.
https://twitter.com/Smyth_Chris/status/1414550606996508674?s=20
And for most people, that is what they get in social media - a viewpoint that initially matches their viewpoint that eventually sends them more or more extreme.
If we locked down to save the NHS, in fact we failed. We didn't save the NHS. It collapsed anyway. It folded up like a deck chair in a gale.
It's dangerous.
Or are you making that up?
This Tory voter supported his campaign and called for the government to u-turn on this site before they did. Which is funny given how often I'm farcically accused of being a "fanboy" or even "CCHQ". 🙄
"Al Gore was right."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/07/11/do-not-tackle-climate-change-now-will-get-bad-radicals-will/
I’m pretty sure it’s Brexit - plus the echo-chamber of Twitter
The process is: Brexit sends you mad, for a while, and in the past you would generally recover. But these days Twitter rewards you for your nuttiness, with the dopamine hit of ‘likes’, so you persist
47% of 2019 Tory voters opposed Rashford's campaign, only 42% in favour.
By contrast 71% of Labour voters backed Rashford's campaign as did 67% of LD voters
https://twitter.com/YouGov/status/1317126424587833344?s=20
Given you voted for Blair in 2001 as did BigG when I was campaigning for Hague and the Tories you are hardly either diehard Tories anyway
If so, I'll withdraw my previous comment.
Going to see what I can find out.
It's simple to see why - once in the echo chamber, the more extreme the opinion, the more the applause. And, no-one ever says "hang on, your last 10,000 predictions that Thatcher would start gassing black people, or whatever, turned out to be bollocks."
Anecdotes of them stuffing their back pockets full of cash from doing vaccinations whist acting as reclusive megagods refusing to see any patients isn't a good look.
Just be clear with everyone, it makes like much easier. You and yours don't care about these kids, don't care about their life chances, and don't think you should pay for them.
But (see my other post) I may have landed on the wrong graffiti.
Checking...
Hundreds of thousands of others are receiving their ongoing treatment on a daily basis. Statements like yours are, with respect, every bit as wild and demented as that of Philip Pullman's. Is any sense of perspective just old hat now?
Most is 50%+1
If a Scottish opinion poll said that 47% were in favour of Scottish independence and 40% against then you'd compare the 47% for Yes to the 45% they got in the last referendum and make the point that it is a minority on 47% and not a majority.
So unless you're a total hypocrite, you can't claim that as most.
As I said I agree with free school meals during term time when they are at school
Either way, it doesn't look disastrous for the Tories as yet.
I wonder whether there will be anything again which will be able to be enjoyed apolitically? Clearly not sport any more. Nor TV drama. Nor the National Trust. Obviously not education. Eating and drinking is still available, but give it time. Absolutely everything must be done with a background chorus telling you what a despicable racist you are.
And yet I know no-one at all who I would describe as 'a bit racist'. No one.
There is a whiff of McCarthyism about the hunt for racists.
Or next time a poll says a plurality of Scottish voters back Yes will you claim that as a majority for Yes? Or claim it as a minority?
The first destruction of the NHS I remember was when, in the 80s, the government allowed micro-surgery (small incision, fibre optic stuff). I remember a very irate surgeon explaining on Radio 4 that a real surgeon needed a proper incision and this stupid American idea would destroy the NHS.
Then there were generic drugs. Apparently, the people of the UK *needed* the most expensive drugs available.
And so it goes on....
https://survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/24-hour-scottish-referendum-poll.pdf
The difference between novelists and God is that God doesn't think he is a novelist.
It is the top end of a very wide range. Inevitably with a very small probability. This is the profile to date.
It was a totally fucking stupid thing to say, as we all pointed out to you last night. But your response is "well the Tories love it and agree with it".
And there you have a great example of what we have been saying wrt the Conservatives right now. The Tories are justifying policy simply because it is popular. Not because it is right and even, in the Rashford example, when it is manifestly, obviously wrong.
That is where you have taken the Conservative Party to and you should be ashamed.
An analysis of nearly 75,000 coronavirus patients found those who received an annual influenza jab were 60 per cent less likely to end up in A&E compared to people not vaccinated against flu.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9779765/Getting-flu-jab-slashes-risk-hospitalised-Covid-60-study-finds.html
“It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat.” Theodore Roosevelt
Aged aunt's carer's friend (!) at the footie last night. Heard monkey chants behind him, turned round to tell them to shut up, and is now in hospital.
Oh wait, no. After Brexit they effectively disbanded. So they couldn't have been crypto-fascist. They just wanted Brexit.
I presume, there is some sort of protective effect from the flu jab that reduces the overall numbers where they went downhill.
I voted for there to be no MEPs and for Farage to be sacked from the European Parliament. I also voted for the racist xenophobe Theresa May to be sacked.
Please show me a single racist or fascist policy of the Brexit Party in 2019.
The BXP in 2019 wasn't a party, it was a self destruct button to expel our MEPs from Brussels. It had no policies and no politics other than respect the 2016 referendum which an antidemocratic zealot like yourself clearly struggles to understand.
BXP now is a party that shouldn't exist and I hold no truck for.
I don't think yesterday's accidently racist post is the one we need to destroy your political career the one above shows a complete inability to think things through at all.
I've posted and explained this before - our benefits system is based on people being able to budget and plan.
A long time ago it was discovered that that wasn't always the case so processes were created in school to fix some problems created by dysfunctional families (so Free School dinners and more recently breakfast clubs). The problem is that the same problems still occur during holiday time when the schools don't step in.
Asking for a friend.