Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
As far as I can tell (and I may be wrong) it was Clement Attlee's government that set that term of reference and it has been used ever since.
Cameron just set tighter restrictions on sizes which had been allowed to drift.
DCam changed the electoral register to be updated annually and require everyone to re-opt in each year, which was felt to make it more likely for labour voters to drop off and so not be counted.
I think you mean it made it more likely for Labour voters to only be on the register once, so only be counted once.
Previously anyone who moved was quite frequently on the register both in their old and current address for a period until the register finally dropped them out.
In the 2010 election I received a polling card at my address, while my parents also received a polling card for me at their address despite the fact I no longer lived with my parents anymore as the Council hadn't dropped me off their register yet despite having been informed of the change.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you aren't a Labour voter though.
No but I was a young person who'd moved address which is demographically the type of voter we are talking about.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
I'm not sure what's unfair about registered voters. The unregistered have disenfranchised themselves. And they are much easier to count than population.
It's an undisputed fact that people who are settled in one place (who tend to be older, which nowadays means more likely to be Tory) are more likely to be registered. People who move frequently (typically young people) will only regard electoral registration each time as a priority if they're political zealots like, er, us. So one can bring about a better Conservative result (without a single mind being changed) by requiring frequent re-registration. It's a subtle form of voter suppression, as conducted more energetically in the USA.
The cure, in my view, is to ask the Electoral Commission to define constituency boundaries according to the census (excluding foreign nationals where these are not eligible) rather than on who has currently registered.
A flaw with that argument is that the 2021 census is the last one planned - other methods are supposed to be used in the future
The issue with Cameron's plan was that the margins were so tight that seemingly random unrelated areas needed to be included to hit the numbers. Without a 10% or so margin it was impossible to create constituencies that geographical sense.
The obvious answer is automatic registration of voters
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
A niece has just reported getting Covid- positive for a second time. Doesn't feel at well this time, either; just as before. And yes, she's fully vaccinated.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
The boundary commission is impartial and draws politically neutral constituency boundaries.
After 22 years its inevitable that many constituencies will contain either far too many or too few voters because of population movements over that time.
Yup. The boundary commission does a bloody fine job. Look at America. They've made a decent fist of this one too given the criteria. The only criticism of Cameron's reforms are two. Firstly, the quotas are too tight. They were +/- 8.5% of average size. Cutting to 5% made it difficult to keep natural constituencies together. This was done to ensure they were all of similar sizes. Secondly, in complete opposition to the above equality reasoning, he expanded the number of protected constituencies from 2 to 5 for pure partisan advantage. We don't need them at all in the age of Skype and email.
Will these polls encourage enough Tory red wallers to send their letters to Brady, that is the question.
Not sure back to austerity with Sunak or ex Remainer Truss is going to get much swingback from the redwall.
Better for Boris to keep on with the booster programme and try and avoid more restrictions
Boris is marching the party to an election disaster and you are so blinded or in denial to see what is staring you in the face
After 10 years in power most parties normally lose a general election.
The only exception was John Major in 1992 but he then led the Tories to a landslide defeat in 1997.
Even this poll still sees only a hung parliament not even a Labour majority against Boris. In 1992 remember most of the final polls also had Kinnock winning most seats in a hung parliament as this poll shows Starmer doing
You do not get it
Clearly you don't.
The only alternative leader to Boris who might get a bounce v Starmer is Sunak and on today's ConservativeHome survey Sunak would not even win the Tory membership vote, albeit only a narrow loss
The vast majority of voters are decent law abiding citizens and in Boris they see the 'one rule for them one rule for us' playing out every day from Paterson through wallpapergate, partygate to sleaze and say 'be gone'
Until you understand that simple fact, and be mindful how quickly Ratner trashed his brand you should take stock and as a conservative accept you have a responsibility to change the perception, and that cannot start with Boris in no10
The whole Tory party needs a time in opposition to reflect and rebuild. It’s not just Boris.
True, but have Labour reached the end of their well deserved time in opposition? That is the dilemma we are faced with.
Starmer, Reeves, Cooper and co are fit to govern. The deal is far from sealed, but they are up to the job.
There are still plenty of the Novara media/Owen Jones types in the party especially in its activist base.
There where even in the Blair era, but they were packed off in a corner to talk to themselves.
The Conservative Party has some equally silly people like Swain and Chope. The problem at the moment is they are back seat driving the clown car.
One thing I've seen over the Christmas period is how difficult my parents generation (50's, 60's) find uncertainty around restrictions and *not knowing* whether something will happen.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
You lie with dogs you catch fleas. Bunch of lying cheating bent toerags
Hope you are doing well mate
CHB, absolutely great thanks. Hope you are too. Looking forward to spring.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
Agree with about how many heard initially; however, it's all piling up. And the TV comedians are making jokes about 'work meetings' and the like, which really does cut through.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
The boundary commission is impartial and draws politically neutral constituency boundaries.
After 22 years its inevitable that many constituencies will contain either far too many or too few voters because of population movements over that time.
Yup. The boundary commission does a bloody fine job. Look at America. They've made a decent fist of this one too given the criteria. The only criticism of Cameron's reforms are two. Firstly, the quotas are too tight. They were +/- 8.5% of average size. Cutting to 5% made it difficult to keep natural constituencies together. This was done to ensure they were all of similar sizes. Secondly, in complete opposition to the above equality reasoning, he expanded the number of protected constituencies from 2 to 5 for pure partisan advantage. We don't need them at all in the age of Skype and email.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
Are you kidding?
There has been a month of speculation that such events and crowds would be banned and as of yesterday they are now in three of the four nations of the UK. As far as the crowd at Ally Pally knew at the time (and based on all the reporting) they would be banned by now in England just as they are in Scotland etc today.
As far as the BS line of the public would be more supportive of restrictions is concerned, the public keeps showing their support of restrictions on other people. Those who don't go to nightclubs are happy to see them restricted etc.
I doubt very much the Ally Pally crowd were eagerly anticipating crowd bans, unlike antisocial individuals sat at home filling in surveys for YouGov.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
His telegraph column was £250k for a mornings work. Easy money that didn't interfere with evening socialising. Probably can double that after being PM.
Yes, I think people grossly exaggerate the earing capacity of lecture circuits. Boris will do better than most because he is genuinely entertaining but its a pretty short term option as the novelty wears off.
The other major problem for Boris Johnson is that it is rumoured that his ex wife took him to the cleaners during the divorce and gets 50% of his future income.
Was Boris representing himself as it takes a particularly bad performance to get that sort of judgment in this day and age
Marianne Wheeler is a QC. I really cannot see any basis on which she would be receiving anything for herself at all in terms of income. Clearly she would have been entitled to capital and Boris would have still had some obligations towards the children although most should be adults now and finished their university education.
Yes which was my original point but equally I can’t see why TSE would be lying about the judgement.
So you then have to ask how bad was the divorce case that a judge went against current precedent to award such a judgement - did Boris represent himself and try to make it up as he went along rather than reading a prepared script.
No doubt she could have provided an embarrassingly long list of paramours but I think Boris is beyond embarrassment about that and the reporting restrictions on the Family Court systems are fairly severe.
That conversation assumes that it was setup in a Court.
Not really. It simply tries to imagine what pressure might have been applied to allow to make the claims she apparently did.
Will these polls encourage enough Tory red wallers to send their letters to Brady, that is the question.
Not sure back to austerity with Sunak or ex Remainer Truss is going to get much swingback from the redwall.
Better for Boris to keep on with the booster programme and try and avoid more restrictions
Boris is marching the party to an election disaster and you are so blinded or in denial to see what is staring you in the face
After 10 years in power most parties normally lose a general election.
The only exception was John Major in 1992 but he then led the Tories to a landslide defeat in 1997.
Even this poll still sees only a hung parliament not even a Labour majority against Boris. In 1992 remember most of the final polls also had Kinnock winning most seats in a hung parliament as this poll shows Starmer doing
You do not get it
Clearly you don't.
The only alternative leader to Boris who might get a bounce v Starmer is Sunak and on today's ConservativeHome survey Sunak would not even win the Tory membership vote, albeit only a narrow loss
Currently I'd imagine a few alternatives might poll better than Boris, but he's of course in a bit of a pit of his own making, and I expect him to recover some ground - he can hardly do worse. I think Hunt as well as Sunak, as you suggest, might well poll better than Boris in the medium term though.
Even Steve Baker beat Hunt in the new ConservativeHome survey today
Yes I saw that. However ConHome isn't necessarily representative of the Tory party as a whole, and certainly not of the country as a whole.
So what does Boris need to do to get the show back on the road?
He needs to make a success of the booster roll out. This seems to have been achieved. He needs to resist further restrictions on liberty because of the success of the booster rollout. That seems plausible. He needs to be seen to help those who have been hurt by this wave and stop more devastation to our High Streets. That is going to require another £1bn from Rishi at least.
These things are in his control but there are serious issues that aren't.
He needs to reach a more sensible deal with the EU that he can sell to both leavers and remainers. That's possible but problematic. He needs gas prices to fall sharply before the tariffs are reset. As @rcs1000 has pointed out this depends very much on swing production of gas in the US. Possible, but the timescale looks increasingly tight. He needs inflation not to become embedded. I think this is going to be way more difficult than the MPC seem to think. He needs the economy to start growing again. This needs a reduction in international disruption and a return of confidence. It will happen but again the timescale is problematic. He needs Covid to finally be beaten and no more variants starting the problems all over again. Strictly in the hands of the gods this one.
I think, on balance, he is likely to continue to struggle but it is not impossible that he gets a second go.
Plan B has had precisely zero effect on the way I live my life. I find myself utterly unconvinced that it has moved so many votes so quickly. The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated. Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then. Paterson was.
Will these polls encourage enough Tory red wallers to send their letters to Brady, that is the question.
Not sure back to austerity with Sunak or ex Remainer Truss is going to get much swingback from the redwall.
Better for Boris to keep on with the booster programme and try and avoid more restrictions
Boris is marching the party to an election disaster and you are so blinded or in denial to see what is staring you in the face
After 10 years in power most parties normally lose a general election.
The only exception was John Major in 1992 but he then led the Tories to a landslide defeat in 1997.
Even this poll still sees only a hung parliament not even a Labour majority against Boris. In 1992 remember most of the final polls also had Kinnock winning most seats in a hung parliament as this poll shows Starmer doing
You do not get it
Clearly you don't.
The only alternative leader to Boris who might get a bounce v Starmer is Sunak and on today's ConservativeHome survey Sunak would not even win the Tory membership vote, albeit only a narrow loss
Currently I'd imagine a few alternatives might poll better than Boris, but he's of course in a bit of a pit of his own making, and I expect him to recover some ground - he can hardly do worse. I think Hunt as well as Sunak, as you suggest, might well poll better than Boris in the medium term though.
Even Steve Baker beat Hunt in the new ConservativeHome survey today
Yes I saw that. However ConHome isn't necessarily representative of the Tory party as a whole, and certainly not of the country as a whole.
Conhome's final 2019 Tory leadership survey was close to the margin Johnson would beat Hunt by
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
As far as I can tell (and I may be wrong) it was Clement Attlee's government that set that term of reference and it has been used ever since.
Cameron just set tighter restrictions on sizes which had been allowed to drift.
DCam changed the electoral register to be updated annually and require everyone to re-opt in each year, which was felt to make it more likely for labour voters to drop off and so not be counted.
I think you mean it made it more likely for Labour voters to only be on the register once, so only be counted once.
Previously anyone who moved was quite frequently on the register both in their old and current address for a period until the register finally dropped them out.
In the 2010 election I received a polling card at my address, while my parents also received a polling card for me at their address despite the fact I no longer lived with my parents anymore as the Council hadn't dropped me off their register yet despite having been informed of the change.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you aren't a Labour voter though.
No but I was a young person who'd moved address which is demographically the type of voter we are talking about.
And young people are notoriously difficult to get to vote once. Let alone touring the polling booths of their former addresses.
So Scotland's new restrictions are officially in place to "target spread of omicron whilst booster vaccinations continue to be rolled out". To be reviewed after 3 weeks.
Noting: - to date there is not much, if any, evidence that booster vaccinations offer much additional protection (over those already vaccinated) against serious outcomes (albeit there may be some limited effect to the extent that boosters might prevent infection in some people) - the booster programme is increasingly concentrated in those age groups not to date perceived as being overly susceptible to serious illness - but, early evidence is that boosters begin to wain in their effectiveness (in contracting infection - to the extent that they offer protection against omicron anyway) from a period of 6-10 weeks. So for a very significant percentage of the population (particularly the older/more vulnerable population) will be back (arguably for many are already back) to double dose levels of protection by the end of the current period of restrictions - fortunately, as above, this may be sufficient for combatting serious illness - the booster programme is not a "business as usual" operation, but is diverting significant funds and NHS resources towards its delivery* - even if the restrictions are vaguely successful in having some impact on spread of omicron, what reasons are there not to expect the next few months to be dominated by rolling waves of infection (beyond everyone just getting infected anyway? - which if its going to happen doesn't provide justification for economically damaging restrictions to facilitate ongoing (and possibly repeated) booster programmes) - when, and how does this ever end? What triggers are going to facilitate a rolling back of mass testing and requirement/need to isolate, particularly for asymptomatic people?
*i wonder how many of those generously offering their time as volunteers would be quite so generous if they knew how much some people are making off the back of their contributions
The booster program will have saved thousands of lives in the current wave but I certainly agree it is extremely disappointing that its effects seem so short term.
Sturgeon has perhaps failed to see the end of the rope that Boris (with more than a little help from his cabinet) has. People are sick to the back teeth with restrictions, things being cancelled and not living normally. Sturgeon is risking drifting from mother of the nation status to a total pain in the neck destroying business and stopping younger and less at risk people enjoying themselves. Her stopping crowds at football matches has gone down particularly badly.
At this moment I should be roughly round Gretna Green on our way to Glasgow - as you can tell we aren’t.
So this evening is now to the cinema at Catterick because it’s the only place showing West Side Story at a decent time.
Have to say I have not noticed any great restrictions, the football was going to shutdown shortly in any event just done a few weeks earlier.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
Are you kidding?
There has been a month of speculation that such events and crowds would be banned and as of yesterday they are now in three of the four nations of the UK. As far as the crowd at Ally Pally knew at the time (and based on all the reporting) they would be banned by now in England just as they are in Scotland etc today.
As far as the BS line of the public would be more supportive of restrictions is concerned, the public keeps showing their support of restrictions on other people. Those who don't go to nightclubs are happy to see them restricted etc.
I doubt very much the Ally Pally crowd were eagerly anticipating crowd bans, unlike antisocial individuals sat at home filling in surveys for YouGov.
Cool, so if you're right there should now be a massive upswing of support for Johnson and the Tories for resisting pressure and keeping England open for them to go out and party. I'll wait.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
As far as I can tell (and I may be wrong) it was Clement Attlee's government that set that term of reference and it has been used ever since.
Cameron just set tighter restrictions on sizes which had been allowed to drift.
DCam changed the electoral register to be updated annually and require everyone to re-opt in each year, which was felt to make it more likely for labour voters to drop off and so not be counted.
I think you mean it made it more likely for Labour voters to only be on the register once, so only be counted once.
Previously anyone who moved was quite frequently on the register both in their old and current address for a period until the register finally dropped them out.
In the 2010 election I received a polling card at my address, while my parents also received a polling card for me at their address despite the fact I no longer lived with my parents anymore as the Council hadn't dropped me off their register yet despite having been informed of the change.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you aren't a Labour voter though.
No but I was a young person who'd moved address which is demographically the type of voter we are talking about.
And young people are notoriously difficult to get to vote once. Let alone touring the polling booths of their former addresses.
Yes but the point is that individual voter registration means that they should now be on the electoral register once, as opposed to on the register multiple times as I and many others who'd moved would have been in the past.
So what does Boris need to do to get the show back on the road?
He needs to make a success of the booster roll out. This seems to have been achieved. He needs to resist further restrictions on liberty because of the success of the booster rollout. That seems plausible. He needs to be seen to help those who have been hurt by this wave and stop more devastation to our High Streets. That is going to require another £1bn from Rishi at least.
These things are in his control but there are serious issues that aren't.
He needs to reach a more sensible deal with the EU that he can sell to both leavers and remainers. That's possible but problematic. He needs gas prices to fall sharply before the tariffs are reset. As @rcs1000 has pointed out this depends very much on swing production of gas in the US. Possible, but the timescale looks increasingly tight. He needs inflation not to become embedded. I think this is going to be way more difficult than the MPC seem to think. He needs the economy to start growing again. This needs a reduction in international disruption and a return of confidence. It will happen but again the timescale is problematic. He needs Covid to finally be beaten and no more variants starting the problems all over again. Strictly in the hands of the gods this one.
I think, on balance, he is likely to continue to struggle but it is not impossible that he gets a second go.
Interesting, if perhaps somewhat predictable, piece by the new MP for North Shropshire in the Guardian. Inter alia she mentions concerns among the farming community. While that in itself is quite small it's quite noisy.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
As far as I can tell (and I may be wrong) it was Clement Attlee's government that set that term of reference and it has been used ever since.
Cameron just set tighter restrictions on sizes which had been allowed to drift.
DCam changed the electoral register to be updated annually and require everyone to re-opt in each year, which was felt to make it more likely for labour voters to drop off and so not be counted.
I think you mean it made it more likely for Labour voters to only be on the register once, so only be counted once.
Previously anyone who moved was quite frequently on the register both in their old and current address for a period until the register finally dropped them out.
In the 2010 election I received a polling card at my address, while my parents also received a polling card for me at their address despite the fact I no longer lived with my parents anymore as the Council hadn't dropped me off their register yet despite having been informed of the change.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you aren't a Labour voter though.
No but I was a young person who'd moved address which is demographically the type of voter we are talking about.
And young people are notoriously difficult to get to vote once. Let alone touring the polling booths of their former addresses.
Yes but the point is that individual voter registration means that they should now be on the electoral register once, as opposed to on the register multiple times as I and many others who'd moved would have been in the past.
I've been away for a few days - catching up on what I've missed - can't I call you PT anymore?
Will these polls encourage enough Tory red wallers to send their letters to Brady, that is the question.
Not sure back to austerity with Sunak or ex Remainer Truss is going to get much swingback from the redwall.
Better for Boris to keep on with the booster programme and try and avoid more restrictions
Boris is marching the party to an election disaster and you are so blinded or in denial to see what is staring you in the face
After 10 years in power most parties normally lose a general election.
The only exception was John Major in 1992 but he then led the Tories to a landslide defeat in 1997.
Even this poll still sees only a hung parliament not even a Labour majority against Boris. In 1992 remember most of the final polls also had Kinnock winning most seats in a hung parliament as this poll shows Starmer doing
You do not get it
Clearly you don't.
The only alternative leader to Boris who might get a bounce v Starmer is Sunak and on today's ConservativeHome survey Sunak would not even win the Tory membership vote, albeit only a narrow loss
Currently I'd imagine a few alternatives might poll better than Boris, but he's of course in a bit of a pit of his own making, and I expect him to recover some ground - he can hardly do worse. I think Hunt as well as Sunak, as you suggest, might well poll better than Boris in the medium term though.
Even Steve Baker beat Hunt in the new ConservativeHome survey today
Yes I saw that. However ConHome isn't necessarily representative of the Tory party as a whole, and certainly not of the country as a whole.
Conhome's final 2019 Tory leadership survey almost exactly predicted the margin Johnson would beat Hunt by
Sure. I'd imagine that Baker has more support on ConHome than he does from the party as a whole though. Just because a subsample is a good indicator of the population on one measure doesn't mean it will be a good indicator on all measures. Just my supposition though.
Anyway we do know that the general public aren't the same as ConHome, and it's they who decide elections. My contention is that Hunt may well be more popular with them than Boris in the future. Who knows though. There's a chance Boris can perform an incredible comeback, but he has a lot of hurdles as @DavidL lists below. (Plus not do anything mind-boggling stupid)
Paterson, Parties, gaffes, an improved Labour led by Starmer and overall government fatigue (Soon to be 12 years of government led by one Party) are all factors of why Johnson and his party are in the position they are in.
Add in a tough economic situation when the new financial year kicks in and I can see them getting a kicking at the locals no matter the leader.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
Are you kidding?
There has been a month of speculation that such events and crowds would be banned and as of yesterday they are now in three of the four nations of the UK. As far as the crowd at Ally Pally knew at the time (and based on all the reporting) they would be banned by now in England just as they are in Scotland etc today.
As far as the BS line of the public would be more supportive of restrictions is concerned, the public keeps showing their support of restrictions on other people. Those who don't go to nightclubs are happy to see them restricted etc.
I doubt very much the Ally Pally crowd were eagerly anticipating crowd bans, unlike antisocial individuals sat at home filling in surveys for YouGov.
Cool, so if you're right there should now be a massive upswing of support for Johnson and the Tories for resisting pressure and keeping England open for them to go out and party. I'll wait.
The Tories are on 35% still with Survation, they would be on 25% with another lockdown with RefUK over 10%
So what does Boris need to do to get the show back on the road?
He needs to make a success of the booster roll out. This seems to have been achieved. He needs to resist further restrictions on liberty because of the success of the booster rollout. That seems plausible. He needs to be seen to help those who have been hurt by this wave and stop more devastation to our High Streets. That is going to require another £1bn from Rishi at least.
These things are in his control but there are serious issues that aren't.
He needs to reach a more sensible deal with the EU that he can sell to both leavers and remainers. That's possible but problematic. He needs gas prices to fall sharply before the tariffs are reset. As @rcs1000 has pointed out this depends very much on swing production of gas in the US. Possible, but the timescale looks increasingly tight. He needs inflation not to become embedded. I think this is going to be way more difficult than the MPC seem to think. He needs the economy to start growing again. This needs a reduction in international disruption and a return of confidence. It will happen but again the timescale is problematic. He needs Covid to finally be beaten and no more variants starting the problems all over again. Strictly in the hands of the gods this one.
I think, on balance, he is likely to continue to struggle but it is not impossible that he gets a second go.
Interesting, if perhaps somewhat predictable, piece by the new MP for North Shropshire in the Guardian. Inter alia she mentions concerns among the farming community. While that in itself is quite small it's quite noisy.
It isn't just noisy. It is how an area psychologically defines itself. It doesn't matter if most folk commute to Telford, they live in a farming place. There was one working pit in Wigan MBC during the Strike. Didn't mean it wasn't a "mining area".
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
His telegraph column was £250k for a mornings work. Easy money that didn't interfere with evening socialising. Probably can double that after being PM.
Yes, I think people grossly exaggerate the earing capacity of lecture circuits. Boris will do better than most because he is genuinely entertaining but its a pretty short term option as the novelty wears off.
The other major problem for Boris Johnson is that it is rumoured that his ex wife took him to the cleaners during the divorce and gets 50% of his future income.
Was Boris representing himself as it takes a particularly bad performance to get that sort of judgment in this day and age
Marianne Wheeler is a QC. I really cannot see any basis on which she would be receiving anything for herself at all in terms of income. Clearly she would have been entitled to capital and Boris would have still had some obligations towards the children although most should be adults now and finished their university education.
Yes which was my original point but equally I can’t see why TSE would be lying about the judgement.
So you then have to ask how bad was the divorce case that a judge went against current precedent to award such a judgement - did Boris represent himself and try to make it up as he went along rather than reading a prepared script.
No doubt she could have provided an embarrassingly long list of paramours but I think Boris is beyond embarrassment about that and the reporting restrictions on the Family Court systems are fairly severe.
That conversation assumes that it was setup in a Court.
Not really. It simply tries to imagine what pressure might have been applied to allow to make the claims she apparently did.
Surely silence is what he is paying for...
The premise of that is that she has something interesting to say. I am not sure that my husband preferred sleeping with other women, almost any other woman, is it.
Plan B has had precisely zero effect on the way I live my life. I find myself utterly unconvinced that it has moved so many votes so quickly. The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated. Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then. Paterson was.
Even in November the polls were around parity and the Tories had more leads than Labour and even led the final pre-Plan B polls in early December. But since Plan B 100% of all polls have had a clear Labour lead.
Plan B is more than just restrictions, its everything that goes with it: Fear of Covid, fear of Plan C, fear that the vaccines haven't worked. Fear that things are going to get worse, fear of loss of business, fear of lost lives. Fear of missing your family at Christmas and New Years. Fear of another wrecked Christmas. Fear of holidays ruined.
Basically December has been a month of fear. When vaccines were supposed to be a relief of success in the face of the pandemic, and meant we could put the fear behind us.
Anyone who thinks that fear isn't affecting the polls is I think deluding themselves. And yes that fear will abate in the New Year but that may take a few months for people to understand they can live without that fear again and it will require Plan B to be reversed.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
Are you kidding?
There has been a month of speculation that such events and crowds would be banned and as of yesterday they are now in three of the four nations of the UK. As far as the crowd at Ally Pally knew at the time (and based on all the reporting) they would be banned by now in England just as they are in Scotland etc today.
As far as the BS line of the public would be more supportive of restrictions is concerned, the public keeps showing their support of restrictions on other people. Those who don't go to nightclubs are happy to see them restricted etc.
I doubt very much the Ally Pally crowd were eagerly anticipating crowd bans, unlike antisocial individuals sat at home filling in surveys for YouGov.
Cool, so if you're right there should now be a massive upswing of support for Johnson and the Tories for resisting pressure and keeping England open for them to go out and party. I'll wait.
Yes if the SNP and Welsh Labour crater while the Johnsonites prosper then we may well interpret it as a rejection of NPIs.
If not then it is the Paterson affair, egregious sleaze and the government party party season.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
As far as I can tell (and I may be wrong) it was Clement Attlee's government that set that term of reference and it has been used ever since.
Cameron just set tighter restrictions on sizes which had been allowed to drift.
DCam changed the electoral register to be updated annually and require everyone to re-opt in each year, which was felt to make it more likely for labour voters to drop off and so not be counted.
I think you mean it made it more likely for Labour voters to only be on the register once, so only be counted once.
Previously anyone who moved was quite frequently on the register both in their old and current address for a period until the register finally dropped them out.
In the 2010 election I received a polling card at my address, while my parents also received a polling card for me at their address despite the fact I no longer lived with my parents anymore as the Council hadn't dropped me off their register yet despite having been informed of the change.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but you aren't a Labour voter though.
No but I was a young person who'd moved address which is demographically the type of voter we are talking about.
And young people are notoriously difficult to get to vote once. Let alone touring the polling booths of their former addresses.
Yes but the point is that individual voter registration means that they should now be on the electoral register once, as opposed to on the register multiple times as I and many others who'd moved would have been in the past.
I've been away for a few days - catching up on what I've missed - can't I call you PT anymore?
Please don't, I don't want to be doxxed IRL so have stopped using my real name. Not trying to hide who I am for continuity of conversation, just want real life privacy.
Will these polls encourage enough Tory red wallers to send their letters to Brady, that is the question.
Not sure back to austerity with Sunak or ex Remainer Truss is going to get much swingback from the redwall.
Better for Boris to keep on with the booster programme and try and avoid more restrictions
Boris is marching the party to an election disaster and you are so blinded or in denial to see what is staring you in the face
After 10 years in power most parties normally lose a general election.
The only exception was John Major in 1992 but he then led the Tories to a landslide defeat in 1997.
Even this poll still sees only a hung parliament not even a Labour majority against Boris. In 1992 remember most of the final polls also had Kinnock winning most seats in a hung parliament as this poll shows Starmer doing
You do not get it
Clearly you don't.
The only alternative leader to Boris who might get a bounce v Starmer is Sunak and on today's ConservativeHome survey Sunak would not even win the Tory membership vote, albeit only a narrow loss
The vast majority of voters are decent law abiding citizens and in Boris they see the 'one rule for them one rule for us' playing out every day from Paterson through wallpapergate, partygate to sleaze and say 'be gone'
Until you understand that simple fact, and be mindful how quickly Ratner trashed his brand you should take stock and as a conservative accept you have a responsibility to change the perception, and that cannot start with Boris in no10
The whole Tory party needs a time in opposition to reflect and rebuild. It’s not just Boris.
True, but have Labour reached the end of their well deserved time in opposition? That is the dilemma we are faced with.
Starmer, Reeves, Cooper and co are fit to govern. The deal is far from sealed, but they are up to the job.
There are still plenty of the Novara media/Owen Jones types in the party especially in its activist base.
You’d be dishonest though if you said they had any influence
Well I’m not a dishonest person and I vote labour at national elections.
However labour seem to have little interest in places like where I live. It is more a case of waiting for us to come home.
Let’s see where the policy platform for labour goes in the next few years ahead of the general election.
Excuse me Taz, I did not mean to imply you were. I was just saying that, if one thinks the Novara types have any influence in Starmer's party, they're not being honest.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
His telegraph column was £250k for a mornings work. Easy money that didn't interfere with evening socialising. Probably can double that after being PM.
Yes, I think people grossly exaggerate the earing capacity of lecture circuits. Boris will do better than most because he is genuinely entertaining but its a pretty short term option as the novelty wears off.
The other major problem for Boris Johnson is that it is rumoured that his ex wife took him to the cleaners during the divorce and gets 50% of his future income.
Was Boris representing himself as it takes a particularly bad performance to get that sort of judgment in this day and age
Marianne Wheeler is a QC. I really cannot see any basis on which she would be receiving anything for herself at all in terms of income. Clearly she would have been entitled to capital and Boris would have still had some obligations towards the children although most should be adults now and finished their university education.
Yes which was my original point but equally I can’t see why TSE would be lying about the judgement.
So you then have to ask how bad was the divorce case that a judge went against current precedent to award such a judgement - did Boris represent himself and try to make it up as he went along rather than reading a prepared script.
No doubt she could have provided an embarrassingly long list of paramours but I think Boris is beyond embarrassment about that and the reporting restrictions on the Family Court systems are fairly severe.
That conversation assumes that it was setup in a Court.
Not really. It simply tries to imagine what pressure might have been applied to allow to make the claims she apparently did.
Surely silence is what he is paying for...
The premise of that is that she has something interesting to say. I am not sure that my husband preferred sleeping with other women, almost any other woman, is it.
I've only scrolled the last page of comments and not all of them so apologies if I missed someone saying the same, but does that table in the header have a typo in it? Net change, SNP.
Plan B has had precisely zero effect on the way I live my life. I find myself utterly unconvinced that it has moved so many votes so quickly. The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated. Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then. Paterson was.
Even in November the polls were around parity and the Tories had more leads than Labour and even led the final pre-Plan B polls in early December. But since Plan B 100% of all polls have had a clear Labour lead.
Plan B is more than just restrictions, its everything that goes with it: Fear of Covid, fear of Plan C, fear that the vaccines haven't worked. Fear that things are going to get worse, fear of loss of business, fear of lost lives. Fear of missing your family at Christmas and New Years. Fear of another wrecked Christmas. Fear of holidays ruined.
Basically December has been a month of fear. When vaccines were supposed to be a relief of success in the face of the pandemic, and meant we could put the fear behind us.
Anyone who thinks that fear isn't affecting the polls is I think deluding themselves. And yes that fear will abate in the New Year but that may take a few months for people to understand they can live without that fear again and it will require Plan B to be reversed.
There is something in that argument. However. Simply ignoring COVID altogether won't make fear of it go away. However much you wish.
Exactly, the public want Sunak, Tory members it seems increasingly want Truss or even Steve Baker.
There is no guarantee if Boris goes you get Sunak
The ConHome surveys gauge only a general membership satisfaction in each politician. It doesn't necessarily follow that an individual who is highly regarded in the current role would be similarly touted as future PM material. Truss's high ratings, therefore, do not necessarily imply that she would be widely supported for leader. She might but might not.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
We'll see. He's lost my support due to imposing restrictions [and increasing taxes].
I couldn't care less about Peppa or Parties. Paterson is an embarrassment, but the restrictions and taxes are far more serious in my eyes.
Not every voter is the same. Some will be Paterson, but not 100%.
Taxes & restrictions is why you've ditched him and I'm sure you speak with unforked tongue on that. But don't kid yourself you're in tune with the public on this. The sharp fall in the polls for him and the Cons is due to the stuff you don't care about - lack of integrity, honesty, seriousness, grip - not to the libertarian and small state stuff you do.
We'll see. If I'm right, then a return to libertarian principles will see a recovery in the polls.
If you're right, then nothing will lead to a recovery in the polls for Boris because he's not going to suddenly change how he speaks or acts.
I expect a recovery in the polls just from avoiding spectacular own goals for a few weeks.
Convenient.
I suspect the famous Ally Pally crowd are more bothered by threats to ban people from going to crowded events like Ally Pally, or the pub in general, than they are the ins and outs of Owen Paterson or speeches to the CBI.
Struggling with your logic here. The crowd at Ally Pally had, by definition, not been banned from going to Ally Pally, and there hasn't really been a suggestion that they might be in the future. All the available evidence suggests that - somewhat to my surprise - the public would generally be in favour of more restrictions.
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
Well don't worry because I am sure. You can work it out. The polls have turned in the last few weeks. It's been quick. What's happened? Paterson, Peppa, Parties, all of that stuff, stories that speak to a PM and govt taking the piss. This has cut through. No way is it due to the implementing of Plan B for Omicron and then resisting the pressure for a lockdown. It makes no sense whatsoever to blame that for the polling meltdown.
Plan B happened in the same timescale too.
Sorry but why does it make no sense whatsoever to blame that?
Transfer to Reform = restrictions Transfer to Lib/Lab = parties/corruption Increase in (ex-Tory) don’t knows = bit of both/either
A wise post indeed.
The fact that Reform have not gained much momentum in the real world would tend to support Kinbalu's point that its the parties wot dun it. North Shropshire in particular a poor result for Reform.
Plan B has had precisely zero effect on the way I live my life. I find myself utterly unconvinced that it has moved so many votes so quickly. The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated. Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then. Paterson was.
Even in November the polls were around parity and the Tories had more leads than Labour and even led the final pre-Plan B polls in early December. But since Plan B 100% of all polls have had a clear Labour lead.
Plan B is more than just restrictions, its everything that goes with it: Fear of Covid, fear of Plan C, fear that the vaccines haven't worked. Fear that things are going to get worse, fear of loss of business, fear of lost lives. Fear of missing your family at Christmas and New Years. Fear of another wrecked Christmas. Fear of holidays ruined.
Basically December has been a month of fear. When vaccines were supposed to be a relief of success in the face of the pandemic, and meant we could put the fear behind us.
Anyone who thinks that fear isn't affecting the polls is I think deluding themselves. And yes that fear will abate in the New Year but that may take a few months for people to understand they can live without that fear again and it will require Plan B to be reversed.
There is something in that argument. However. Simply ignoring COVID altogether won't make fear of it go away. However much you wish.
Getting vaccinated and living your lives normally isn't ignoring COVID altogether, its putting your faith in the vaccines doing their job.
The polls will fall further if the Government is found yet again to not have learned the lessons of the past and put into place plans now to prevent a future lockdown. Now is the time to act, we need to ensure immunity in the population or in a month or two we will be in a lot of trouble
Paterson, Parties, gaffes, an improved Labour led by Starmer and overall government fatigue (Soon to be 12 years of government led by one Party) are all factors of why Johnson and his party are in the position they are in.
Add in a tough economic situation when the new financial year kicks in and I can see them getting a kicking at the locals no matter the leader.
I wouldn’t rule out part of the collapse in the red wall being due to the reneging on levelling up.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
I'm not sure what's unfair about registered voters. The unregistered have disenfranchised themselves. And they are much easier to count than population.
It's an undisputed fact that people who are settled in one place (who tend to be older, which nowadays means more likely to be Tory) are more likely to be registered. People who move frequently (typically young people) will only regard electoral registration each time as a priority if they're political zealots like, er, us. So one can bring about a better Conservative result (without a single mind being changed) by requiring frequent re-registration. It's a subtle form of voter suppression, as conducted more energetically in the USA.
The cure, in my view, is to ask the Electoral Commission to define constituency boundaries according to the census (excluding foreign nationals where these are not eligible) rather than on who has currently registered.
I entirely agree with your concerns here Nick. The untested introduction of individual electoral registration in 2015 made an already bad problem of voter non-registration much worse in the UK. And applying it to the definition of new constituency boundaries will make it worse still.
Ironically, the solution you rightly advocate (for defining constituencies) is basically that in place in the USA, where all calculations of electorates for the purposes of defining boundaries have to use the official federal population estimates, ultimately defined by and updated from their census. In the UK, that would require the use of the mid-year adult population estimates broken down by constituency, these being the best official estimates of population in each part of the UK. They are informed by the census and updated using other population trends since, but crucially, in contrast to the electoral register, also contain detailed adjustments to correct for non-responses at the time of the census, adding in an imputed population. Anyone who claimed that the electoral register was a better estimate of the adult population would be laughed out of court by the ONS.
So, is voter suppression really greater in the US than here? Or is it just that it's built into our system by design, and goes under the radar in the UK?
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
Well exactly and I said this before - but the Tories here pretend otherwise.
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
Plan B has had precisely zero effect on the way I live my life. I find myself utterly unconvinced that it has moved so many votes so quickly. The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated. Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then. Paterson was.
Even in November the polls were around parity and the Tories had more leads than Labour and even led the final pre-Plan B polls in early December. But since Plan B 100% of all polls have had a clear Labour lead.
Plan B is more than just restrictions, its everything that goes with it: Fear of Covid, fear of Plan C, fear that the vaccines haven't worked. Fear that things are going to get worse, fear of loss of business, fear of lost lives. Fear of missing your family at Christmas and New Years. Fear of another wrecked Christmas. Fear of holidays ruined.
Basically December has been a month of fear. When vaccines were supposed to be a relief of success in the face of the pandemic, and meant we could put the fear behind us.
Anyone who thinks that fear isn't affecting the polls is I think deluding themselves. And yes that fear will abate in the New Year but that may take a few months for people to understand they can live without that fear again and it will require Plan B to be reversed.
There is something in that argument. However. Simply ignoring COVID altogether won't make fear of it go away. However much you wish.
Getting vaccinated and living your lives normally isn't ignoring COVID altogether, its putting your faith in the vaccines doing their job.
If only government had the same faith. The fact they are reverting to restrictions suggests they don't, doesn't it?
Exactly, the public want Sunak, Tory members it seems increasingly want Truss or even Steve Baker.
There is no guarantee if Boris goes you get Sunak
The ConHome surveys gauge only a general membership satisfaction in each politician. It doesn't necessarily follow that an individual who is highly regarded in the current role would be similarly touted as future PM material. Truss's high ratings, therefore, do not necessarily imply that she would be widely supported for leader. She might but might not.
No, today's ConservativeHome survey is a Tory leadership survey and has Truss first narrowly ahead of Sunak with Baker joint third with Mordaunt
Paterson, Parties, gaffes, an improved Labour led by Starmer and overall government fatigue (Soon to be 12 years of government led by one Party) are all factors of why Johnson and his party are in the position they are in.
Add in a tough economic situation when the new financial year kicks in and I can see them getting a kicking at the locals no matter the leader.
I wouldn’t rule out part of the collapse in the red wall being due to the reneging on levelling up.
Gove is certainly going to have to deliver on that in the New Year. And that is going to require yet more money which is already in short supply. A couple of major FDIs would be a great help. I suspect that is why Rishi was in California.
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
Well exactly and I said this before - but the Tories here pretend otherwise.
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
I think the hospital system will be most under stress by staff isolating, thereby crashing rotas. There is a fairly simple way to prevent this, and a lot of hospital acquired disease without greatly inconveniencing people. The government has rejected it.
In October we asked our Jewish members how they were finding the Labour Party one year on from the EHRC report.
Our members said the Labour Party is a safer space for Jewish members under Keir Starmer, they trust him to tackle antisemitism and positive changes have been made.
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
Well exactly and I said this before - but the Tories here pretend otherwise.
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
Except it did, it was unjustified fearmongering that caused the problem. The hospitals haven't been overwhelmed, deaths are still down. The whole thing was a false alarm and the vaccines and boosters have worked.
The only plan ahead required is for the next booster campaign for either the Spring or the Autumn. What other planning do you want?
Especially what other planning do you want for the next month or so, given its going to take at least about six months since the booster campaign began before another booster is likely required.
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
They have had a undeniable positive impact and God forbid what sort of situation we would be in right now without the vaccines. They protect against serious disease and unquestionably reduce the severity of illness.
However they are not a Panacea, Covid is not the common Cold or Flu.
My hope is that these 2nd Gen vaccines along with better treatment and drugs in 2022 means that at some point we have an annual jab like Flu and we carry on.
Would be basically 2010 in reverse on these figures, a hung parliament but Labour largest party and close to a majority with the LDs. Starmer as Cameron and Boris as Brown but Labour as largest party able to ignore the LDs.
However considering the endless media attacks on partygate, which was more significant than Paterson in moving the polls, still no Labour majority even on this poll.
Don't forget you have gerrymandered the constituency boundaries to help yourselves prevent a Labour majority.
What are you talking about? The last boundary review was held under Labour.
The current boundaries are decades out of date and the boundary review is being done by the independent Electoral Commission as always, no gerrymandering in sight.
The next one isn't and it stands to benefit the already advantaged Conservative Party. The unfair Labour advantage of GE2005 was a very long time ago!
HYUFD takes much comfort from the Tories ahead by circa 40 seats at level pegging on points and level pegging on seats when Labour are 3 points ahead ( on new boundaries).
But of course you would call it efficiency of votes.
The current boundaries will be 22 years out of date in a few weeks' time.
What a daft point. So they are 22 years old and unfair. So updating them so they are even more unfair is progress?
And Phil mentioned earlier that the Commission is independent, however didn't Cameron set the terms of reference, i.e. registered voters not general voting age population?
I'm not sure what's unfair about registered voters. The unregistered have disenfranchised themselves. And they are much easier to count than population.
It's an undisputed fact that people who are settled in one place (who tend to be older, which nowadays means more likely to be Tory) are more likely to be registered. People who move frequently (typically young people) will only regard electoral registration each time as a priority if they're political zealots like, er, us. So one can bring about a better Conservative result (without a single mind being changed) by requiring frequent re-registration. It's a subtle form of voter suppression, as conducted more energetically in the USA.
The cure, in my view, is to ask the Electoral Commission to define constituency boundaries according to the census (excluding foreign nationals where these are not eligible) rather than on who has currently registered.
I entirely agree with your concerns here Nick. The untested introduction of individual electoral registration in 2015 made an already bad problem of voter non-registration much worse in the UK. And applying it to the definition of new constituency boundaries will make it worse still.
Ironically, the solution you rightly advocate (for defining constituencies) is basically that in place in the USA, where all calculations of electorates for the purposes of defining boundaries have to use the official federal population estimates, ultimately defined by and updated from their census. In the UK, that would require the use of the mid-year adult population estimates broken down by constituency, these being the best official estimates of population in each part of the UK. They are informed by the census and updated using other population trends since, but crucially, in contrast to the electoral register, also contain detailed adjustments to correct for non-responses at the time of the census, adding in an imputed population. Anyone who claimed that the electoral register was a better estimate of the adult population would be laughed out of court by the ONS.
So, is voter suppression really greater in the US than here? Or is it just that it's built into our system by design, and goes under the radar in the UK?
Chill, man. Banning all the Labour student activists from voting at their parent's home as well as their term time address really isn't going to make all that much of a difference in the grand scheme of things.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
There's a reason that six months ago Boris was on top electorally and right now he isn't.
Ephemera like Peppa isn't it, Boris has always been Boris.
The imposition of restriction in response to Omicron, and the fear of more and the fear that the vaccines haven't led us out of Covid restrictions is the biggest change to is months ago. Not Paterson or anything else.
Perhaps the best thing the Government could do in the new year is to end testing for Covid. People are afraid of "cases" now, not deaths or hospitalisations. If we weren't detecting these cases because we weren't testing for them then there would be no worries. The vaccines are working.
Of course any idiots who aren't vaccinated aren't helping with that, are they @MISTY ?
Sure the vaccines are working, but the government is undermining its own message on that by imposing new restrictions...?
Yes it is. Completely. Care homes have been instructed to limit visitation again.
100% staff vaccination, 100% resident vaccination, boosters, plus all visitors have to take a Covid test before entrance.
All this and still the backward step to limit visitation. I can't think of a better example of not trusting the vaccines.
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
Well exactly and I said this before - but the Tories here pretend otherwise.
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
I think the hospital system will be most under stress by staff isolating, thereby crashing rotas. There is a fairly simple way to prevent this, and a lot of hospital acquired disease without greatly inconveniencing people. The government has rejected it.
Telling people to dump cloth masks and getting anyone who requires masks to use FFP3 instead has been something I've been banging the drum on all year!
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
Exactly, the public want Sunak, Tory members it seems increasingly want Truss or even Steve Baker.
There is no guarantee if Boris goes you get Sunak
The ConHome surveys gauge only a general membership satisfaction in each politician. It doesn't necessarily follow that an individual who is highly regarded in the current role would be similarly touted as future PM material. Truss's high ratings, therefore, do not necessarily imply that she would be widely supported for leader. She might but might not.
No, today's ConservativeHome survey is a Tory leadership survey and has Truss first narrowly ahead of Sunak with Baker joint third with Mordaunt
One thing I've seen over the Christmas period is how difficult my parents generation (50's, 60's) find uncertainty around restrictions and *not knowing* whether something will happen.
Is this a thing or am I just imagining it?
I'm not sure whether anybody deals well with uncertainty, especially when it directly affects things they care about. Everybody in my family regardless of age was worried about whether a last-minute rules change would upend our planned get-together the way it did in 2020. And this government has not demonstrated much ability to clearly signal a course and hold to it...
Heading back into town to watch Spider-Man and then brave the sales. Had no idea how expensive good quality bedding was, we've just spent the better part of three grand on a new bed frame, mattress and bed linen this morning!
Definitely enjoying the reports of London being doomed because of the 67% drop in footfall on Boxing Day, ignoring that everything was closed yesterday because it was both a Sunday and public holiday making it pointless for shops to open for just Sunday trading hours and paying staff 2-3x hourly rates to work. Heal's was absolutely packed this morning fwiw.
Very glad that politics is competitive. It’s entirely positive that the half of country that has no time for the Conservatives gets a look in.
How competitive is it though?
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
Very glad that politics is competitive. It’s entirely positive that the half of country that has no time for the Conservatives gets a look in.
How competitive is it though?
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
Well don't worry because I am sure. You can work it out. The polls have turned in the last few weeks. It's been quick. What's happened? Paterson, Peppa, Parties, all of that stuff, stories that speak to a PM and govt taking the piss. This has cut through. No way is it due to the implementing of Plan B for Omicron and then resisting the pressure for a lockdown. It makes no sense whatsoever to blame that for the polling meltdown.
Plan B happened in the same timescale too.
Sorry but why does it make no sense whatsoever to blame that?
Transfer to Reform = restrictions Transfer to Lib/Lab = parties/corruption Increase in (ex-Tory) don’t knows = bit of both/either
Or maybe:
Transfer to Reform/Lib = classic midterm protest Transfer to Labour = maybe considering an alternative government Increase in (ex-Tory) don't knows = could be anything, really.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
There's a reason that six months ago Boris was on top electorally and right now he isn't.
Ephemera like Peppa isn't it, Boris has always been Boris.
The imposition of restriction in response to Omicron, and the fear of more and the fear that the vaccines haven't led us out of Covid restrictions is the biggest change to is months ago. Not Paterson or anything else.
Perhaps the best thing the Government could do in the new year is to end testing for Covid. People are afraid of "cases" now, not deaths or hospitalisations. If we weren't detecting these cases because we weren't testing for them then there would be no worries. The vaccines are working.
Of course any idiots who aren't vaccinated aren't helping with that, are they @MISTY ?
Sure the vaccines are working, but the government is undermining its own message on that by imposing new restrictions...?
Yes it is. Completely. Care homes have been instructed to limit visitation again.
100% staff vaccination, 100% resident vaccination, boosters, plus all visitors have to take a Covid test before entrance.
All this and still the backward step to limit visitation. I can't think of a better example of not trusting the vaccines.
Also, if you want to take the resident out for an hour, no indoor spaces. Outdoor only. And now, ten straight days of LF tests for the resident following an hour out in the fresh air, only mixing with vaxxed people who took a covid test that morning.
Plan B has had precisely zero effect on the way I live my life. I find myself utterly unconvinced that it has moved so many votes so quickly. The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated. Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then. Paterson was.
Even in November the polls were around parity and the Tories had more leads than Labour and even led the final pre-Plan B polls in early December. But since Plan B 100% of all polls have had a clear Labour lead.
Plan B is more than just restrictions, its everything that goes with it: Fear of Covid, fear of Plan C, fear that the vaccines haven't worked. Fear that things are going to get worse, fear of loss of business, fear of lost lives. Fear of missing your family at Christmas and New Years. Fear of another wrecked Christmas. Fear of holidays ruined.
Basically December has been a month of fear. When vaccines were supposed to be a relief of success in the face of the pandemic, and meant we could put the fear behind us.
Anyone who thinks that fear isn't affecting the polls is I think deluding themselves. And yes that fear will abate in the New Year but that may take a few months for people to understand they can live without that fear again and it will require Plan B to be reversed.
There is something in that argument. However. Simply ignoring COVID altogether won't make fear of it go away. However much you wish.
Getting vaccinated and living your lives normally isn't ignoring COVID altogether, its putting your faith in the vaccines doing their job.
Yes. But folk don't see things the way you see them. You can't make them see it differently. Plus. The vaccines have failed to put a stop to COVID as promised.
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
Well exactly and I said this before - but the Tories here pretend otherwise.
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
I think the hospital system will be most under stress by staff isolating, thereby crashing rotas. There is a fairly simple way to prevent this, and a lot of hospital acquired disease without greatly inconveniencing people. The government has rejected it.
Telling people to dump cloth masks and getting anyone who requires masks to use FFP3 instead has been something I've been banging the drum on all year!
To be effective FFP3s have to be fit tested to exclude leaks. It works in a hospital setting, but not really elsewhere. Even in hospitals many cannot be properly fitted, particularly those with facial hair. Hence the large range of masking you see on TV interviews from covid wards.
Heading back into town to watch Spider-Man and then brave the sales. Had no idea how expensive good quality bedding was, we've just spent the better part of three grand on a new bed frame, mattress and bed linen this morning!
Definitely enjoying the reports of London being doomed because of the 67% drop in footfall on Boxing Day, ignoring that everything was closed yesterday because it was both a Sunday and public holiday making it pointless for shops to open for just Sunday trading hours and paying staff 2-3x hourly rates to work. Heal's was absolutely packed this morning fwiw.
By the sounds of that purchase. is your move to Switzerland off?
Very glad that politics is competitive. It’s entirely positive that the half of country that has no time for the Conservatives gets a look in.
How competitive is it though?
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
With poll leads and the odd election lost, it’s certainly more competitive than it was. As I say not a done deal, but every reason for hope. This goes beyond Labour. For the millions of us that have no love for the Conservatives this is a new feeling. An entirely good thing.
Exactly, the public want Sunak, Tory members it seems increasingly want Truss or even Steve Baker.
There is no guarantee if Boris goes you get Sunak
The ConHome surveys gauge only a general membership satisfaction in each politician. It doesn't necessarily follow that an individual who is highly regarded in the current role would be similarly touted as future PM material. Truss's high ratings, therefore, do not necessarily imply that she would be widely supported for leader. She might but might not.
No, today's ConservativeHome survey is a Tory leadership survey and has Truss first narrowly ahead of Sunak with Baker joint third with Mordaunt
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
There's a reason that six months ago Boris was on top electorally and right now he isn't.
Ephemera like Peppa isn't it, Boris has always been Boris.
The imposition of restriction in response to Omicron, and the fear of more and the fear that the vaccines haven't led us out of Covid restrictions is the biggest change to is months ago. Not Paterson or anything else.
Perhaps the best thing the Government could do in the new year is to end testing for Covid. People are afraid of "cases" now, not deaths or hospitalisations. If we weren't detecting these cases because we weren't testing for them then there would be no worries. The vaccines are working.
Of course any idiots who aren't vaccinated aren't helping with that, are they @MISTY ?
Sure the vaccines are working, but the government is undermining its own message on that by imposing new restrictions...?
Yes it is. Completely. Care homes have been instructed to limit visitation again.
100% staff vaccination, 100% resident vaccination, boosters, plus all visitors have to take a Covid test before entrance.
All this and still the backward step to limit visitation. I can't think of a better example of not trusting the vaccines.
Is this not just arithmetic?
My son, who is 18 has just had his booster. The chances of him getting seriously ill from Covid must be similar to the chances of being struck by lightning.
I have had my booster which will help enormously, at least in the short term, but as a 60 year old, overweight man with lung issues there is still a significant chance that I will become seriously ill if I get covid. Maybe 1 in 25? Maybe better than that. I am not sure.
My mother in law is 86 next week and increasingly frail. She had her booster nearly 2 months ago now. She is not in a home but that point might come. If she caught Covid the chances of being seriously ill will be much higher, maybe 1 in 5?
So, if you are going to a nursing home with very elderly and frail residents you are going into a high risk environment for them. That makes such restrictions and a requirement for LFTs before a visit, for example, entirely rational. It is not a question of not trusting the vaccines. It is simply recognising that they are not a complete protection.
The PM repeatedly and loudly proclaimed for months that our world beating vaccine programme would solve the issue. It didn't. People notice.
Well exactly and I said this before - but the Tories here pretend otherwise.
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
I think the hospital system will be most under stress by staff isolating, thereby crashing rotas. There is a fairly simple way to prevent this, and a lot of hospital acquired disease without greatly inconveniencing people. The government has rejected it.
I suspect this is what is coming through; we saw the hospitalisation and, too often, death of older people over 2020; now those of us in that generation who have been vaccinated and survived, even if we do get a second dose, are 'simply' going to be ill. And, by and large, we're vaccinated. However, the greater infectivity of the Omicron variant is going to affect younger people, particularly the un- or partially vaccinated and they are going to have to take time off work. If they can! That of course is going to have all sorts of knock-on effects in all sorts of places, as Dr F and Dr ydoethur (tautology) have indicated.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
Well don't worry because I am sure. You can work it out. The polls have turned in the last few weeks. It's been quick. What's happened? Paterson, Peppa, Parties, all of that stuff, stories that speak to a PM and govt taking the piss. This has cut through. No way is it due to the implementing of Plan B for Omicron and then resisting the pressure for a lockdown. It makes no sense whatsoever to blame that for the polling meltdown.
Plan B happened in the same timescale too.
Sorry but why does it make no sense whatsoever to blame that?
Transfer to Reform = restrictions Transfer to Lib/Lab = parties/corruption Increase in (ex-Tory) don’t knows = bit of both/either
Or maybe:
Transfer to Reform/Lib = classic midterm protest Transfer to Labour = maybe considering an alternative government Increase in (ex-Tory) don't knows = could be anything, really.
Agreed with this 100%.
As much as the "progressive alliance" people like to claim otherwise, the Libs are in the same basket as Reform, not Labour. Third party protest. No more, no less.
Though I've spent too long on this site this morning and need to get on with stuff. Have a good day everyone!
Exactly, the public want Sunak, Tory members it seems increasingly want Truss or even Steve Baker.
There is no guarantee if Boris goes you get Sunak
The ConHome surveys gauge only a general membership satisfaction in each politician. It doesn't necessarily follow that an individual who is highly regarded in the current role would be similarly touted as future PM material. Truss's high ratings, therefore, do not necessarily imply that she would be widely supported for leader. She might but might not.
No, today's ConservativeHome survey is a Tory leadership survey and has Truss first narrowly ahead of Sunak with Baker joint third with Mordaunt
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
Very glad that politics is competitive. It’s entirely positive that the half of country that has no time for the Conservatives gets a look in.
How competitive is it though?
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
That is what I've seen in the polling data. I think that does make for a competitive situation. Many of these voters will be open to being persuaded by Starmer and the Labour party. Their votes are there to be competed over.
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
Hope your daughter gets well soon and has a speedy recovery. Fingers crossed you and your wife dodged it.
Very glad that politics is competitive. It’s entirely positive that the half of country that has no time for the Conservatives gets a look in.
How competitive is it though?
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
That is what I've seen in the polling data. I think that does make for a competitive situation. Many of these voters will be open to being persuaded by Starmer and the Labour party. Their votes are there to be competed over.
If it was just voters moving to don't know, Labour wouldn't be polling 40%, i.e. the 2017 figure? It's both surely
Exactly, the public want Sunak, Tory members it seems increasingly want Truss or even Steve Baker.
There is no guarantee if Boris goes you get Sunak
The ConHome surveys gauge only a general membership satisfaction in each politician. It doesn't necessarily follow that an individual who is highly regarded in the current role would be similarly touted as future PM material. Truss's high ratings, therefore, do not necessarily imply that she would be widely supported for leader. She might but might not.
No, today's ConservativeHome survey is a Tory leadership survey and has Truss first narrowly ahead of Sunak with Baker joint third with Mordaunt
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
The Treasury will do everything they can to avoid business rate changes and exactly how does an online sales tax work?
Does it count if the good is delivered to a store rather than a home? How about delivery to the corner shop?
It's going to get utterly insane incredibly quickly.
I just don't see how this idea is going to level up the Red Wall, is the idea to discourage shopping online?
The damage to Red Wall town centres comes more from out of town shopping than online shopping - it doesn't help and shows how much Gove and co are clutching at straws.
Want to win Red Wall seats, spend money on them nowt else is going to work.
Almost certainly and we'd have been spared the catastrophe of Brexit. With Boris and Ed we've paid a heavy price for personal ambition.
As a younger brother, I don't see why primogeniture should have a place in a progressive party. Ed was the better of the 2 brothers.
Just imagine what life would have been like as Ed rolled out his Edstone promises via a Coalition of Chaos, rather the political tranquility of the last 6 years...
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
The Treasury will do everything they can to avoid business rate changes and exactly how does an online sales tax work?
Does it count if the good is delivered to a store rather than a home? How about delivery to the corner shop?
It's going to get utterly insane incredibly quickly.
I just don't see how this idea is going to level up the Red Wall, is the idea to discourage shopping online?
The damage to Red Wall town centres comes more from out of town shopping than online shopping - it doesn't help and shows how much Gove and co are clutching at straws.
Want to win Red Wall seats, spend money on them nowt else is going to work.
It seems to me that they basically don't have any ideas beyond the slogans. And this was obvious in GE19 to me
Almost certainly and we'd have been spared the catastrophe of Brexit. With Boris and Ed we've paid a heavy price for personal ambition.
As a younger brother, I don't see why primogeniture should have a place in a progressive party. Ed was the better of the 2 candidates.
Just imagine what life would have been like as Ed rolled out his Edstone promises via a Coalition of Chaos, rather the political tranquility of the last 6 years...
Ed was poorly advised - but he had some good policies and since he left and has been allowed to be himself, he's been a lot better. Went for it too early
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
Gove is a marmite character, but he is a spectacularly productive and innovative cabinet minister. The contrast with Robert Jenrick, his predecessor (and a man once regarded as a rising star) is huge. Jenrick seemed to be just treading water, following orders from the treasury and No.10 and incapable of spotting the political catastrophes that would inevitably follow. Gove is quickly coming up with ideas of his own, some of them quite good.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
Covid is now an endemic disease, we need to get used to it and minimise the risk that when we catch it, it results in serious illness
Paterson, Parties, gaffes, an improved Labour led by Starmer and overall government fatigue (Soon to be 12 years of government led by one Party) are all factors of why Johnson and his party are in the position they are in.
Add in a tough economic situation when the new financial year kicks in and I can see them getting a kicking at the locals no matter the leader.
I wouldn’t rule out part of the collapse in the red wall being due to the reneging on levelling up.
Yes, we've forgotten about the HS2 and Northern Poorhouse Rail Uturns with everything else that is going on.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
What I would say Malcolm is that if you and your wife have had boosters in the last month catching it now may not be the worst result. Far better now than when any booster effect has worn off although I appreciate that your wife has been ill recently.
Michael Gove is prepared to “go to war” with Rishi Sunak as he pushes to exempt high-street retailers from paying business rates as part of his levelling-up agenda, The Times has been told.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
Gove is a marmite character, but he is a spectacularly productive and innovative cabinet minister. The contrast with Robert Jenrick, his predecessor (and a man once regarded as a rising star) is huge. Jenrick seemed to be just treading water, following orders from the treasury and No.10 and incapable of spotting the political catastrophes that would inevitably follow. Gove is quickly coming up with ideas of his own, some of them quite good.
And some (like this one) make as much sense as Boris's bridge to Belfast.
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
There's a reason that six months ago Boris was on top electorally and right now he isn't.
Ephemera like Peppa isn't it, Boris has always been Boris.
The imposition of restriction in response to Omicron, and the fear of more and the fear that the vaccines haven't led us out of Covid restrictions is the biggest change to is months ago. Not Paterson or anything else.
Perhaps the best thing the Government could do in the new year is to end testing for Covid. People are afraid of "cases" now, not deaths or hospitalisations. If we weren't detecting these cases because we weren't testing for them then there would be no worries. The vaccines are working.
Of course any idiots who aren't vaccinated aren't helping with that, are they @MISTY ?
Sure the vaccines are working, but the government is undermining its own message on that by imposing new restrictions...?
Yes it is. Completely. Care homes have been instructed to limit visitation again.
100% staff vaccination, 100% resident vaccination, boosters, plus all visitors have to take a Covid test before entrance.
All this and still the backward step to limit visitation. I can't think of a better example of not trusting the vaccines.
Is this not just arithmetic?
My son, who is 18 has just had his booster. The chances of him getting seriously ill from Covid must be similar to the chances of being struck by lightning.
I have had my booster which will help enormously, at least in the short term, but as a 60 year old, overweight man with lung issues there is still a significant chance that I will become seriously ill if I get covid. Maybe 1 in 25? Maybe better than that. I am not sure.
My mother in law is 86 next week and increasingly frail. She had her booster nearly 2 months ago now. She is not in a home but that point might come. If she caught Covid the chances of being seriously ill will be much higher, maybe 1 in 5?
So, if you are going to a nursing home with very elderly and frail residents you are going into a high risk environment for them. That makes such restrictions and a requirement for LFTs before a visit, for example, entirely rational. It is not a question of not trusting the vaccines. It is simply recognising that they are not a complete protection.
No one ever said they were complete protection. Now my mother can't see her son (me) in her room again. Or her grandchildren. This is all she cares about. The right to quality of life (over quantity) for these people has been disregarded for far too long already. We all know this is to do with the government being knee-jerk frit following criticism of the care home deaths at the start if the pandemic.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
Hope your daughter gets well soon and has a speedy recovery. Fingers crossed you and your wife dodged it.
thanks, must about the 3rd time maximum, apart from getting jags,my wife has been out in 2 years as well.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
Hope your daughter gets well soon and has a speedy recovery. Fingers crossed you and your wife dodged it.
Best of luck, Malc. And to your good lady wife. You have both had all three vaccinations, haven't you?
When people make mistakes, there is one question. Was it a mistake that was obvious at the time? If not, then they should be allowed it. We all make mistakes, and it is sometimes better to be willing to make a decision and risk being wrong than hesitating and finding it's all gone to hell in a handcart anyway.
This mistake was not only clearly a gargantuan clusterfuck at the time, it actually looks even worse with hindsight. It has literally destroyed Johnson's government and ended his career in spectacular fashion. It may have done significant damage to the party as a whole. It has shattered political unity at a moment when it had become important due to a renewed public health emergency.
And all for Owen Paterson. An undistinguished former middle-ranking cabinet minister who was deep in the politics of the pork barrel and was not likely to stay in politics much longer anyway. Even if the theoretical aim was to protect Johnson or Patel, it was clearly never going to work.
Sheer bloody madness. Johnson deserves every ounce of opprobrium he gets for it.
Have a good morning.
His mistake here was listening to Charles Moore, wasn't it? And why does he listen to an imbecile like Charles Moore? Because he needs the Telegraph pay check once again when his time in Number 10 is over to keep his wife in the style to which she expects to become accustomed.
This is where Boris is most vulnerable. He needs money, lots of money to sustain his families and to live like his richer friends. It will be his downfall but probably not yet.
I would have thought an ex-PM really ought to be able to make much, much more money on the lecture/speech circuit than the Telegraph could ever afford.
I'm not sure the entirety of the current decline in the Tory shares is down to the Owen Paterson saga though. The timing also lines up with fears over Covid.
Lets not forget that the rise back in the Tory share earlier in the year was due to the success of the vaccines in getting us out of Covid. Then people started fearmongering over Omicron etc and restrictions coming back, that pissed all over the government's biggest success.
Any government that is putting restrictions upon its people twelve months after vaccines became available has failed to manage Covid well. That includes the British government.
Though frankly the devolved governments and our continental neighbours have all fared much worse it seems, so a rebound in the polls in the new year could be quite plausible as the vaccines again are shown to be a success and the fearmongering over restrictions is shown to be the bullshit it always was.
Alternatively if restrictions are imposed, then Boris has to be ousted, no ifs, no buts.
There is just no scintilla of an excuse to impose restrictions on the people over a year after vaccines became available. None whatsoever.
Pure projection and patently false. Johnson's polling decline is due to things like Paterson, Peppa, Parties - things which demonstrate beyond doubt to all but the most unwary or disinterested that he is personally unfit for the office he holds. His implementation of some Covid restrictions in response to Omicron has absolutely sweet fa to do with it.
Certainly true six months ago. Now? I am less sure to be honest.
There's a reason that six months ago Boris was on top electorally and right now he isn't.
Ephemera like Peppa isn't it, Boris has always been Boris.
The imposition of restriction in response to Omicron, and the fear of more and the fear that the vaccines haven't led us out of Covid restrictions is the biggest change to is months ago. Not Paterson or anything else.
Perhaps the best thing the Government could do in the new year is to end testing for Covid. People are afraid of "cases" now, not deaths or hospitalisations. If we weren't detecting these cases because we weren't testing for them then there would be no worries. The vaccines are working.
Of course any idiots who aren't vaccinated aren't helping with that, are they @MISTY ?
Sure the vaccines are working, but the government is undermining its own message on that by imposing new restrictions...?
Yes it is. Completely. Care homes have been instructed to limit visitation again.
100% staff vaccination, 100% resident vaccination, boosters, plus all visitors have to take a Covid test before entrance.
All this and still the backward step to limit visitation. I can't think of a better example of not trusting the vaccines.
Is this not just arithmetic?
My son, who is 18 has just had his booster. The chances of him getting seriously ill from Covid must be similar to the chances of being struck by lightning.
I have had my booster which will help enormously, at least in the short term, but as a 60 year old, overweight man with lung issues there is still a significant chance that I will become seriously ill if I get covid. Maybe 1 in 25? Maybe better than that. I am not sure.
My mother in law is 86 next week and increasingly frail. She had her booster nearly 2 months ago now. She is not in a home but that point might come. If she caught Covid the chances of being seriously ill will be much higher, maybe 1 in 5?
So, if you are going to a nursing home with very elderly and frail residents you are going into a high risk environment for them. That makes such restrictions and a requirement for LFTs before a visit, for example, entirely rational. It is not a question of not trusting the vaccines. It is simply recognising that they are not a complete protection.
However if your son gets struck by lightning then that's a much greater tragedy.
The way that some care homes have abandoned all sense of proportion in the face of this virus is a tragedy. My nan spent her first Christmas in a care home this year after being admitted earlier this year. Its tragic, but if I'm honest I don't expect she'll see another one, Covid or no Covid.
This year has been very tough, especially on my grandad, but the restrictions have compounded the matter and made their tragedy even worse. The home she's in (which she's been put into by the NHS, who won't let her be discharged) has gone so far 'above and beyond' the official restrictions its ridiculous. For Christmas they were only allowing one visitor at a time - not one per resident, one total. My grandad had to do the LFT, PPE etc to get ten minutes with his wife and then be told he had to leave so someone else could have a turn.
I'm going to be sad when we inevitably lose my nan, and my grandad is going to be heartbroken, he already is, but what they're being put through in the name of these 'protections' is an inhumane torture. 😢
Off topic, if anyone wants to watch some live steam train action, check out the Keighley and Worth Valley Railway webcam. Train due to depart at 10.50
I spent my birthday on that train many years ago - I had a friend who lived in Haworth and the train was able through a special system to serve draught real ale.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
Hope your daughter gets well soon and has a speedy recovery. Fingers crossed you and your wife dodged it.
thanks, must about the 3rd time maximum, apart from getting jags,my wife has been out in 2 years as well.
Sorry to hear. Hope you both are well enough for Hogmannay and a happy new year.
Almost certainly and we'd have been spared the catastrophe of Brexit. With Boris and Ed we've paid a heavy price for personal ambition.
As a younger brother, I don't see why primogeniture should have a place in a progressive party. Ed was the better of the 2 brothers.
Just imagine what life would have been like as Ed rolled out his Edstone promises via a Coalition of Chaos, rather the political tranquility of the last 6 years...
Politics is odd.
If Corbyn had got in and done half the mad things this lot have done, the whole right wing media and establishment would be up in arms.
Stick a blue rosette on it and they say nah, it’s all fine. Unprecedented spending, nationalisation, broken promises, attacks on civil liberties, fibbing to the queen, corruption, all no problem and brushable under the rug.
It will be interesting to see if actual conservative Conservatives have a renaissance in the post Boris era.
Spent Christmas at my daughter's , they had all taken tests etc , she felt crap next day and just received the wonderful news that she has Covid. Wife is having kittens.
Hope your daughter gets well soon and has a speedy recovery. Fingers crossed you and your wife dodged it.
thanks, must about the 3rd time maximum, apart from getting jags,my wife has been out in 2 years as well.
Best of luck. I shall raise a glass of cask strength turnip juice to the good health of you and your family.
Comments
I don't think the Owen Paterson stuff had much resonance on its own, although it seems likely that it had an effect in Shropshire. The Peppa nonsense was probably not seen by more than a few hundred thousand people. Partygate, however has absolutely cut all the way through - I suspect half the country heard or made some kind of joke this weekend about any festivities being strictly a "work meeting".
The only criticism of Cameron's reforms are two.
Firstly, the quotas are too tight. They were +/- 8.5% of average size. Cutting to 5% made it difficult to keep natural constituencies together. This was done to ensure they were all of similar sizes.
Secondly, in complete opposition to the above equality reasoning, he expanded the number of protected constituencies from 2 to 5 for pure partisan advantage. We don't need them at all in the age of Skype and email.
The Conservative Party has some equally silly people like Swain and Chope. The problem at the moment is they are back seat driving the clown car.
Is this a thing or am I just imagining it?
There has been a month of speculation that such events and crowds would be banned and as of yesterday they are now in three of the four nations of the UK. As far as the crowd at Ally Pally knew at the time (and based on all the reporting) they would be banned by now in England just as they are in Scotland etc today.
As far as the BS line of the public would be more supportive of restrictions is concerned, the public keeps showing their support of restrictions on other people. Those who don't go to nightclubs are happy to see them restricted etc.
I doubt very much the Ally Pally crowd were eagerly anticipating crowd bans, unlike antisocial individuals sat at home filling in surveys for YouGov.
He needs to make a success of the booster roll out. This seems to have been achieved.
He needs to resist further restrictions on liberty because of the success of the booster rollout. That seems plausible.
He needs to be seen to help those who have been hurt by this wave and stop more devastation to our High Streets. That is going to require another £1bn from Rishi at least.
These things are in his control but there are serious issues that aren't.
He needs to reach a more sensible deal with the EU that he can sell to both leavers and remainers. That's possible but problematic.
He needs gas prices to fall sharply before the tariffs are reset. As @rcs1000 has pointed out this depends very much on swing production of gas in the US. Possible, but the timescale looks increasingly tight.
He needs inflation not to become embedded. I think this is going to be way more difficult than the MPC seem to think.
He needs the economy to start growing again. This needs a reduction in international disruption and a return of confidence. It will happen but again the timescale is problematic.
He needs Covid to finally be beaten and no more variants starting the problems all over again. Strictly in the hands of the gods this one.
I think, on balance, he is likely to continue to struggle but it is not impossible that he gets a second go.
The Tories peaked in June. The gap closed extremely slowly till mid- November. Then it suddenly began to be a calamitous collapse, which hasn't abated.
Restrictions may be a factor, but they weren't even being talked about then.
Paterson was.
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/07/our-final-next-tory-leader-survey-johnson-73-per-cent-hunt-27-per-cent-say-those-members-who-have-voted.html
Anyway we do know that the general public aren't the same as ConHome, and it's they who decide elections. My contention is that Hunt may well be more popular with them than Boris in the future. Who knows though. There's a chance Boris can perform an incredible comeback, but he has a lot of hurdles as @DavidL lists below. (Plus not do anything mind-boggling stupid)
Add in a tough economic situation when the new financial year kicks in and I can see them getting a kicking at the locals no matter the leader.
There was one working pit in Wigan MBC during the Strike.
Didn't mean it wasn't a "mining area".
Plan B is more than just restrictions, its everything that goes with it: Fear of Covid, fear of Plan C, fear that the vaccines haven't worked. Fear that things are going to get worse, fear of loss of business, fear of lost lives. Fear of missing your family at Christmas and New Years. Fear of another wrecked Christmas. Fear of holidays ruined.
Basically December has been a month of fear. When vaccines were supposed to be a relief of success in the face of the pandemic, and meant we could put the fear behind us.
Anyone who thinks that fear isn't affecting the polls is I think deluding themselves. And yes that fear will abate in the New Year but that may take a few months for people to understand they can live without that fear again and it will require Plan B to be reversed.
If not then it is the Paterson affair, egregious sleaze and the government party party season.
However. Simply ignoring COVID altogether won't make fear of it go away. However much you wish.
The fact that Reform have not gained much momentum in the real world would tend to support Kinbalu's point that its the parties wot dun it. North Shropshire in particular a poor result for Reform.
It didn't. People notice.
Ironically, the solution you rightly advocate (for defining constituencies) is basically that in place in the USA, where all calculations of electorates for the purposes of defining boundaries have to use the official federal population estimates, ultimately defined by and updated from their census. In the UK, that would require the use of the mid-year adult population estimates broken down by constituency, these being the best official estimates of population in each part of the UK. They are informed by the census and updated using other population trends since, but crucially, in contrast to the electoral register, also contain detailed adjustments to correct for non-responses at the time of the census, adding in an imputed population. Anyone who claimed that the electoral register was a better estimate of the adult population would be laughed out of court by the ONS.
So, is voter suppression really greater in the US than here? Or is it just that it's built into our system by design, and goes under the radar in the UK?
"Two jabs to freedom" they said, "irreversible restrictions" they said. I knew this was all nonsense and I said so.
And yet here we go again, "everything is fine, party like normal". We're utterly screwed, the Government will be somehow shocked when immunity wanes and we're back into hospitals being overwhelmed.
How many times do I have to say it: plan ahead now
They now poll 40%.
They'd blame him if Labour was losing now, so it's only fair to credit him when Labour is doing well.
I maintain, it was Corbyn and Brexit that won GE19, it is that simple
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2021/12/our-next-tory-leader-survey-truss-leads-sunak-by-18-votes.html
https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/27/give-ffp3-masks-to-nhs-staff-omicron-doctors-say
In October we asked our Jewish members how they were finding the Labour Party one year on from the EHRC report.
Our members said the Labour Party is a safer space for Jewish members under Keir Starmer, they trust him to tackle antisemitism and positive changes have been made.
Unjustified fearmongering over Omicron has shat all over the vaccine programme that was the government's greatest success.
And people think that's had no impact on the polls? Seriously? Except it did, it was unjustified fearmongering that caused the problem. The hospitals haven't been overwhelmed, deaths are still down. The whole thing was a false alarm and the vaccines and boosters have worked.
The only plan ahead required is for the next booster campaign for either the Spring or the Autumn. What other planning do you want?
Especially what other planning do you want for the next month or so, given its going to take at least about six months since the booster campaign began before another booster is likely required.
However they are not a Panacea, Covid is not the common Cold or Flu.
My hope is that these 2nd Gen vaccines along with better treatment and drugs in 2022 means that at some point we have an annual jab like Flu and we carry on.
100% staff vaccination, 100% resident vaccination, boosters, plus all visitors have to take a Covid test before entrance.
All this and still the backward step to limit visitation. I can't think of a better example of not trusting the vaccines.
Gove, the levelling-up secretary, wants a radical overhaul of the commercial property tax because he views it as one of the most effective ways of achieving tangible change in crucial red wall seats before the next election.
He is said to be in favour of funding it by introducing an online sales tax, which would effectively add extra VAT to purchases made over the internet. Sunak, the chancellor, is resisting wholesale changes to business rates, which bring in £25 billion per year and are relatively easy to collect in comparison with other taxes. He is said to be sceptical about an online sales tax.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/michael-gove-and-rishi-sunak-at-odds-over-business-rates-9sr9vrc7w
Heading back into town to watch Spider-Man and then brave the sales. Had no idea how expensive good quality bedding was, we've just spent the better part of three grand on a new bed frame, mattress and bed linen this morning!
Definitely enjoying the reports of London being doomed because of the 67% drop in footfall on Boxing Day, ignoring that everything was closed yesterday because it was both a Sunday and public holiday making it pointless for shops to open for just Sunday trading hours and paying staff 2-3x hourly rates to work. Heal's was absolutely packed this morning fwiw.
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
I read somewhere that the poll shifts were Tories moving to “don’t know” - not sure if that is right. If so it could be temporary and mask an underlying structural weakness for Labour
Transfer to Reform/Lib = classic midterm protest
Transfer to Labour = maybe considering an alternative government
Increase in (ex-Tory) don't knows = could be anything, really.
Plus. The vaccines have failed to put a stop to COVID as promised.
Too late now.
My son, who is 18 has just had his booster. The chances of him getting seriously ill from Covid must be similar to the chances of being struck by lightning.
I have had my booster which will help enormously, at least in the short term, but as a 60 year old, overweight man with lung issues there is still a significant chance that I will become seriously ill if I get covid. Maybe 1 in 25? Maybe better than that. I am not sure.
My mother in law is 86 next week and increasingly frail. She had her booster nearly 2 months ago now. She is not in a home but that point might come. If she caught Covid the chances of being seriously ill will be much higher, maybe 1 in 5?
So, if you are going to a nursing home with very elderly and frail residents you are going into a high risk environment for them. That makes such restrictions and a requirement for LFTs before a visit, for example, entirely rational. It is not a question of not trusting the vaccines. It is simply recognising that they are not a complete protection.
However, the greater infectivity of the Omicron variant is going to affect younger people, particularly the un- or partially vaccinated and they are going to have to take time off work.
If they can!
That of course is going to have all sorts of knock-on effects in all sorts of places, as Dr F and Dr ydoethur (tautology) have indicated.
As much as the "progressive alliance" people like to claim otherwise, the Libs are in the same basket as Reform, not Labour. Third party protest. No more, no less.
Though I've spent too long on this site this morning and need to get on with stuff. Have a good day everyone!
Does it count if the good is delivered to a store rather than a home? How about delivery to the corner shop?
It's going to get utterly insane incredibly quickly.
Want to win Red Wall seats, spend money on them nowt else is going to work.
Just imagine what life would have been like as Ed rolled out his Edstone promises via a Coalition of Chaos, rather the political tranquility of the last 6 years...
The way that some care homes have abandoned all sense of proportion in the face of this virus is a tragedy. My nan spent her first Christmas in a care home this year after being admitted earlier this year. Its tragic, but if I'm honest I don't expect she'll see another one, Covid or no Covid.
This year has been very tough, especially on my grandad, but the restrictions have compounded the matter and made their tragedy even worse. The home she's in (which she's been put into by the NHS, who won't let her be discharged) has gone so far 'above and beyond' the official restrictions its ridiculous. For Christmas they were only allowing one visitor at a time - not one per resident, one total. My grandad had to do the LFT, PPE etc to get ten minutes with his wife and then be told he had to leave so someone else could have a turn.
I'm going to be sad when we inevitably lose my nan, and my grandad is going to be heartbroken, he already is, but what they're being put through in the name of these 'protections' is an inhumane torture. 😢
If Corbyn had got in and done half the mad things this lot have done, the whole right wing media and establishment would be up in arms.
Stick a blue rosette on it and they say nah, it’s all fine. Unprecedented spending, nationalisation, broken promises, attacks on civil liberties, fibbing to the queen, corruption, all no problem and brushable under the rug.
It will be interesting to see if actual conservative Conservatives have a renaissance in the post Boris era.