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The first polling has BoJo’s speech rated lower than Starmer’s – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited October 2021 in General
The first polling has BoJo’s speech rated lower than Starmer’s – politicalbetting.com

Exclusive: Voters think Keir Starmer's speech was better than Boris Johnson's – new poll for Opiniumhttps://t.co/kcZlnbqEkM pic.twitter.com/UWpB7nH42a

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • I took part in this poll and we were shown parts of the speech.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited October 2021
    Oh was that a first?

    Absolute no inside information either.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 39,149
    edited October 2021

    I took part in this poll and we were shown parts of the speech.

    Poor you. Was that experiment trotted past an ethics committee?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041
    Not gone down well with Metro. But I guess Johnson lost London a long time ago.


    Neil Henderson
    @hendopolis
    ·
    4m
    METRO: Build back banter #TomorrowsPapersToday
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited October 2021
    Carnyx said:

    I took part in this poll and we were shown parts of the speech.

    Poor you. Was that experiment trotted past an ethics committee?
    I once took part in a focus group that involved listening to clips of Ed Miliband for over an hour.

    After that you get immune to these things.

    Edit - I also once partook in a focus group about Scottish independence in the summer of 2014.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    I wonder whether Johnson will want to do a leaders debate with Starmer.
  • If we go downhill, Keir Starmer will be perfectly placed but it's a big if
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041
    Paging @Leon


    Andrew Lilico
    @andrew_lilico
    ·
    39s
    When is China going to take over Taiwan?

    https://twitter.com/andrew_lilico/status/1445853899915681797
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Probably Starmer edged it but he needed to. Boris as PM has a poll lead midterm which is above average for PMs at this stage so as long as he did not completely bomb today, which he didn't, he would not suffer much damage
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041

    I wonder whether Johnson will want to do a leaders debate with Starmer.

    Genuine :lol:

    Erm... Nope.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his
  • Not gone down well with Metro. But I guess Johnson lost London a long time ago.


    Neil Henderson
    @hendopolis
    ·
    4m
    METRO: Build back banter #TomorrowsPapersToday

    How London-biased is Metro these days? When I was posted to Yorkshire, they had boxes of them on the local buses.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    Opinium are also the only pollster that has Sir Keir ahead of Boris in either net or gross positives
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    I wonder whether Johnson will want to do a leaders debate with Starmer.

    No, he didn't want one with Corbyn, so why would he with Starmer?

    He even did a runner from Andrew Neil. He prefers photo-stunts to real discussion of policy.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Lots of chatter at Tory conference about election dates. Most people I spoke to there assume it will come a year early.

    I’m told Oliver Dowden told a Yorkshire Tories reception not to rule out a winter poll, as turn-out would be lower for Labour. Next election in Dec 2023?

    https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1445855194655313921
  • "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041
    Scott_xP said:

    Lots of chatter at Tory conference about election dates. Most people I spoke to there assume it will come a year early.

    I’m told Oliver Dowden told a Yorkshire Tories reception not to rule out a winter poll, as turn-out would be lower for Labour. Next election in Dec 2023?

    https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1445855194655313921

    Ha, ha.

    More like May 2022.


    Seriously though, Labour need to get cracking on setting their core vote up as postal ballots.
  • Without being played the clips from it, would anyone have remembered Starmer's speech?
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041
    Foxy said:

    I wonder whether Johnson will want to do a leaders debate with Starmer.

    No, he didn't want one with Corbyn, so why would he with Starmer?

    He even did a runner from Andrew Neil. He prefers photo-stunts to real discussion of policy.
    I will eat a baseball cap if there is a leaders debate next time.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited October 2021
    Scott_xP said:

    Lots of chatter at Tory conference about election dates. Most people I spoke to there assume it will come a year early.

    I’m told Oliver Dowden told a Yorkshire Tories reception not to rule out a winter poll, as turn-out would be lower for Labour. Next election in Dec 2023?

    https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1445855194655313921

    No, I was a Tory canvasser in the cold and wet in Dec 2019, never again. We have spring elections for a reason, plus pensioners will have less incentive to come out in the cold next time given Brexit has been done and there is no threat of Corbyn becoming PM
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    edited October 2021
    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545

    Can I have an honest assessment on BoJo's speech from those here

    The jokes are serious.

    That's Johnson's brand, which means there's nothing there now apart from anecdotes, slogans and narratives.

    Which I think is what Cummings is thinking of when he says Johnson is unfit for office. Cummings is malign in my view but he is results driven and a good project manager. His slogans "take back control", "get Brexit done" etc served a purpose - to get majorities for Leave and the Conservatives. Now the slogans and narratives are the end purpose.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    28%.
    Starmer was more interesting and more boring.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041

    Carnyx said:

    I took part in this poll and we were shown parts of the speech.

    Poor you. Was that experiment trotted past an ethics committee?
    I once took part in a focus group that involved listening to clips of Ed Miliband for over an hour.

    After that you get immune to these things.

    Edit - I also once partook in a focus group about Scottish independence in the summer of 2014.
    I was once polled (as a random member of the public) about what I thought about Ed Miliband. It was at the Labour conference and in the middle Ed strolled up, saw I was on the phone, and waved and silently moved on. I marked him one point higher for that.
    You are all heart.
  • Carnyx said:

    I took part in this poll and we were shown parts of the speech.

    Poor you. Was that experiment trotted past an ethics committee?
    I once took part in a focus group that involved listening to clips of Ed Miliband for over an hour.

    After that you get immune to these things.

    Edit - I also once partook in a focus group about Scottish independence in the summer of 2014.
    I was once polled (as a random member of the public) about what I thought about Ed Miliband. It was at the Labour conference and in the middle Ed strolled up, saw I was on the phone, and waved and silently moved on. I marked him one point higher for that.
    Nice, I lived in the most heavily polled constituency of GE2015, I got polled a lot.

    Was useful for PB purposes as well.

    I should clarify the Scottish Independence focus group was an England & Wales thing asking how we felt about the referendum and what the result would mean for us.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,969
    edited October 2021

    Without being played the clips from it, would anyone have remembered Starmer's speech?

    I did remember the 'level up? you can't even fill up' line.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    Not gone down well with Metro. But I guess Johnson lost London a long time ago.


    Neil Henderson
    @hendopolis
    ·
    4m
    METRO: Build back banter #TomorrowsPapersToday

    How London-biased is Metro these days? When I was posted to Yorkshire, they had boxes of them on the local buses.
    Yes, used to get given out in Leicester too, at the railway station, and at the hospital. There used to be copies of the Metro in our staffroom.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    Yeah I'm not sure how they came up with those figures. I am of the opinion that boring is an underrated virtue in a politician. Starmer is very virtuous in that respect.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041

    Without being played the clips from it, would anyone have remembered Starmer's speech?

    I did remember the 'level up? you can't even fill up' line.
    I remember him describing his very sick mother lying in a hospital bed and some Corbyn Cult twat started heckling about Palestine or whatever.
  • Farooq said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    28%.
    Starmer was more interesting and more boring.
    How intriguingly tedious of him
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,869
    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041
    UC cut leads my local news.

    Not good for Johnson.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    I want to see a poll where they had to watch the entire thing, not just parts broadcasters selected.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I haven't seen my local petrol station have fuel for a week, but there is no queue a couple of miles away. So still rather patchy here.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    edited October 2021

    Can I have an honest assessment on BoJo's speech from those here

    Just watched it. I thought it was all over the place. It wasn't overlong, his style is hard to follow but generally engaging, but with that it didn't seem structured so I found it hard to focus on what his key points were - long diversions followed by a whiplash inducing turn to a suddenly important point or theme eg when suddenly bigging up capitalism. Surprised he left it til about 3/4 through to bring up the Labour position around Covid.

    I thought his many shout outs to Cabinet Members interesting, as I don't remember as many references in Starmer's speech, though they may have slipped by.

    Overall C+. It got the job done, nothing obviously wrong with it. But I'd not have known the theme was 'Build Back Better' without it written in front of him.
  • isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    It says in the linked article that the clips were chosen by the broadcaster, not Opinium.

    It's hard to draw many conclusions without knowing what clips were chosen
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    Agreed. I'm just saying it's a strange poll, almost meaningless, in fact probably bogus

    Either you show the voters the snatches they actually get on TV news, or show the whole thing. Who decides the "edit" they get to view? What bits do the pollsters choose, and why?

    Absurd. Voodoo polling. Ignore
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Without being played the clips from it, would anyone have remembered Starmer's speech?

    I did remember the 'level up? you can't even fill up' line.
    I remember him describing his very sick mother lying in a hospital bed and some Corbyn Cult twat started heckling about Palestine or whatever.
    And? We all have mothers. They all die, his in 2015.
  • isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    It says in the linked article that the clips were chosen by the broadcaster, not Opinium.

    It's hard to draw many conclusions without knowing what clips were chosen
    It was a news clip which showed parts of the speech.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I haven't seen my local petrol station have fuel for a week, but there is no queue a couple of miles away. So still rather patchy here.
    One of ours was closed yesterday, back open today. No real issues round here now. Annoying as it was, it was a massive over reaction to a tiny problem. Inevitably all those panic buyers who aren’t actually using their full tanks, are not needing to fill them yet.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    IshmaelZ said:

    Without being played the clips from it, would anyone have remembered Starmer's speech?

    I did remember the 'level up? you can't even fill up' line.
    I remember him describing his very sick mother lying in a hospital bed and some Corbyn Cult twat started heckling about Palestine or whatever.
    And? We all have mothers. They all die, his in 2015.
    ??

    Yes, we all have mothers and they will all die. It's poor timing for a heckler to pick a moment when he's talking about that though, even if that was not the point they were heckling about.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,869
    HYUFD said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Lots of chatter at Tory conference about election dates. Most people I spoke to there assume it will come a year early.

    I’m told Oliver Dowden told a Yorkshire Tories reception not to rule out a winter poll, as turn-out would be lower for Labour. Next election in Dec 2023?

    https://twitter.com/PippaCrerar/status/1445855194655313921

    No, I was a Tory canvasser in the cold and wet in Dec 2019, never again. We have spring elections for a reason, plus pensioners will have less incentive to come out in the cold next time given Brexit has been done and there is no threat of Corbyn becoming PM
    Would your party take into account your voters being more likely to have postal votes than their Labour and Lib Dem counterparts, though?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    It says in the linked article that the clips were chosen by the broadcaster, not Opinium.

    It's hard to draw many conclusions without knowing what clips were chosen
    It was a news clip which showed parts of the speech.
    So they saw about 40 seconds? The stuff shown on, say, BBC News at Ten?

  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.
  • Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    It says in the linked article that the clips were chosen by the broadcaster, not Opinium.

    It's hard to draw many conclusions without knowing what clips were chosen
    It was a news clip which showed parts of the speech.
    So they saw about 40 seconds? The stuff shown on, say, BBC News at Ten?

    More like 3/4 minutes, the sort of thing that Sky News/BBC News at Ten show.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    DavidL said:

    The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do.

    But they are.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    kle4 said:

    Can I have an honest assessment on BoJo's speech from those here

    Just watched it. I thought it was all over the place. It wasn't overlong, his style is hard to follow but generally engaging, but with that it didn't seem structured so I found it hard to focus on what his key points were - long diversions followed by a whiplash inducing turn to a suddenly important point or theme eg when suddenly bigging up capitalism. Surprised he left it til about 3/4 through to bring up the Labour position around Covid.

    I thought his many shout outs to Cabinet Members interesting, as I don't remember as many references in Starmer's speech, though they may have slipped by.

    Overall C+. It got the job done, nothing obviously wrong with it. But I'd not have known the theme was 'Build Back Better' without it written in front of him.
    So he phoned it in?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    Speaking of boring, saw The Dig on Netflix - one of the most tremendously dull things I've ever seen, why it was a movie at all baffled me.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    Scott_xP said:

    DavidL said:

    The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do.

    But they are.
    They know what they want to do, it’s just it’s not what you want them to do.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,041
    IshmaelZ said:

    Without being played the clips from it, would anyone have remembered Starmer's speech?

    I did remember the 'level up? you can't even fill up' line.
    I remember him describing his very sick mother lying in a hospital bed and some Corbyn Cult twat started heckling about Palestine or whatever.
    And? We all have mothers. They all die, his in 2015.
    Crass.
  • Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    Though in terms of public impact, the clips are closer to what most of the voting public will have seen- the speech is just a ritual to get your soundbite on the evening news, where you might get 10 million viewers across all the bulletins on all the channels.

    (This might turn into a bee in my bonnet. Without getting too Reithian about it, a nation where most adults are exposed to a news bulletin which at least aspires to be broadly balanced is likely to be better-run than one where they aren't. No way of solving that problem, of course, but hey ho.)

    It takes an awful lot to yank the dial these days. Dom in Durham might not have done it had we not all been stuck at home at the time it came out.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Johnson is a seducer. He promises whatever his audience wants, as a means to his objective. There is neither a plan nor an intent to do more than words.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545
    edited October 2021

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I am surprised also that people have not noticed any shortages in supermarkets. Maybe Scotland is at the end of long supply chains or something but more often than not there are shortages. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I find what I need from what is available, but it is noticeable.

    So today in Sainsbury's about half of vegetable lines were out of stock, one third of meat, one half of milk types, which is unusual. Not much bread, but that might be end of day. Most dry goods available. Fairly typical, but it wasn't like this before.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    Foxy said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Johnson is a seducer. He promises whatever his audience wants, as a means to his objective. There is neither a plan nor an intent to do more than words.
    He may be a seducer but I don't agree with the rest of this. There will be lots of activity, make work and dodgy statistics generated. Some of it may do some good. Some of it will be a waste of public money. The general direction or focus will be more than a tad amorphous but who cares? Onward.
  • Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    Though in terms of public impact, the clips are closer to what most of the voting public will have seen- the speech is just a ritual to get your soundbite on the evening news, where you might get 10 million viewers across all the bulletins on all the channels.

    (This might turn into a bee in my bonnet. Without getting too Reithian about it, a nation where most adults are exposed to a news bulletin which at least aspires to be broadly balanced is likely to be better-run than one where they aren't. No way of solving that problem, of course, but hey ho.)

    It takes an awful lot to yank the dial these days. Dom in Durham might not have done it had we not all been stuck at home at the time it came out.
    Sky just showed the whole speech
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    kle4 said:

    Speaking of boring, saw The Dig on Netflix - one of the most tremendously dull things I've ever seen, why it was a movie at all baffled me.

    Yes, seriously mediocre. No story

    Yet my older daughter liked it: she adores archaeology
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I am surprised also that people have not noticed any shortages in supermarkets. Maybe Scotland is at the end of long supply chains or something but more often than not there are shortages. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I find what I need from what is available, but it is noticeable.

    So today in Sainsbury's about half of vegetable lines were out of stock, one third of meat, one half of milk types, which is unusual. Not much bread, but that might be end of day. Most dry goods available. Fairly typical, bit out wasn't like this before.
    I’ve said before, if I hadn’t seen on pb or the news about shortages, I would£ not have noticed anything. I also would suggest it is not that big an issue in most places - where are the real photos of empty shelves?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, I agree that was his objective and I think he succeeded. The real test will be delivery.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I am surprised also that people have not noticed any shortages in supermarkets. Maybe Scotland is at the end of long supply chains or something but more often than not there are shortages. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I find what I need from what is available, but it is noticeable.

    So today in Sainsbury's about half of vegetable lines were out of stock, one third of meat, one half of milk types, which is unusual. Not much bread, but that might be end of day. Most dry goods available. Fairly typical, bit out wasn't like this before.
    I haven't seen much missing in supermarkets either on the IoW or Leicester, but what I do notice is how quickly things with a short shelf life go off within days. I see this as a sign that farm to fork times are being quite stretched.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    It says in the linked article that the clips were chosen by the broadcaster, not Opinium.

    It's hard to draw many conclusions without knowing what clips were chosen
    It was a news clip which showed parts of the speech.
    So they saw about 40 seconds? The stuff shown on, say, BBC News at Ten?

    More like 3/4 minutes, the sort of thing that Sky News/BBC News at Ten show.
    Then let us await the polls. As I've said, I doubt the Tories will get a bounce, just as Labour haven't
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153
    Boris brings optimism and hope. Keir brings the old LAB message of negatively and entitlement to welfare rather than people standing on their own two feet.

    Boris to win #GE2023. Might be Spring 2024
  • I'm very glad we now know that Levelling Up, Housing and Communities means Livin' On A Prayer with Jon Bon Govi
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    I'm impressed at the Schleswig-Holstein Question being solved in the last thread.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    kle4 said:

    Speaking of boring, saw The Dig on Netflix - one of the most tremendously dull things I've ever seen, why it was a movie at all baffled me.

    Oh it wasn't that bad. Good that someone had a go at making a movie about archaeology without it being all Indiana Jones. They got some of the detail badly wrong, tried to turn the sexiness up from 0 to 1/10 which was silly, but it's a nice little vignette of a country struggling to slowly emerge from class strictures in a slow and gradual way, like the reverse of the process of digging up the past layer by painstaking layer.
    it's not everyone's cup of mead, but it's hardly worthless.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,280
    edited October 2021
    Wrt the next Tory leadership contest, if the final three are Sunak, Patel and Truss, what would the result of the final vote of MPs be? I'm guessing if either Sunak or Truss had "votes to spare" there'd be an attempt at tactical voting to make sure Priti Patel didn't get through to the final round, a bit like with Gove last time.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,153
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    isam said:

    Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    They were shown clips, I presume the highlights, from both, so Sir Keir’s speech going on for twice as long wouldn’t have been a factor
    It says in the linked article that the clips were chosen by the broadcaster, not Opinium.

    It's hard to draw many conclusions without knowing what clips were chosen
    It was a news clip which showed parts of the speech.
    So they saw about 40 seconds? The stuff shown on, say, BBC News at Ten?

    More like 3/4 minutes, the sort of thing that Sky News/BBC News at Ten show.
    Then let us await the polls. As I've said, I doubt the Tories will get a bounce, just as Labour haven't
    Polls only matter when the GE is called. Until then LAB can keep dreaming.
  • Leon said:

    "Also, 40% said Mr Johnson was interesting and 22% said boring."

    "More people even thought Sir Keir was interesting, with 41% saying that about his speech."

    I find it interesting that Starmer's boring number isn't there

    None of these people saw the entire speeches

    If they had forced them to sit through all 90 minutes of Starmer's desperate if wrothy droneathon then I reckon the stats would be very different

    I don't think either of these speeches will shift the dial. But Boris made me laugh
    Though in terms of public impact, the clips are closer to what most of the voting public will have seen- the speech is just a ritual to get your soundbite on the evening news, where you might get 10 million viewers across all the bulletins on all the channels.

    (This might turn into a bee in my bonnet. Without getting too Reithian about it, a nation where most adults are exposed to a news bulletin which at least aspires to be broadly balanced is likely to be better-run than one where they aren't. No way of solving that problem, of course, but hey ho.)

    It takes an awful lot to yank the dial these days. Dom in Durham might not have done it had we not all been stuck at home at the time it came out.
    Sky just showed the whole speech
    I'm sure they have, but hardly anyone watches Sky News. 100k or so?
  • Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I haven't seen my local petrol station have fuel for a week, but there is no queue a couple of miles away. So still rather patchy here.
    One of ours was closed yesterday, back open today. No real issues round here now. Annoying as it was, it was a massive over reaction to a tiny problem. Inevitably all those panic buyers who aren’t actually using their full tanks, are not needing to fill them yet.
    An interesting graph of fuel stock levels from Sky. You can see that stock levels had been falling for some time prior to the panic and that they are still nowhere near back to normal. How long until the next panic?

    https://e3.365dm.com/21/10/2048x1152/skynews-graph-fuel_5536612.png?bypass-service-worker&20211006065839
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400
    edited October 2021
    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Speaking of boring, saw The Dig on Netflix - one of the most tremendously dull things I've ever seen, why it was a movie at all baffled me.

    Oh it wasn't that bad. Good that someone had a go at making a movie about archaeology without it being all Indiana Jones. They got some of the detail badly wrong, tried to turn the sexiness up from 0 to 1/10 which was silly, but it's a nice little vignette of a country struggling to slowly emerge from class strictures in a slow and gradual way, like the reverse of the process of digging up the past layer by painstaking layer.
    it's not everyone's cup of mead, but it's hardly worthless.
    You could make a movie about such, it's why I tuned in to watch it, but the performances were dull, the writing was dull, there was no narrative just...stuff happening, it was lifeless and monotone all the way through. If it was about emerging from class strictures that went right over my head - I wish it had hit that note harder, it might have made an impression at least.

    A Meh movie can be much harder to take than something actually bad, which can at least entertain. And it's not because I wanted it to be Indiana Jones.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Anyone like to guess how many genuinely undecided voters decided to sit through both speeches?

    I'm going with seven.

    So, that's probably four votes for Mr Starmer and three for Mr Johnson.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?

    Will Alba field General Election candidates? It's performance at the Scottish elections was pretty execrable, so I'm far from convinced they'll still be a thing.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    edited October 2021
    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941

    Foxy said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I haven't seen my local petrol station have fuel for a week, but there is no queue a couple of miles away. So still rather patchy here.
    One of ours was closed yesterday, back open today. No real issues round here now. Annoying as it was, it was a massive over reaction to a tiny problem. Inevitably all those panic buyers who aren’t actually using their full tanks, are not needing to fill them yet.
    An interesting graph of fuel stock levels from Sky. You can see that stock levels had been falling for some time prior to the panic and that they are still nowhere near back to normal. How long until the next panic?

    https://e3.365dm.com/21/10/2048x1152/skynews-graph-fuel_5536612.png?bypass-service-worker&20211006065839
    Would be interesting to see a more extensive dataset. That could entirely be down to seasonal variations, for example.
  • FarooqFarooq Posts: 10,775
    kle4 said:

    Farooq said:

    kle4 said:

    Speaking of boring, saw The Dig on Netflix - one of the most tremendously dull things I've ever seen, why it was a movie at all baffled me.

    Oh it wasn't that bad. Good that someone had a go at making a movie about archaeology without it being all Indiana Jones. They got some of the detail badly wrong, tried to turn the sexiness up from 0 to 1/10 which was silly, but it's a nice little vignette of a country struggling to slowly emerge from class strictures in a slow and gradual way, like the reverse of the process of digging up the past layer by painstaking layer.
    it's not everyone's cup of mead, but it's hardly worthless.
    You could make a movie about such, it's why I tuned in to watch it, but the performances were dull, the writing was dull, there was no narrative just...stuff happening, it was lifeless and monotone all the way through. If it was about emerging from class strictures that went right over my head - I wish it had hit that note harder, it might have made an impression at least.

    A Meh movie can be much harder to take than something actually bad, which can at least entertain.
    Well yes, it was understated.
    I confess, one of the things I enjoyed about it was imagining Basil as a chastened, retired Voldemort, since it's the same actor.

    You get your kicks where you can.
  • rcs1000 said:

    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?

    Will Alba field General Election candidates? It's performance at the Scottish elections was pretty execrable, so I'm far from convinced they'll still be a thing.
    Well Alba have TWO sitting MPs so it is likely they will run some general election candidates.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    edited October 2021

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.
    It’s quite a pitch. You can see a twisted logic though. The log jam of the Parliament from 2017 to 2019 really did need sweeping away, and Johnson will feel as if he did bring about a change. No doubt that role that Keir Starmer played in trying to frustrate Brexit adds to this too. He was not PM, not even leader of the opposition, but he was key to the remainder 2nd (overturning) referendum campaign.
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    rcs1000 said:

    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?

    Will Alba field General Election candidates? It's performance at the Scottish elections was pretty execrable, so I'm far from convinced they'll still be a thing.
    They have 2 MPs, they are almost as significant as the Lib Dems!
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I am surprised also that people have not noticed any shortages in supermarkets. Maybe Scotland is at the end of long supply chains or something but more often than not there are shortages. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I find what I need from what is available, but it is noticeable.

    So today in Sainsbury's about half of vegetable lines were out of stock, one third of meat, one half of milk types, which is unusual. Not much bread, but that might be end of day. Most dry goods available. Fairly typical, bit out wasn't like this before.
    I’ve said before, if I hadn’t seen on pb or the news about shortages, I would£ not have noticed anything. I also would suggest it is not that big an issue in most places - where are the real photos of empty shelves?
    I think supermarkets have adapted to the shortages so they maybe aren't missing whole loads as when this kicked off but perhaps making them less frequently or using one lorry to service two stores and delivering less to each. So you don't so often get category shortages - no cheese for example - but they have run out of lines across the store so only three of the normal five types of Cheddar is available and you can get courgettes but not aubergines. The effect is like after a busy Saturday before they have had the chance to restock the shelves, but it is like that most of the time now, round here at least
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880
    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I am surprised also that people have not noticed any shortages in supermarkets. Maybe Scotland is at the end of long supply chains or something but more often than not there are shortages. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I find what I need from what is available, but it is noticeable.

    So today in Sainsbury's about half of vegetable lines were out of stock, one third of meat, one half of milk types, which is unusual. Not much bread, but that might be end of day. Most dry goods available. Fairly typical, bit out wasn't like this before.
    I’ve said before, if I hadn’t seen on pb or the news about shortages, I would£ not have noticed anything. I also would suggest it is not that big an issue in most places - where are the real photos of empty shelves?
    I think supermarkets have adapted to the shortages so they maybe aren't missing whole loads as when this kicked off but perhaps making them less frequently or using one lorry to service two stores and delivering less to each. So you don't so often get category shortages - no cheese for example - but they have run out of lines across the store so only three of the normal five types of Cheddar is available and you can get courgettes but not aubergines. The effect is like after a busy Saturday before they have had the chance to restock the shelves, but it is like that most of the time now, round here at least
    Where are you? Just not seeing that here, other than a bizarre lack of replacement razor blades last week.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,281
    edited October 2021
    O/T. I look after the energy supply deals for my mum and for Mrs P's dad (both in their 80s), as well as ours of course. I've just calcluated what will happen when the current fixes come to an end, and assuming the Ofgem price cap rates are the best we can get. It's quite startling.

    Ours will rise by 90%. (It probably already has as PFP have gone bust and we're being transferred to BG.)

    My mum's will rise by 37.6% and my father-in-law's will rise by 35.2%, although these aren't until next spring and summer respectively.

    I suspect our situation is extreme - we got a really good deal last November which was due to run out next month anyway.

    But the impact of these sort of increases over the coming year is going to be very uncomfortable for a lot of people. It will also suck money out of the economy and stoke inflation of course.

    Just an observation - I am not expecting anyone to get the violins out for us. ;-)
  • AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.

    The trick in the under the radar social media targetted ads has been to blame Labour Councils for Nationa Government policies.

    So "lack of funding for the NHS" is blamed on the local Labour Council.

    It has shown to be remarkably effective.

    Whether it can work at a second election in a row will be interesting to see...
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.
    Yes, at the next election a key to understanding levelling up would be who the electorate blames for the levelling down. Most of which happened under the Coalition and Conservative governments.

    I think rather early to see if Johnsons Chutzpah carries on. There is too the small matter of the economy, which does look rather fragile, infested with inflation and lacking in confidence.

    I think quite a major market correction is on its way this autumn. In part domestic, but both the Chinese and American situations look dicey to me too. I have cashed in my more exposed equities until I see which way the wind is blowing.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Andy_JS said:

    Wrt the next Tory leadership contest, if the final three are Sunak, Patel and Truss, what would the result of the final vote of MPs be? I'm guessing if either Sunak or Truss had "votes to spare" there'd be an attempt at tactical voting to make sure Priti Patel didn't get through to the final round, a bit like with Gove last time.

    Assuming the ConHome polling is correct (and it may well not be), Patel would really struggle against either of those two.

    I also don't know if Patel has a powerbase in the party. One of the slightly unique things about this government is that the three most senior Cabinet ministers (Truss, Patel, Sunak) are all fairly new to the jobs, and haven't built up loyal followings in Parliament or the country. Nor are any of them leaders of a strand of conservative thinking.
  • FairlieredFairliered Posts: 3,869
    rcs1000 said:

    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?

    Will Alba field General Election candidates? It's performance at the Scottish elections was pretty execrable, so I'm far from convinced they'll still be a thing.
    I would expect Alba to at least contest the seats they currently hold, East Lothian and Kirkcaldy. I would hope they would stand candidates against Pete Wishart in Perth, John Nicolson in Ochil, Alyn Smyth in Stirling, Kirsty Blackman in Aberdeen North, Alison Thewliss in Glasgow Central and Patrick Grady in Glasgow North, as they are the most extreme Sturgeon loyalists.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 15,545

    FF43 said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    BUT Labour has got virtually no Conference bounce, so far - and this during a fuel shortage?

    That said, I'll be surprised if the Tories get a bounce. The entire nation is distracted, understandably. That will suit the Tories just fine. They are ahead, mid term, despite very heavy weather, and Boris has given more of a fillip to his troops than Starmer gave to his

    But there isn't a fuel shortage. I've been told that thousands of times on here. It's just panic buying.

    PS: Anecdote: my local petrol station was closed again today. No fuel. It opens for a few hours, long queues, sells out, closes again until it restocks. It is a fairly small petrol station. Same cycle now for 10 days. I must be very unlucky.
    I am surprised also that people have not noticed any shortages in supermarkets. Maybe Scotland is at the end of long supply chains or something but more often than not there are shortages. It doesn't bother me most of the time because I find what I need from what is available, but it is noticeable.

    So today in Sainsbury's about half of vegetable lines were out of stock, one third of meat, one half of milk types, which is unusual. Not much bread, but that might be end of day. Most dry goods available. Fairly typical, bit out wasn't like this before.
    I’ve said before, if I hadn’t seen on pb or the news about shortages, I would£ not have noticed anything. I also would suggest it is not that big an issue in most places - where are the real photos of empty shelves?
    I think supermarkets have adapted to the shortages so they maybe aren't missing whole loads as when this kicked off but perhaps making them less frequently or using one lorry to service two stores and delivering less to each. So you don't so often get category shortages - no cheese for example - but they have run out of lines across the store so only three of the normal five types of Cheddar is available and you can get courgettes but not aubergines. The effect is like after a busy Saturday before they have had the chance to restock the shelves, but it is like that most of the time now, round here at least
    Where are you? Just not seeing that here, other than a bizarre lack of replacement razor blades last week.
    Scotland.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    rcs1000 said:

    Anyone like to guess how many genuinely undecided voters decided to sit through both speeches?

    I'm going with seven.

    So, that's probably four votes for Mr Starmer and three for Mr Johnson.

    Decades ago, even before Maggie, I used to spend hours while working for BBC News watching speeches like this in their entirety and trying to identify newsworthy clips. But I was getting paid.
  • I took part in this poll and we were shown parts of the speech.

    Cruelty to animals!
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,249
    I am here to tell you that the Rightful King of France, Louis XX, has his own Twitter account


    https://twitter.com/louisducdanjou
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 7,461
    Alistair said:

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.

    The trick in the under the radar social media targetted ads has been to blame Labour Councils for Nationa Government policies.

    So "lack of funding for the NHS" is blamed on the local Labour Council.

    It has shown to be remarkably effective.

    Whether it can work at a second election in a row will be interesting to see...
    Yes, that was really clear from the vox pops I've seen from 'Red Wall' seats in the north and midlands. People were blaming everything on their Labour councils - hilariously, in some cases, when they didn't even have Labour councils any more.
    "I've had to wait 4 years for my hip operation, thanks to my Labour council", and stuff like that.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    rcs1000 said:

    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?

    Will Alba field General Election candidates? It's performance at the Scottish elections was pretty execrable, so I'm far from convinced they'll still be a thing.
    I would expect Alba to at least contest the seats they currently hold, East Lothian and Kirkcaldy. I would hope they would stand candidates against Pete Wishart in Perth, John Nicolson in Ochil, Alyn Smyth in Stirling, Kirsty Blackman in Aberdeen North, Alison Thewliss in Glasgow Central and Patrick Grady in Glasgow North, as they are the most extreme Sturgeon loyalists.
    Well, we'll see. Personally I wouldn't be surprised if Alba disbanded before the next GE.
  • RandallFlaggRandallFlagg Posts: 1,151

    rcs1000 said:

    Copied from the previous thread - sorry!

    I see the usual Scottish Independence Referendum arguments are being rehashed again. As long as Sturgeon continues to lead the SNP, there won’t be a referendum, or even a request for one.

    Assuming Sturgeon is still SNP leader at the time of the next General Election, I can forsee three things happening.
    Some SNP voters will switch to Alba.
    Some will return to Labour.
    Some will stay at home.

    If this happens, how many seats will the SNP lose? My estimate is that they will lose around 10 seats to Labour and fail to win any seats from any of the other parties.

    Would it be enough for Sturgeon to be replaced?

    Would it be enough to prevent another Conservative government?

    Will Alba field General Election candidates? It's performance at the Scottish elections was pretty execrable, so I'm far from convinced they'll still be a thing.
    I would expect Alba to at least contest the seats they currently hold, East Lothian and Kirkcaldy. I would hope they would stand candidates against Pete Wishart in Perth, John Nicolson in Ochil, Alyn Smyth in Stirling, Kirsty Blackman in Aberdeen North, Alison Thewliss in Glasgow Central and Patrick Grady in Glasgow North, as they are the most extreme Sturgeon loyalists.
    Would be hilarious if pro-indy infighting in the GE between SNP and Alba enabled Labour to come through the middle in their Scottish target seats, thwarting indyref2 as SKS wouldn't need the SNP's support.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,880

    Alistair said:

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.

    The trick in the under the radar social media targetted ads has been to blame Labour Councils for Nationa Government policies.

    So "lack of funding for the NHS" is blamed on the local Labour Council.

    It has shown to be remarkably effective.

    Whether it can work at a second election in a row will be interesting to see...
    Yes, that was really clear from the vox pops I've seen from 'Red Wall' seats in the north and midlands. People were blaming everything on their Labour councils - hilariously, in some cases, when they didn't even have Labour councils any more.
    "I've had to wait 4 years for my hip operation, thanks to my Labour council", and stuff like that.
    I’m sure there is much of this going on. But there is also a sense that labour took Scotland’s voters for granted, until they were swept away. And then they still had the red wall in the north... until that was swept away. With too many in labour more interested in Palestine than in Peterborough they won’t win those voters back.
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    I didn't see either of the speeches, and I don't care to watch them either. And I'm someone who's very interested in politics.

    No normal people will either.

    People are worried about fuel, gas, electricity, economic recovery, their jobs, Covid and Christmas.

    They couldn't give a rat's ass about party conference speeches.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,731
    edited October 2021

    kle4 said:

    DavidL said:

    What I got from Boris's speech is what he wanted me to get. This is a government on a mission and with a hugely ambitious program to change this country for the better. He wants better transport, education, skills, education, law and order, the list went on and on.

    Will he be able to deliver? Who knows, certainly not on all of it but maybe on some. If he does he will have done better than most of his recent predecessors. The message from his speech is that this is not a government blundering around not knowing what it wants to do. I think he succeeded in that.

    Don't all political parties want things to be better? Has any conference speech stated they want transport and education to get worse?

    What I got from the speech was not that the Tories want to change the country for the better, but to impress upon people that they are still energetic and coming up with ideas (he talked about 'tired old Labour'), rather than a sclerotic 11 year old government paddling along.
    Yes, the entire rhetoric is remarkable. What the Tories are doing is pretending that Labour was in power until 2019, when Boris took over. Astonishingly, quite a lot of voters seem to think that this is true, and any current woes should be blamed on the Labour government 2010-2019. Things haven't got better yet because of Labour's misrule - but now Boris is in charge. It takes some brass neck, but it seems to work.
    He is probably trying to draw a line between Leave and Remain - Sir Keir’s Labour being associated with the low wage, high immigration era whilst his Tories want to train our youngsters and see wages increase etc
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,400

    I didn't see either of the speeches, and I don't care to watch them either. And I'm someone who's very interested in politics.

    No normal people will either.

    People are worried about fuel, gas, electricity, economic recovery, their jobs, Covid and Christmas.

    They couldn't give a rat's ass about party conference speeches.

    No normal people cares about any political minutiae, therefore none of it matters at all? I'd say no. Small things add up, affect party unity or morale, which impacts the actions they take which the public might notice, even if they won't on the fine details.
This discussion has been closed.