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Why are the Tories leading in the polls? – politicalbetting.com

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  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    DavidL said:

    The Tories have reinvented themselves. This is not the government of Cameron and Osborne (sadly). This is an entirely new government based upon an entirely different electoral coalition which has been in power for just about 2 years. It is delusional to see it otherwise. Labour's "turn" will no doubt come but it is some way off.
    Forgive me for probing, but I have never understood your enthusiasm for the government of Cameron and Osbourne. Would you say, for instance, that Chris Grayling was good as SofS for Justice?

    (not to say that this lot are much of an improvement insofar as Justice is concerned)

    But I don't disagree with the point you are making. All I am saying is that there is a lot of chaos and we can expect more, the Barnard Castle fiasco led to a significant drop in the opinion polls for the conservatives and we can expect more things like that.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,859
    Hang on, there's a new series of In Treatment? Yay! This has caught me by surprise.

    But no Gabriel Byrne, other than small nods? Boooo
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,910
    Charles said:

    Why should beneficiaries of private sector DB schemes be penalised?

    The scheme my mother is in was funded entirely by employer contributions and is currently in surplus.
    Because we need to fund social care mate
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    Apropos of nothing much…

    Self isolate is tautological. Irritating term for that reason.

    Can we just say ‘isolate’?
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,130
    MaxPB said:

    A good, but rather depressing read for those of us who want rid of Boris.

    A depressing read for all of us. What kind of a country do we live in? I met two friends this week who are moving to Spain as soon as they sell their house. Who can blame them.

    Remember Shakespeare's warning 'The evil that men do lives after them' . We aint seen nothin' yet!
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,119
    MaxPB said:

    What's the meaning of the 3.5% in their twitter names?
    It relates to social research which concludes that a committed 3.5% of the population is sufficient to create political change by means of non-violent direct action, presumably forming a critical mass that then changes views in the other 96.5% by force of their example, rather than imposing the will of the 3.5% on the rest.

    So I guess it's a claim from that individual that they see themselves as part of the 3.5%. Not sure that the research they are citing would have shown the same beneficial impact of 3.5% talking to itself on twitter, though.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,484

    Fine, I'm with you all the way, but how to we clone another Andy Burnham so one of them is available to take over from Starmer? As Manchester Mayor the lone existing Andy Burnham is unavailable.
    Why? He can resign as Manchester Mayor as soon as he becomes prime minister.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924
    MikeL said:

    I can't see any reports of any announcement at all re NHS pay rise.
    Torygraph say 3% to be announced before summer recess

    SKS still arguing for 2.1%

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/07/19/government-set-back-boost-pay-rise-nhs-workers/
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,910

    Why? He can resign as Manchester Mayor as soon as he becomes prime minister.
    He can’t be an MP and mayor of Greater Manchester at the same time can he?
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362

    Are we sliding back to Trash The Vaccines Hour on PB?

    No one is trashing vaccines are they? The vaccines are undergoing the ultimate trial, not only are they working, but appear to be doing a brilliant job.

    IMO Things are in the next stage, firstly get the virologists off the 24 hour news, the vaccines have broken the link between them and relevancy. We need behaviour psychologists for the answers to the next phase followed by economists for the stage after.

    Everything, opinions, decision making, seems to dip in and out of irrational modes of thinking where we can only assess the ethics of behaviour once the frenzy has passed. Remember the rallying around the flag bounce at the beginning of this? What sort of rational thinking does a mind do in that mode? The same irrationality has persisted all through the crisis. We are at stage now where this evenings press conference was all about behaviours, it was a word used a lot.

    My question to you anabobzina is do you not think it important now, to align work of vaccines with the right behaviour from everyone? Jabbing something in an arm is as easy as taking horse to water. The next bit is the difficult bit. Do you see what I mean?

    Nor is it over in pain terms of the economics. Irregular growth patterns and persistent inflationary pressures could cause real pain and ruin in coming years. Inflation pressure could come from more difficult sourcing of materials, unless the sourcing issue doesn’t settle down it could hold inflation for longer, that impacts debt payments linked to price inflation, in turn spooks the markets.

    Something as big and unplanned for as this wasn’t just going to go back to normal over night.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,608

    Why? He can resign as Manchester Mayor as soon as he becomes prime minister.
    I don't believe he can.
  • He can’t be an MP and mayor of Greater Manchester at the same time can he?
    Correct.

    He holds the role of police commissioner (or whatever the term is) which MPs are not allowed to hold.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 50,455
    edited July 2021
    MaxPB said:

    I did say public sector fatcats.
    Cue wave of early retirements...
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 33,924
    HYUFD said:

    They are leading because the vast majority of Leave voters now back the Tories after UKIP and the BXP have collapsed.

    Meanwhile the Remain vote is split between Labour, the LDs, the Greens and the SNP.

    So under FPTP the Tories have it all set up nicely for them

    It's not just about Brexit. It's also the fact that most British voters don't like the Culture Wars.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 53,216

    Maybe the Forde report will reveal what happened in 2017 when we were so close to kicking the Tories out
    So close you won 55 fewer seats?
  • kjh said:

    I think @MaxPB has come up with an interesting idea that mainly applies to over generous public sector schemes. Re your mother the employer received tax relief on the contributions and your mother did not have to pay any tax on the benefit. Often with DB the employer contribution had to be very large hence most companies bailing out so is often a big tax free benefit that a DC employee can only dream of getting.
    But treating pensions as deferred income, for the purposes of taxation, has been pretty universal. With some limits, to be sure, but whether the DB employer has to put a lot of (untaxed) cash in to deliver the (taxed) benefits down the line, or whether a DC employer matches (untaxed) contributions now to deliver (taxed) benefits down the line, is pretty much the same thing from the point of view of tax. The DB was just a more generous employer offer; DC employers are free to do the same (within the annual allowance) if they want.

    They should probably update the AA calculations regarding DB entitlement, though.

    --AS
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,690
    Foxy said:

    Cue wave of early retirements...
    It's not going to help them avoid paying the additional tax. If anything we'd probably see lengthened careers so the DB is paid at a slightly higher rate to offset the large tax rise.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,709
    edited July 2021
    MaxPB said:

    It's not going to help them avoid paying the additional tax. If anything we'd probably see lengthened careers so the DB is paid at a slightly higher rate to offset the large tax rise.
    "almost there" :lol:

    Whitehall translation: "miles apart with furious rowing"

  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,608

    It's literally impossible for SKS to be more incompetent.

    Unions demand 12-15% pay rise for NHS.

    Labour demanded 2.1%.

    Tory government just awarded 3% NHS pay rise.

    Labour spokesman doesnt know whether to have a shit shave or a haircut

    No wonder they are on target for the worst defeat since 1935

    I am just thankful for the magnificent Labour victories of 2017 and 2019.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,202
    Not sure if this was posted:

    https://twitter.com/uksciencechief/status/1417204235356213252

    Correcting a statistic I gave at the press conference today, 19 July. About 60% of hospitalisations from covid are not from double vaccinated people, rather 60% of hospitalisations from covid are currently from unvaccinated people.
  • PJHPJH Posts: 756

    LibDems finally have something to seriously campaign on that will get attention.

    Vaccine passport is a digital id in all but name, the uses of which will widened every year whilst every senior politician tell us they have no plan to do x or y with it.

    Beggars belief that is Johnson of all people, the old libertarian lounge lizard himself, who will go down in history as the guy who introduced them.

    I intend to resist.
    I'm with you. I have no intention of showing a "passport" to go anywhere, except to cross an international border.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    Fine, I'm with you all the way, but how do we clone another Andy Burnham so one of them is available to take over from Starmer? As Manchester Mayor the lone existing Andy Burnham is unavailable.
    We need to find a way Comrade.

    Your stock response to any criticism of SKS is Richard Burgon would be worse

    We agree on that but as he will never be leader its a silly response.

    So we need to find a unity candidate with better skills than Starmer or we are completely sunk.

    Maybe we should sit down with a pint and see who we can both support. Cannot be associated with the Momentum or Progress wings. Ideally a proven track record and a unity figure


    How about Ed Milliband? See its not easy Andy Burnham has to be cloned.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,484

    Correct.

    He holds the role of police commissioner (or whatever the term is) which MPs are not allowed to hold.
    A party leader doesn't have to be an MP, although I'm not sure what the rules of the Labour Party are (I found it bizarre that the Lib Dem leader had to resign when she lost her seat). We generally allow politicians to do two jobs simultaneously. Much of it could be delegated anyway, obvs Labour would need a Leader in the Commons. Just like the SNP has.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924
    PJH said:

    I'm with you. I have no intention of showing a "passport" to go anywhere, except to cross an international border.
    I can recommend a good book then
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,910
    So 40% of admissions are from double vaccinated people? That still seems astonishingly high.
  • JohnLilburneJohnLilburne Posts: 6,484

    I don't believe he can.
    You can't stop being Mayor?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,608
    Jonathan said:

    Apparently Cummings saved the Queen from Boris.

    Saved from a romantic proposal?
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    I am just thankful for the magnificent Labour victories of 2017 and 2019.
    Or 2010 and 2015 presumably.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,355
    RobD said:

    No, 60% unvaccinated doesn't mean 40% double vaccinated.
    Exactly. More likely to be the 16% we’ve had quoted elsewhere.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,339

    What a mistake. 😰

    And not one member of the media picked it up and queried it, but the people here twigged about it instantly.
    That's a relief, I hope it didn't sway anybody over to the antivaxx persuasion.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398

    I didn’t actually realise you were theoretically at risk of a £10k fine for failing to isolate when pinged. Have any such fines ever been issued?
    I think that the pinging is unenforceable as they can't know you have been pinged (hence their failed attempts to develop the app themselves).

    But if you recieve a positive test result or are told to isolate by test and trace yes it is a definetly legal requirement, there is theoretically a 1k penalty which rises to 10k if you keep breaking the isolation period. Although I don't think this has ever been successfully enforced, to date.



  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,910
    RobD said:

    No, 60% unvaccinated doesn't mean 40% double vaccinated.
    You’re right. Do we know what percentage are double vaxxed though?
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,690

    So 40% of admissions are from double vaccinated people? That still seems astonishingly high.

    No, the data point is 60% are from unvaccinated. That means 40% are from partially vaccinated and double vaccinated people. Given what we know from previous data in this series of 12% and 15% being double jabbed it's likely to be somewhere around that number.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    Sky News have a good report showing what happened with the failure of security at Wembley.

    Every one of those 'fans' who can be identified, without exception, who forced their way into the stadium should get a football banning order and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

    This could have been another Hillsborough.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,202

    What a mistake. 😰

    And not one member of the media picked it up and queried it, but the people here twigged about it instantly.
    It seems to have been picked up by American antivaxxers too…
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,709
    Jonathan said:

    Apparently Cummings saved the Queen from Boris.

    Only for a year. He's back there now every week blathering on about being this century's Churchill while she just rolls her eyes and keeps an eye on her watch.
  • PJHPJH Posts: 756
    MaxPB said:

    I did say public sector fatcats.
    The trouble is, that won't bring very much in, as very few Public Sector fat cats exist, Most Civil Servants don't earn £60k per year when working,
  • A couple of other points:

    1) People know that dealing with a pandemic is extremely difficult and are willing to give the government the benefit of the doubt
    2) If you look at the countries we would naturally benchmark ourselves against - US, FR, DE, IT, ES only Germany has a significantly lower death rate.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    I am just thankful for the magnificent Labour victories of 2017 and 2019.
    You have done it again. Any criticism of SKS you revert to it could be worse if........

    Do you support a Lab. policy of a lower pay award for front line NHS staff than the Tories are offering?

    For 2017 BTW see Forde report for more information
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,814

    What a mistake. 😰

    And not one member of the media picked it up and queried it, but the people here twigged about it instantly.
    Everyone surely knows by now that Vallance is a fucking muppet
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,690
    PJH said:

    The trouble is, that won't bring very much in, as very few Public Sector fat cats exist, Most Civil Servants don't earn £60k per year when working,
    Put DB schemes on income tax rates of 30% and 50%. It would raise a significant amount of money. Enough to not need to put taxes up on working people for social care.
  • 3) The NHS has just about coped and we have avoided some of the dreadful scenes seen in countries like Italy and India
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,824

    Exactly. More likely to be the 16% we’ve had quoted elsewhere.
    I think it wound up being 11%. Which is pretty much the same as most people thought before.
    Maybe a touch higher.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,921

    You’re right. Do we know what percentage are double vaxxed though?
    https://www.covid-arg.com/post/how-many-covid-admissions-are-vaccinated
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    HYUFD said:

    Better than another dementia tax
    My point is, what is difference between Boris and May proposal for you to say that? Unless you think it’s just 1% income tax funding it, which I don’t think is true.

    Both have a tax element funding them. Both a basement level where the scheme kicks in (50 under dilmot, 100K for May, tbc under Boris and Rishi).

    You say it is better, what is the difference making it better?
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,814
    PJH said:

    The trouble is, that won't bring very much in, as very few Public Sector fat cats exist, Most Civil Servants don't earn £60k per year when working,
    Total disgrace if this only falls on the shoulders of the working age population.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,322

    NI is the most contemptible, disreputable and dishonest of all our taxes - and every 1% is really 2%.

    So-called "1% on National Insurance" is really 1% on Employee National Insurance and 1% on Employer National Insurance. So its really 2% on Income Tax, being masked as 1%.

    Any "Employer National Insurance" comes from a companies labour budget so is a tax on wages every bit as much as a tax on incomes - because it is a tax on incomes, its just a pervertedly hidden one.
    The employer and employee rates aren't linked so it need not happen but I would be gobsmaked if you were not correct. It's the normal sneaky things govts do to hide a tax. Gordon Brown was the master with the 1% NI above the top threshold, effectively income tax by any other name having promised not to increase income tax, and the withholding tax trick that buggered pension funds, a tax on employees they never see until their fund moves into the PPF many years later. The man was a menace.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924
    moonshine said:

    Total disgrace if this only falls on the shoulders of the working age population.
    Absolutely.

    8% pay rise for Pensioners too
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,347
    Floater said:

    My eldest tells me the Lib Dems have pledged to fight any requirement for a vaccine passport for clubs - he is now voting yellow

    Easy win for the LDs because vaccine passports for clubs is a solid gold Not Happening Event. It's just a rhetorical threat to get more young people to roll their sleeve up and close their eyes and think of England.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,824

    Sky News have a good report showing what happened with the failure of security at Wembley.

    Every one of those 'fans' who can be identified, without exception, who forced their way into the stadium should get a football banning order and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.

    This could have been another Hillsborough.

    Would have been. But for the capacity limits.
    Alternatively, there'd have been c 5 000 ticketed fans, having paid many hundreds of pounds, locked out and angry.
    There needs to be a wider enquiry than just banning fans though.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,608

    We need to find a way Comrade.

    Your stock response to any criticism of SKS is Richard Burgon would be worse

    We agree on that but as he will never be leader its a silly response.

    So we need to find a unity candidate with better skills than Starmer or we are completely sunk.

    Maybe we should sit down with a pint and see who we can both support. Cannot be associated with the Momentum or Progress wings. Ideally a proven track record and a unity figure


    How about Ed Milliband? See its not easy Andy Burnham has to be cloned.
    I voted for Ed Milliband for Leader instead of his brother when I was still a member.

    One of my more foolish errors.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,130

    Paging Roger.....
    10,000 a day. Don't panic Francis. We still outscore them comfortably. We're well over 50,000.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,814

    Absolutely.

    8% pay rise for Pensioners too
    And a year and half of youth pissed into the wind to keep them safe.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792

    That's a relief, I hope it didn't sway anybody over to the antivaxx persuasion.
    Plenty of vaccine trashers on PB sadly.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    I voted for Ed Milliband for Leader instead of his brother when I was still a member.

    One of my more foolish errors.
    So give me a name that both of us can get behind.

    I go for ANDY BURNHAM despite his current unavailability but am happy to consider others
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848

    You’re right. Do we know what percentage are double vaxxed though?
    So, 60% of people (and that's the 60% who are most vulnerable) are double vaccinated.

    Even if 60% of admissions were from double vaccinated, that would still show good vaccine efficacy, because this is the group that should have made you 85% of admissions prior to vaccinations.

    But that isn't the case. Somewhere in the low double digits of people who are admitted are double vaccinated, against the 85% you'd expect if the vaccines were ineffective.

    Because, also, the total number hospitalized relative to case rate is down, you have to be a little more sophisticated with the maths. Nevertheless, given the 60% most vulnerable are only 12-15% of hospital admissions, we can peg efficacy against serious disease at 90-95%.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,119
    MaxPB said:

    Put DB schemes on income tax rates of 30% and 50%. It would raise a significant amount of money. Enough to not need to put taxes up on working people for social care.
    I worked in the public sector for about a decade, so I have a final salary pension preserved from my time there, but given that my final salary was at a fairly junior level it's not going to amount to much, and I received it as a quid pro quo for having a lower salary than I could go and earn in the private sector (as I am now doing). Bit unfair to tax my modest pension at a punitive rate.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792
    darkage said:

    I think that the pinging is unenforceable as they can't know you have been pinged (hence their failed attempts to develop the app themselves).

    But if you recieve a positive test result or are told to isolate by test and trace yes it is a definetly legal requirement, there is theoretically a 1k penalty which rises to 10k if you keep breaking the isolation period. Although I don't think this has ever been successfully enforced, to date.



    Wow. That I didn’t know.

    It sounds like one of ‘laws’ that is essentially unenforceable but nevertheless is there.
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 5,173
    I enjoyed reading what @Cyclefree had to say and I agree with it - although I'd venture to suggest that item 8 on her list is the most relevant, and stretches back well before Corbyn. The real trigger for the collapse of cultural Labour identification in what we've since come to call the Red Wall was Bigotgate. Blair sold a positive vision of Britain as a nation and as a people; Brown revealed what most metropolitan left-liberals really thought about provincial small-c conservatives.

    The swing to the Left post-2015, Jeremy Corbyn's anti-patriotism, Emily Thornberry and the house with the England flags, Keir Starmer's attempt to push a second EU referendum and everything else merely resolved and crystallised the notion that Labour's leadership and most of its members had come to regard a vast section of its supporter base - modest-to-average income white people without university degrees - with naked contempt. Frankly, Labour is doing well to be polling as healthily as it still does under the circumstances.

    Others will doubtless strongly disagree and suggest that I'm flat wrong, or at least exaggerate the problem, but we must ask ourselves what the reasons are as to why a Government as poor as that currently in office is not merely tolerated, but rewarded with healthy levels of support. Simply getting angry that large numbers of ex-Labour voters won't see the light and writing them off as thick really isn't helpful.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 39,690
    rcs1000 said:

    So, 60% of people (and that's the 60% who are most vulnerable) are double vaccinated.

    Even if 60% of admissions were from double vaccinated, that would still show good vaccine efficacy, because this is the group that should have made you 85% of admissions prior to vaccinations.

    But that isn't the case. Somewhere in the low double digits of people who are admitted are double vaccinated, against the 85% you'd expect if the vaccines were ineffective.

    Because, also, the total number hospitalized relative to case rate is down, you have to be a little more sophisticated with the maths. Nevertheless, given the 60% most vulnerable are only 12-15% of hospital admissions, we can peg efficacy against serious disease at 90-95%.
    Nah, other way around. 60% are unvaccinated. Double jabbed rate is somewhere around 10-15%.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848
    rcs1000 said:

    So, 60% of people (and that's the 60% who are most vulnerable) are double vaccinated.

    Even if 60% of admissions were from double vaccinated, that would still show good vaccine efficacy, because this is the group that should have made you 85% of admissions prior to vaccinations.

    But that isn't the case. Somewhere in the low double digits of people who are admitted are double vaccinated, against the 85% you'd expect if the vaccines were ineffective.

    Because, also, the total number hospitalized relative to case rate is down, you have to be a little more sophisticated with the maths. Nevertheless, given the 60% most vulnerable are only 12-15% of hospital admissions, we can peg efficacy against serious disease at 90-95%.
    Sorry: the number is 54-55% of people, not 60%
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,838
    Wow. A fifty-something who almost died (and milked that fact for all it was worth) was still stupid enough to be blind to all the statistics he must have been patiently spoonfed.

    No hope.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,608

    Or 2010 and 2015 presumably.
    2019 was up there on its own.

    Maybe you are right and 2024 will be worse. I'll bow to your sage prediction should that come to pass.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    algarkirk said:

    8?


    Fuck. 8.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,570
    IshmaelZ said:

    Fuck. 8.
    Bit early for the Christmas crossword.

    Is it Copulate?
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    dixiedean said:

    Would have been. But for the capacity limits.
    Alternatively, there'd have been c 5 000 ticketed fans, having paid many hundreds of pounds, locked out and angry.
    There needs to be a wider enquiry than just banning fans though.
    Indeed. Any legitimate fans that could have missed out is utterly contemptible and can happen surprisingly often, even though this is high profile and caught attention.

    A few years ago for Christmas my wife got us tickets to see Monty Python for their live reunion 'we need to pay our tax bill' reunion tour. A legitimately once in a lifetime opportunity to see them perform. When we got there the staff scanned our tickets and they said there was an issue and we were held up for ages until eventually being let through - when we got to our seats there were two people sat in them already. We flagged the stewards and the four of us got taken to a desk where they tried to sort it out, us showing our tickets saying those seats and they somehow had tickets for the exact same seats too; though we could show on our phone the email showing proof of purchase direct from the ticketting company and they could not and got very shady when asked about where they'd purchased the seats from.

    Not sure how they'd done it, but I'm fairly sure they knew they were trying it on. Eventually we were told to take our seats and we left them with the staff promising to find seats for them, despite them probably not having paid for seats in the first place. Something dodgy had happened either way, we hadn't gone through any reselling agency or anything it was bought direct from Ticketmaster [or whoever else it was selling them].

    Had we been sent home, having spent hundreds on these seats (and train tickets to London and a hotel overnight etc too) and missed a once in a lifetime opportunity then I would have been absolutely disgusted. Same thing could have happened here to people at the final.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 58,848

    France isn't testing as much, but their positivity rate has doubled in the last few days.
    It's still some way below the UK, though I thought: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoothed?region=Europe
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,539

    So give me a name that both of us can get behind.

    I go for ANDY BURNHAM despite his current unavailability but am happy to consider others
    Surely the problem isn't the leader. So you remove serkeir and replace him with whoever you like. Unless the party works out what it believes in AND that is something that the majority of voters are willing to back, whats the point?

    The party does not have a smash hit manifesto being cruelly misrepresented by Starmer. It has a mountain of Corbyn baggage, an infestation problem that still puts people off, and no real feel for how to square the circle that their old core vote no longer believes the same things the party activists do. The front man isn't the problem.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,539
    pigeon said:

    I enjoyed reading what @Cyclefree had to say and I agree with it - although I'd venture to suggest that item 8 on her list is the most relevant, and stretches back well before Corbyn. The real trigger for the collapse of cultural Labour identification in what we've since come to call the Red Wall was Bigotgate. Blair sold a positive vision of Britain as a nation and as a people; Brown revealed what most metropolitan left-liberals really thought about provincial small-c conservatives.

    The swing to the Left post-2015, Jeremy Corbyn's anti-patriotism, Emily Thornberry and the house with the England flags, Keir Starmer's attempt to push a second EU referendum and everything else merely resolved and crystallised the notion that Labour's leadership and most of its members had come to regard a vast section of its supporter base - modest-to-average income white people without university degrees - with naked contempt. Frankly, Labour is doing well to be polling as healthily as it still does under the circumstances.

    Others will doubtless strongly disagree and suggest that I'm flat wrong, or at least exaggerate the problem, but we must ask ourselves what the reasons are as to why a Government as poor as that currently in office is not merely tolerated, but rewarded with healthy levels of support. Simply getting angry that large numbers of ex-Labour voters won't see the light and writing them off as thick really isn't helpful.

    No you've got it right and its multiple wings of the party. The right never got the WC, thought they had nowhere else to go and treated them with disdain. The left aren't WC and have this bizarre image of what the WC should be that massively repels them.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,709
    kinabalu said:

    Easy win for the LDs because vaccine passports for clubs is a solid gold Not Happening Event. It's just a rhetorical threat to get more young people to roll their sleeve up and close their eyes and think of England.
    Hmm. Colour me sceptical. That's what they want you to think.

  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,202
    rcs1000 said:

    It's still some way below the UK, though I thought: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/positive-rate-daily-smoothed?region=Europe
    I think those figures are out of date.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-57854811

    Kuenssberg Cummings 7pm tomorrow bbc2
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,100

    Bit early for the Christmas crossword.

    Is it Copulate?
    Copulate's 9 letters ;-)

    Congress could work.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 82,982
    edited July 2021
    I thought ed conway was getting better.........."vaccines are 79% effective, so.you have a 21% chance of getting infected".....grrrrhhhhhhhhhhhhh....throwing things at telly.... extrapolates based on 21% of the population of vaccinated population getting covid....to the total cases of covid we might get....throws more stuff at the telly.

    https://youtu.be/eJQAU4ILFNc

    FFS.....this is basic shit...and he is supposed to be their "data guy".
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    2019 was up there on its own.

    Maybe you are right and 2024 will be worse. I'll bow to your sage prediction should that come to pass.
    2017 was best of the 4 (Biggest increase in Lab vote since WW2)

    2019 was worst of the 4 (Worst result in terms of seats since 1935)

    None of the 4 were good enough.

    We need a better leader than Brown, Miliband and Corbyn

    Cloning AB is the best we can come up with.

    What a mess
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,841
    An interesting analysis in the lead, but there must be an important piece missing, since centre left parties across the developed world are in similar trouble, yet most of Cycle’s list are shorter term UK specific issues. I suspect some of her list are actually symptoms of a wider, broader issue.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,824

    Indeed. Any legitimate fans that could have missed out is utterly contemptible and can happen surprisingly often, even though this is high profile and caught attention.

    A few years ago for Christmas my wife got us tickets to see Monty Python for their live reunion 'we need to pay our tax bill' reunion tour. A legitimately once in a lifetime opportunity to see them perform. When we got there the staff scanned our tickets and they said there was an issue and we were held up for ages until eventually being let through - when we got to our seats there were two people sat in them already. We flagged the stewards and the four of us got taken to a desk where they tried to sort it out, us showing our tickets saying those seats and they somehow had tickets for the exact same seats too; though we could show on our phone the email showing proof of purchase direct from the ticketting company and they could not and got very shady when asked about where they'd purchased the seats from.

    Not sure how they'd done it, but I'm fairly sure they knew they were trying it on. Eventually we were told to take our seats and we left them with the staff promising to find seats for them, despite them probably not having paid for seats in the first place. Something dodgy had happened either way, we hadn't gone through any reselling agency or anything it was bought direct from Ticketmaster [or whoever else it was selling them].

    Had we been sent home, having spent hundreds on these seats (and train tickets to London and a hotel overnight etc too) and missed a once in a lifetime opportunity then I would have been absolutely disgusted. Same thing could have happened here to people at the final.
    Yep.
    Fortunately Monty Python wouldn't have about 5 000 mostly pissed and quite a few coked up young men.
    If this is swept under the carpet it raises issues for PL games.
    A full house and the game would have been off.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,100

    2017 was best of the 4 (Biggest increase in Lab vote since WW2)

    2019 was worst of the 4 (Worst result in terms of seats since 1935)

    None of the 4 were good enough.

    We need a better leader than Brown, Miliband and Corbyn

    Cloning AB is the best we can come up with.

    What a mess
    Labour need someone with common sense AND charisma.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    No you've got it right and its multiple wings of the party. The right never got the WC, thought they had nowhere else to go and treated them with disdain. The left aren't WC and have this bizarre image of what the WC should be that massively repels them.
    https://twitter.com/ToryFibs/status/1360930839220125703

    'Peter Mandelson [MP for Hartlepool] said to me, "your preoccupation with the working-class vote is wrong. They've got nowhere to go."'
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 23,792

    Copulate's 9 letters ;-)

    Congress could work.
    Copulate is eight letters!
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Copulate's 9 letters ;-)

    Congress could work.
    Is everyone drunk? Copulate is 8 letters every time I count them.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    edited July 2021

    Copulate's 9 letters ;-)

    Congress could work.
    Copulate can be spelt with 7. Or six. There's a pretty diverse array of words and spellings to use.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,100
    dixiedean said:

    Yep.
    Fortunately Monty Python wouldn't have about 5 000 mostly pissed and quite a few coked up young men.
    If this is swept under the carpet it raises issues for PL games.
    A full house and the game would have been off.
    A full house and the empty seats 'opportunity' wouldn't have existed. The belief that there were empty seats that could be occupied drove this.

    None of which is to lessen the shocking failure to arrange adequate stewarding and policing.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    Boris stance on isolation on Freedom Day despite pingdemic pressure

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-critical-workers-will-not-have-to-isolate-if-identified-as-a-close-contact-of-a-positive-coronavirus-case-12359230

    Does it suggest a big change in August?
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,322

    But treating pensions as deferred income, for the purposes of taxation, has been pretty universal. With some limits, to be sure, but whether the DB employer has to put a lot of (untaxed) cash in to deliver the (taxed) benefits down the line, or whether a DC employer matches (untaxed) contributions now to deliver (taxed) benefits down the line, is pretty much the same thing from the point of view of tax. The DB was just a more generous employer offer; DC employers are free to do the same (within the annual allowance) if they want.

    They should probably update the AA calculations regarding DB entitlement, though.

    --AS
    I don't disagree with any of that (how can I as it is factually correct), but invariably the employer contribution to the DB scheme is much bigger so providing the employee with a bigger benefit. In addition there is likely a tax benefit as the marginal tax rate is likely higher in employment than retirement plus there is the tax free lump sum. Applies to DC as well but the employer contribution is likely much lower.

    The employer may well still be contributing to the DB pension after retirement.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924
    90 Labour staff to be let go. (25% of the total)


    Labour is dying on its arse under SKS

    Perhaps RP/MP/ can have a whip round to make up for the 25% loss of income.
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826
    gealbhan said:

    Boris stance on isolation on Freedom Day despite pingdemic pressure

    https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-critical-workers-will-not-have-to-isolate-if-identified-as-a-close-contact-of-a-positive-coronavirus-case-12359230

    Does it suggest a big change in August?

    The big change in August has already been announced.

    That its been brought forwards for some does indeed suggest that it going ahead for those already confirmed in August will happen. There'll be outrage and hell to pay if there is any retreat on this now.
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,924

    Copulate can be spelt with 7. Or six. There's a pretty diverse array of words and spellings to use.
    CloningB
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,100
    kjh said:

    I don't disagree with any of that (how can I as it is factually correct), but invariably the employer contribution to the DB scheme is much bigger so providing the employee with a bigger benefit. In addition there is likely a tax benefit as the marginal tax rate is likely higher in employment than retirement plus there is the tax free lump sum. Applies to DC as well but the employer contribution is likely much lower.

    The employer may well still be contributing to the DB pension after retirement.
    I thought that for private companies, at retirement the DB pension is provided by buying an annuity from the pension fund. No further liability from the employer for that employee after retirement.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,838

    Copulate is eight letters!
    Self-styled betting experts trying to work out how many letters there are in a word.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    Chris said:

    Self-styled betting experts trying to work out how many letters there are in a word.
    It's not as easy as it looks.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,100

    Well, this is a new and very entertaining game. I come on to PB, see this comment, and am now trying to guess (without cheating by clicking on 'Show previous quotes') what could possibly have been the exchange which led up to it.
    It's definitely one of the more bizarre sub-threads... to which my inability to count up to 10 inadvertently added a further twist.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Copulate can be spelt with 7. Or six. There's a pretty diverse array of words and spellings to use.
    No its always eight. Copyoul8. See?
This discussion has been closed.