The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
Ukraine is being used by Russia to deplete Russia.
If Russia wants its forces to stop being depleted, then they can retreat out of Ukraine including Donbas and Crimea and agree to pay reparations. Their forces would stop being depleted immediately, if only they'd retreat back to their own borders.
The Ukrainians aren't "caught in the middle", they have the Americans and the West on their side as they defend their own homeland from barbaric invaders who need to be repelled.
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
Commiserations. I don't drink or do recreational drugs, so my life is mostly minimal rises and falls from a happy medium. But just occasionally (usually in early spring, coming out of the darkness of winter, ironically) I will drop like a stone - the most basic tasks in life are like wading through treacle. It is all I can do to not burst into tears.
But I am fortunate. For me they pass, quite quickly. For my mother, she used to have to go into hospital for ECT treatment.
It’s interesting that John Crace, in that Guardian article, refers to his use as a young man of heroin, in relation to his depressive bouts
When I look back on my days of drug abuse, especially heroin, I wonder if it was just a blundering, half-witting attempt at self medication. At least in part
Sure I enjoyed the bliss of that first heroin hit, but I also really liked the way it smoothed my moods. You can’t be depressed on heroin, at least not until you are deep into a terrible addiction, it’s a superb painkiller. It numbs everything so nicely
Xanax does the same. It is also horribly addictive and dangerous
Which is why you wont get Xanax in UK through primary care (GP).
US is another story...
It is almost impossible to get Xanax anywhere in the UK. Even hospitals won’t prescribe it
Probably a sensible approach given its enormous downsides and extremely pleasurable qualities. It is already used recreationally
The negative of this is that GPS are totally clueless if you walk in and say “I have a Xanax problem, can you help”
I did exactly that to my GP about ten years ago and she shrugged and said “so come off them”. That’s it. She seemed unaware that a Xanax withdrawal is dangerous, should be supervised, and can actually kill you
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. Wedge issues like the Windfall Tax make the Tories look like bosses vs the plebs to show up how out of touch with Your Life they are, and then when they u-turn and implement a Windfall Tax Starmer jujst points and says - "we stand up for you against that lot".
Blair won a massive landslide due to the massive tactical ABC vote but Smith would also have won on a smaller scale because the Tories had broken themselves that badly in 92.
The fact that the one policy that SKS has is a completely fucking terrible idea (as a policy rather than as party politics) really doesn't bode well.
Was it a completely fucking terrible idea when the Thatcher government did it over a period of years? Didn't Ed Balls rip the "its ideologically unconservative" argument apart by pointing to its creation and implimentation under Thatcher by Lawson?
"over a period of years" is not a one-off "windfall" which ignores the losses of the previous year.
Laughable. Tories are defending mega profits of Shell and BP saying any new tax is out of order.
Taxes should be predictable.
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
Especially given that massive losses were made during the pandemic, and the companies concerned are facing huge costs as a direct result of government sanctions in Russia.
That triggers a thought.
Announce a big windfall tax and allow the companies to offset with tax loss carry forwards
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
The Tories will probably hold seats like Bishop Auckland, Penistone & Stocksbridge, NE Derbyshire, Ashfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme even if they lose the next election because the majorities in those seats are so large.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
Ukraine is being used by Russia to deplete Russia.
If Russia wants its forces to stop being depleted, then they can retreat out of Ukraine including Donbas and Crimea and agree to pay reparations. Their forces would stop being depleted immediately, if only they'd retreat back to their own borders.
The Ukrainians aren't "caught in the middle", they have the Americans and the West on their side as they defend their own homeland from barbaric invaders who need to be repelled.
And then putin will fall so won't happen,, Realpolitik my friend
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
Talking of Russian depletion, Oryx now has 695 Russian tanks lost. The proportion of those destroyed is going up sharply. The new kit in theatre for the Ukrainians isn't about taking prisoners...
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
Well perhaps if idiot boy blair hadnt tried to get 50% of school leavers going into university and left them training instead for skilled trades we would have more plumbers and less media studies alumni....merely a thought
Sure! But the influx I was talking about was in the early Blair years with a shortage created in the Tory years. Neither big party seems to understand that trades are important, and even now where the problems are more acute this government is good at announcing it is doing things for apprentices whilst not actually doing so.
All parties are good at announcing things and not following through with them sadly. Remind me how your party followed through on the announced tuition policys they ran with in the election? As I have said before the main issue we have is we only have so much money and we are trying to spread it too thin. We need a proper conversation as to whats important and stop doing the rest.
I agree - what is politically possible has shrunk and shrunk until the planning horizon is barely the current budget period, never mind the next election. The reason why this country has shit infrastructure and no strategic control of anything is because we have allowed short-termism to win.
And TBH its the same with so many businesses as well. We used to have shares traded in companies where people bought in for the long term. Which allowed them to invest in multi-generational projects which pay out years after the money gets spent. Instead we're fixated on a quick buck and maximising the quarterly profit projections.
I suspect on the company side at least we could improve things easily by paying bonuses only on long term performance rather than yearly. However that is for shareholders to force through. Sadly most investors are looking for short term results so they can parrot "Our fund made x% over the stock market average" in their literature
On the political side the problem I think is largely down as much as anything is down to the media and tribalism where by everything is opposed regardless of whether it might actually be a good idea dependent on which side proposes it. A good example of this for example was May's 2017 dementia tax. Not saying it was the best solution but at least it was a move towards one and it would nice instead of just statements like evil tories trying to steal your inheritance it had been talked about with a bit of nuance and perhaps some of the problems raised and suggestions how to ameliorate them.
All sides do this for the other side that was just a recent example that came to mind. An example the other way would be Sure start centres.
How we reduce hyperbolic shrieking and tribalism though I have no idea.
An interesting point, especially when you use the Dementia Tax to illustrate it. Remember that for so many Labour voters they won't have a lot of estate to pass on. The hyperbolic shrieking against the policy came from Tories!
The solution to various issues is clearly there and demonstrably works. I can buy energy from EDF, get products delivered by DPD, catch an Arriva bus. All owned by StateCo enterprises ultimately owned by their respective governments. So what we need is for government to say "what kind of stuff do we need" and then ensure those are protected.
As a businessman I am hardly anti-capitalism, but the profit motive is not all there is, and in so many sectors is a disadvantage. Lets take energy as a starter for 10 - we neither have sufficient generating capacity nor control over transmission. Where we start to invest in more capacity we don't have the technical or manufacturing ability. Which means that anything we need whether it be a nuclear power station or wind turbines is made abroad.
We need to create StateCo Energy, StateCo Wind, StateCo Solar etc. Government owned and able to borrow at government rates, but fully commercial. Not only should we be making our own state of the art wind and solar kit, we should be exporting it. Big British industry won't invest in such things both because it is beholden to the stock market but also because the projected economics are entirely beholden to the foibles of future political meddling. So it has to be the state.
The problem is that the state is unpredictable and will tend to underinvest in boring stuff.
You need the debt unconsolidated - may be the state has a 20% stake, a golden share, and provides a paid for guarantee against debt to a certain level
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
Ukraine is being used by Russia to deplete Russia.
If Russia wants its forces to stop being depleted, then they can retreat out of Ukraine including Donbas and Crimea and agree to pay reparations. Their forces would stop being depleted immediately, if only they'd retreat back to their own borders.
The Ukrainians aren't "caught in the middle", they have the Americans and the West on their side as they defend their own homeland from barbaric invaders who need to be repelled.
And then putin will fall so won't happen,, Realpolitik my friend
I don't think realpolitik means what you think it means "my friend".
Realpolitik is not on Russia's side. Realpolitik is that Russia is burning through its military assets faster than it can replenish them, while the Ukrainians aided by NATO are improving their assets faster than they're losing them.
Realpolitik means that Russia is more fucked than a Dockyard Hooker being interviewed on a Casting Couch by their Stepson on Pornhub.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
The Tories will probably hold seats like Bishop Auckland, Penistone & Stocksbridge, NE Derbyshire, Ashfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme even if they lose the next election because the majorities in those seats are so large.
Don't forget Mansfield. When I was a lad in the East Midlands, Mansfield was the sort of place where the council estates would have VO in one house, next door, TE, next door LA, next door BO and next door UR.....
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
Should the Jews have just given up to Hitler? Should the UK have done so, in order to end the Blitz?
Suggesting Ukraine should just give up is not a perfectly legitimate position. Its a position, but not all positions are legitimate.
Russia is doing what the Nazis were doing seventy years ago. Standing up to them is legitimate, pandering to them is contemptible.
Were we having this discussion in 2014 about Crimea? I struggle to remember.
No, mainly because Obama was useless and everyone else realised that, ex-US support, it was pointless to even try and intervene.
When it comes to foreign policy, Obama was truly useless.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 17 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
The US Dollar was established in the 18th Century. And you’re not my friend.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
Talking of Russian depletion, Oryx now has 695 Russian tanks lost. The proportion of those destroyed is going up sharply. The new kit in theatre for the Ukrainians isn't about taking prisoners...
Oryx also mentioned yesterday or the day before that he had a backlog of 300+ Russian losses to get through.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
I disagree. 'Just giving up' in this case means accepting the extinction of democracy in any territory ceded, and the imposition of a regime like that in the existing occupied territories (basically a mafia state similar to current Chechnya.
Advocating for a withdrawal of western support in order to force that outcome deserves a degree of opprobrium, IMO.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
There it is again
Comma comma comma
And “dollar” without The before it. Classic Russian syntax
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
Talking of Russian depletion, Oryx now has 695 Russian tanks lost. The proportion of those destroyed is going up sharply. The new kit in theatre for the Ukrainians isn't about taking prisoners...
Oryx also mentioned yesterday or the day before that he had a backlog of 300+ Russian losses to get through.
The Ukranians are claiming 1,300 Russian tanks. I suspect that’s 20% over the real number.
That there were originally 1,200 Russian tanks deployed, and that they’re now sending out T-62s from the ‘60s to get blown up, suggests that there are not many of that initial deployment remaining.
I’d love to believe that is true. But Twitter is claiming it is fake? 🤷♂️
The express has published it so it must be true…
On this Sky News page too now..
"Russia's counsellor to the UN resigns over war in Ukraine - reports Russia's counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned, according to reports.
Boris Bondarev said "never have I been so ashamed of my country as of 24 February" as he described the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine as "the most serious crime against the people of Russia".
In his resignation letter, he went on to say those who had conceived the war wanted only one thing - "to remain in power forever".
He went on to call Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of a "good illustration of the degradation of this system".
The letter was shared on social media by international lawyer Hillel Neuer."
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
Your final word - "benefits" - being the heart of the problem. They are not benefits. They are not generous. The whole language needs to change before we can reform people's horrendous attitudes to what is one of the worst and most punitive safety nets out there.
Social Security was the previous term and is a far better way to describe the welfare state. The idea that the forrin move here to simultaneously take our jobs and steal our benefits was always laughable. But so weaponised has the issue become that people genuinely do think "benefits" can be lived on, and that asylum seekers get loads of free stuff as opposed to the literally zero cash reality etc etc.
Its not the nature of contribution that was the issue...
So not engaging constructively with the debate but accusingly the WWC or being thick and racist. Ok, noted.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
Ukraine is being used by Russia to deplete Russia.
If Russia wants its forces to stop being depleted, then they can retreat out of Ukraine including Donbas and Crimea and agree to pay reparations. Their forces would stop being depleted immediately, if only they'd retreat back to their own borders.
The Ukrainians aren't "caught in the middle", they have the Americans and the West on their side as they defend their own homeland from barbaric invaders who need to be repelled.
Sounds like GaryL is a bot, or has swallowed the Kremlin's narrative hook, line and sinker.
Ukraine has been invaded by the USSR and is defending itself as that is what Ukraine wants to do - they know that if they stop fighting, they will be annihilated as a people and as a nation.
The US and the West are helping Ukraine to do what Ukraine wants to do. The Ukraine is not doing anyone's bidding but their own.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
There it is again
Comma comma comma
And “dollar” without The before it. Classic Russian syntax
Problem with taking too many drugs Leon is they fry the brain and cause paranoia Please stop seeing Russian conspiracies everywhere its not good for your mental health
On topic, this is an interesting read. A guardian politics writer who confesses to a life of anxiety and depression, who tries a trendy breathing technique and says it REALLY WORKS
I’ve heard this multiple times now. From smart people. This and the Wim Hof method, and others like them, seem to be highly effective
Have any PB-ers tried any of these techniques? Any good?
I’m not anxious or depressed right now, but the black dog is not unknown in my backyard, and it would be good to have a stick to hit him with - if and when he ever shows up again
Doesn't surprise me that they work. Whilst I haven't paid anyone £200 for a session I do copy many of the techniques, especially the breathe deeply through your mouth thing. Its the only thing that gets major anxiety attacks back under control.
Interesting, thanks
I don’t get anxiety attacks but I do get the Blue Meanies, as we have discussed, and apparently these techniques are good for that as well
I’ve downloaded the app just in case
What is/are the Blue Meanies?
Sudden fits of endogenous depression. I don’t get them often, and only rarely have they been severe, but when they are severe: eeek
When I get those I sleep for 2 days and it all seems better
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
Swingback comes from where it always comes from - the opposition, having spent several years merely criticising the government (which is always easy and usually popular) get to an election campaign and have to put themselves forward as an alternative government with some actual policies. This invariably turns off a number of people - whether that number if larger or smaller then becomes the key factor.
For all of the (justified) criticism of Starmer not offering much in the way of policies yet, I think he's doing enough. Wedge issues like the Windfall Tax make the Tories look like bosses vs the plebs to show up how out of touch with Your Life they are, and then when they u-turn and implement a Windfall Tax Starmer jujst points and says - "we stand up for you against that lot".
Blair won a massive landslide due to the massive tactical ABC vote but Smith would also have won on a smaller scale because the Tories had broken themselves that badly in 92.
The fact that the one policy that SKS has is a completely fucking terrible idea (as a policy rather than as party politics) really doesn't bode well.
Was it a completely fucking terrible idea when the Thatcher government did it over a period of years? Didn't Ed Balls rip the "its ideologically unconservative" argument apart by pointing to its creation and implimentation under Thatcher by Lawson?
"over a period of years" is not a one-off "windfall" which ignores the losses of the previous year.
Laughable. Tories are defending mega profits of Shell and BP saying any new tax is out of order.
Taxes should be predictable.
If you make lots of profits it’s fine to have a progressive tax rate (we do on income and, to a limited extent, corporation tax).
But coming back after the event and saying “you made lots of money we are increasing your taxes retrospectively” is capricious
Especially given that massive losses were made during the pandemic, and the companies concerned are facing huge costs as a direct result of government sanctions in Russia.
That triggers a thought.
Announce a big windfall tax and allow the companies to offset with tax loss carry forwards
That would be one way. The other would be allow for some of the tax to be mitigated through infrastructural improvements. This then removes the objection that such a windfall tax discourages investment
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
The Tories will probably hold seats like Bishop Auckland, Penistone & Stocksbridge, NE Derbyshire, Ashfield, Newcastle-under-Lyme even if they lose the next election because the majorities in those seats are so large.
Don't forget Mansfield. When I was a lad in the East Midlands, Mansfield was the sort of place where the council estates would have VO in one house, next door, TE, next door LA, next door BO and next door UR.....
Presumably because Mansfield used to be all about the coal mine, and now it isn't.
How many of the red-to-blue wall shifts have been caused by this? Former mining/industrial towns now being more middle class commuter hubs?
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
The fix was for Labour to have done it back in 2005 as they changed education by treating education between the ages of 16 to 18 as the initial contribution.
Back I've only being saying that since about 2004 when the problem first appeared...
Agreed. I said it earlier on the thread… but can’t prove I was saying it in 2004…
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
There it is again
Comma comma comma
And “dollar” without The before it. Classic Russian syntax
The odd punctuation isn't normally associated with native Russian speakers though.
A few years ago Twitter identified that Bangladesh was being used to run state-sponsored fake accounts, so maybe Russia is outsourcing its trolling?
Why this is the telegraph if Ukraine is on the verge of winning
Western resolve set to be tested as key US and EU figures want Ukraine to cede territory
The inevitable outcome may be a compromise, but as the balance shifts there is more fighting to be done before either side will accept one
ByRoland Oliphant, SENIOR FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT22 May 2022 • 8:03pm
We know German and France want this all to be over and would happily give up Ukrainian territory to make that happen.
The telegraph has nothing new
Compromising with butchers who have murdered civilians and used rape as a weapon of war would be a tough pill to swallow and ceding territory and citizens to them inexcusable.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
Talking of Russian depletion, Oryx now has 695 Russian tanks lost. The proportion of those destroyed is going up sharply. The new kit in theatre for the Ukrainians isn't about taking prisoners...
Oryx also mentioned yesterday or the day before that he had a backlog of 300+ Russian losses to get through.
The Ukranians are claiming 1,300 Russian tanks. I suspect that’s 20% over the real number.
That there were originally 1,200 Russian tanks deployed, and that they’re now sending out T-62s from the ‘60s to get blown up, suggests that there are not many of that initial deployment remaining.
And that is why Russia is so royally fucked and so increasingly desperate to want the West to stand down.
As time goes by Russia has no alternative but to use increasingly inferior equipment from storage as they've ran out of their good stuff and can't replace it. They don't have the self-sufficient military industrial complex required for a long war.
Meanwhile Ukraine is getting access to ever-better levels of equipment, and they're getting the skills, experience and training to use it too.
Logistics wins wars and the logistics only aid one side. That is the realpolitik and that is why Zelenskyy is right to make it clear that he will not support the loss of any territory.
Indeed if possibly, when they're ready for a counter-offensive, Zelenskyy should be looking to end this conflict not just at pre-war borders, but liberating their territories that Russia invaded in 2014. They'll never have a better opportunity to do so.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
Schleswig-Holstein and CorsicaAlsace–Lorraine?
You really offering Russia direct access to the North Sea?
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
I asked Gary yesterday a couple of times yesterday what he believes would be reasonable territorial concessions by Ukraine, and received no answer.
AFAIKS, he's just arguing Ukraine and its backers should just give up. As you say, the decision is going to be Zelensky's, and by extension Ukraine's, as it remains a democracy. The Gary line seems to be that we should force him to compromise for his own good.
They are not viewpoints that should excite such opprobrium in other posters. It is perfectly understandable to say someone in a war should "just give up". You could have said it in relation to just about every conflict of the past 2,000 years. You don't think Ukraine should just give up and that is also a perfectly legitimate position to hold.
It’s the good faith issue.
This site thrives because we have a free flowing and rational debate. Doesn’t really matter that no one changes their mind.
If you have a bot or troll just pushing out a fixed series of lines then it dilutes the quality of the whole. As a self-policing community (sorry mods) it is incumbent on all of us to stand up to that
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
Talking of Russian depletion, Oryx now has 695 Russian tanks lost. The proportion of those destroyed is going up sharply. The new kit in theatre for the Ukrainians isn't about taking prisoners...
Oryx also mentioned yesterday or the day before that he had a backlog of 300+ Russian losses to get through.
The Ukranians are claiming 1,300 Russian tanks. I suspect that’s 20% over the real number.
That there were originally 1,200 Russian tanks deployed, and that they’re now sending out T-62s from the ‘60s to get blown up, suggests that there are not many of that initial deployment remaining.
And that is why Russia is so royally fucked and so increasingly desperate to want the West to stand down.
As time goes by Russia has no alternative but to use increasingly inferior equipment from storage as they've ran out of their good stuff and can't replace it. They don't have the self-sufficient military industrial complex required for a long war.
Meanwhile Ukraine is getting access to ever-better levels of equipment, and they're getting the skills, experience and training to use it too.
Logistics wins wars and the logistics only aid one side. That is the realpolitik and that is why Zelenskyy is right to make it clear that he will not support the loss of any territory.
Indeed if possibly, when they're ready for a counter-offensive, Zelenskyy should be looking to end this conflict not just at pre-war borders, but liberating their territories that Russia invaded in 2014. They'll never have a better opportunity to do so.
And the balance of trained manpower is moving in Ukraine's favour. Although there was a report that Ukraine is losing 100 casualties a day in the Donbas, they are close to the point of having 900,000 trained combat troops. And their training on Western systems is constantly improving their military impact.
Whereas Russia started with nearly 200k in country and are now having problems manning 90+ understrength BTGs, i.e. less than 100k in country. And their replacements are less and less trained, older and less fit, and poorly equipped (in some instances, trainers, not boots; WW2 helmets and no body armour; WW1 vintage rifles).
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
There it is again
Comma comma comma
And “dollar” without The before it. Classic Russian syntax
The odd punctuation isn't normally associated with native Russian speakers though.
A few years ago Twitter identified that Bangladesh was being used to run state-sponsored fake accounts, so maybe Russia is outsourcing its trolling?
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
That's not an answer just pure emotion Please try and think
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
That's not an answer just pure emotion Please try and think
It wasn’t a valid question in my opinion. There is no corner. Putin is not trapped. He can, and must, withdraw.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
BIB: This is, of course, literally the definition of the Red Wall - seats that demographically should have turned Tory but were for cutural and historical reasons still Labour.
However. It is not how it is commonly used. There are dozens more which didn't go Tory in 2019 so could by this definition. In more common usage, however, there are plenty of "Red Wall" seats which are actually just marginals. They simply went Tory because they won an 80 seat majority.
Marginals will go with the majority yes, but the Red Wall in its truest sense of the term is not the same.
While some people object to FPTP because of "safe seats" it is worth noting that no seat is guaranteed to remain safe, and equally marginal seats can become safe. All safe seats are, are seats where the public currently has made up its mind, but they can always change it.
To highlight three seats:
Warrington South, Cheshire, was Labour from 1992 to 2010, regained by Labour in 2017 and regained by the Tories in 2019. Its been a marginal high up the target list for whichever party hasn't held it almost consistently. Indeed I campaigned for Mowat in this seat in 2015 and was chuffed when he was re-elected, I expected him to sadly lose the seat and the BBC exit poll (wrongly) projected he would even when it was predicting a good night for the Tories. I expect if the Tories lose the next election, this will go back to Labour again.
South Ribble, Lancashire, was Labour 1997 to 2010 but the majority has only widened at every election since (even 2017) and now has an outright majority of votes cast for the Tories and a nearly 21% majority. Be a shock if this went back to Labour even if they won a majority now.
Esher and Walton, Surrey, was Tory from 1997 to date and had an over 50% majority in 2015 but is now a marginal with a majority down to 4.4% and will probably be lost by the Tories at the next election whether they win or lose a majority.
The next election could see Tories losing seats in Surrey while holding seats in the North. That may not be a bad thing for the party or the country.
I'd love to see an analysis of the below points by someone in command of the numbers:
- In which seats did the Brexit Party not stand aside in the last election? - How many votes did the Brexit Party receive in these seats? - Which way are these voters likely to go in the next election?
If there is Tory comeback in the next election the above may play a role in it.
P.S. I agree that Livingstone was not 'discredited' until after Johnson beat him the second time. I would pinpoint the 'Hitler was a Zionist' interview as the moment he could be categorised in the same group as Corbyn.
I'm not an expert and someone has probably done a thorough analysis, but the headlines would be:
(1) Mostly seats that the Tories didn't already hold - IIRC they only stood aside in seats already held by the Tories (2) They got a total of 644,257 votes in 275 seats - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brexit_Party_election_results#Results_by_constituency has the full list which is sortable. (3) The Hartlepool by-election suggests that they would predominantly lean Tory, though how well that sticks until 2024/5 is anyone's guess.
The absence of Reform/BXP could make the Sunderland seats interesting (contingent on a Tory recovery/swingback), similarly Wansbeck
Wansbeck won't exist after boundary reform. The Labour bit, Ashington, is going to Blyth and Ashington. Solid Labour. The Tory bit, Morpeth, is going to Berwick. Solid Tory.
Edit. No clue what happened to block quote there.
True, true, i was scouting the existing stuff. Sunderland Central looks the most likely interesting seat of the 3 former Sunderland seats
Sunderland is a university city with heaps of redevelopment. I can see it becoming more like Newcastle rather than more like Co. Durham.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
You should read up on the Eurodollar market (Midland) and the Eurobond market (Siggy).
They were absolutely not wanted by the US but were a response to Kennedy’s tax policy. They only later accepted it as a fait accompli
These are some of the guys most forcibly arguing abortion bans. This would seem to indicate their utter disregard for women's interests.
Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says Among the findings was a previously unknown case of a pastor who was credibly accused of assaulting a woman a month after leaving the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
Schleswig-Holstein and CorsicaAlsace–Lorraine?
You really offering Russia direct access to the North Sea?
These are some of the guys most forcibly arguing abortion bans. This would seem to indicate their utter disregard for women's interests.
Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says Among the findings was a previously unknown case of a pastor who was credibly accused of assaulting a woman a month after leaving the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/
Care for the unborn child is distinct from care for womens' rights. Although obviously both need to be protected as far as possible and that is the key balance in the abortion debate
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
Not only would I not argue it it is exactly what I said also. It is up to Ukraine.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
If you think increasing the share of voters who hate the Tories because they can't get on the property ladder is the best way of holding off the Lib Dems then you are utterly delusional.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
That possible outcome is part of the strategic calculus, yes. I don’t believe he will give that order, and I’m confident that even if he did then it wouldn’t be executed. But it’s certainly a scenario to be considered.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
Gary Lavrov???? All this time I was thinking it was Gary Lineker.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Russia doesn't want to be depleted, it should take its army back to Russia.
Talking of Russian depletion, Oryx now has 695 Russian tanks lost. The proportion of those destroyed is going up sharply. The new kit in theatre for the Ukrainians isn't about taking prisoners...
Oryx also mentioned yesterday or the day before that he had a backlog of 300+ Russian losses to get through.
The Ukranians are claiming 1,300 Russian tanks. I suspect that’s 20% over the real number.
That there were originally 1,200 Russian tanks deployed, and that they’re now sending out T-62s from the ‘60s to get blown up, suggests that there are not many of that initial deployment remaining.
And that is why Russia is so royally fucked and so increasingly desperate to want the West to stand down.
As time goes by Russia has no alternative but to use increasingly inferior equipment from storage as they've ran out of their good stuff and can't replace it. They don't have the self-sufficient military industrial complex required for a long war.
Meanwhile Ukraine is getting access to ever-better levels of equipment, and they're getting the skills, experience and training to use it too.
Logistics wins wars and the logistics only aid one side. That is the realpolitik and that is why Zelenskyy is right to make it clear that he will not support the loss of any territory.
Indeed if possibly, when they're ready for a counter-offensive, Zelenskyy should be looking to end this conflict not just at pre-war borders, but liberating their territories that Russia invaded in 2014. They'll never have a better opportunity to do so.
And the balance of trained manpower is moving in Ukraine's favour. Although there was a report that Ukraine is losing 100 casualties a day in the Donbas, they are close to the point of having 900,000 trained combat troops. And their training on Western systems is constantly improving their military impact.
Whereas Russia started with nearly 200k in country and are now having problems manning 90+ understrength BTGs, i.e. less than 100k in country. And their replacements are less and less trained, older and less fit, and poorly equipped (in some instances, trainers, not boots; WW2 helmets and no body armour; WW1 vintage rifles).
And no planes flying over the Defeat of Nazism Parade earlier this month....
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
Schleswig-Holstein and CorsicaAlsace–Lorraine?
You really offering Russia direct access to the North Sea?
The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
I therefore conclude that @GaryL is a young gay Russian who hones his English on Twitter
Fascinating. From trying to read this as it was explained, my conclusion from the link, is that the comma ellipsis is to be read in exactly the same tone of voice as the classic ellipsis, but with a meaningful widening of the eyes.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
If you think increasing the share of voters who hate the Tories because they can't get on the property ladder is the best way of holding off the Lib Dems then you are utterly delusional.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
If you think increasing the number of homes built in the greenbelt in the South East is the best way of holding off the Liberal Democrats you are delusional.
It is not low levels of home ownership costing the Tories in the South unlike London, it is building too much in the greenbelt and opposition to Brexit in the most affluent areas. On the latter that is a factor the most affluent areas of the South East share with London unlike pro Brexit sentiment in the North and Midlands
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
They have been trying to push back to the 2014 borders since 2014 and failing. That seems a very unlikely prospect. Some semblance of the pre-Feb 2022 borders might be possible but realistically all of the Lugansk oblast and most of Donetsk are gone.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
That threat has been consistent since the start of the Cold War. The only rational answer is to assume that the Russian regime will in the end act out of rational self preservation.
Perhaps now you'd like to answer some of my questions for a change ?
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
Then Moscow and St. Petersburg are destroyed an hour later. I'm not saying that this is a threat or saying that this is a desirable outcome, just explaining why he probably won't see that as a desirable way forward. Putin may be under-informed about the willingness of Ukraine to defend itself, but he knows the protocol should he launch a nuclear attack. He's dangerous, but he's not dangerous AND stupid.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
If you think increasing the share of voters who hate the Tories because they can't get on the property ladder is the best way of holding off the Lib Dems then you are utterly delusional.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
If you think increasing the number of homes built in the greenbelt in the South East is the best way of holding off the Liberal Democrats you are delusional.
It is not low levels of home ownership costing the Tories in the South unlike London, it is building too much in the greenbelt and opposition to Brexit in the most affluent areas. On the latter that is a factor the most affluent areas of the South East share with London unlike pro Brexit sentiment in the North and Midlands
Allowing the building of more homes in areas of high demand, is good governance.
It’s what governments with large majorities should be doing. If governments don’t dare to do anything because it might be unpopular, then nothing ever gets done.
These are some of the guys most forcibly arguing abortion bans. This would seem to indicate their utter disregard for women's interests.
Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says Among the findings was a previously unknown case of a pastor who was credibly accused of assaulting a woman a month after leaving the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/
There is nothing new about bad people attaching themselves to a cause. Nor are ad hominem points a novelty.
The interesting discussion, as always, is between decent people, who apply rules to themselves as well as others, think there is a case for both sides on tricky questions, don't demonise others as extremists and are prepared to change their minds.
Religious people who support choice and feminists who are anti abortion are more interesting places to look than narcissistic fundamentalists.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
If Vladimir Putin and Russia hadn't launched an unprovoked violent military attack on another country we wouldn't need all these various takes about how the US are playing things in response to it. Neither would all these people be getting killed, maimed and dispossessed.
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
Yet the vast majority of EU citizens, who were working, were eligible for tax from day 1.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
If you think increasing the share of voters who hate the Tories because they can't get on the property ladder is the best way of holding off the Lib Dems then you are utterly delusional.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
If you think increasing the number of homes built in the greenbelt in the South East is the best way of holding off the Liberal Democrats you are delusional.
It is not low levels of home ownership costing the Tories in the South unlike London, it is building too much in the greenbelt and opposition to Brexit in the most affluent areas. On the latter that is a factor the most affluent areas of the South East share with London unlike pro Brexit sentiment in the North and Midlands
It absolutely is the lower level of home ownership.
Home ownership used to be in the high 70s. Its now fallen down to the mid 60s and is falling fast.
What you're losing in not having home owners, you're not recuperating elsewhere, so you're losing share.
'Building too much' is a myth shared by NIMBYs looking for excuses, it simply isn't happening, if it was then the home ownership rate would be increasing not falling. 🤦♂️
A PM that doesn’t know who paid for his wallpaper, a PM that doesn’t know who called a meeting with Sue Gray, a PM that can’t recall the detail of his meets with a Russian Peer, a PM that doesn’t know if a party is going on in his own house. Cover up merchant! https://twitter.com/GNev2/status/1528305853983600641
Gary Neville doesn't like the Tory Prime Minister?
If Boris loses other top political commentators like Gary Linekar then how can he survive? 😱
Who do you suppose "the public" (or a greater proportion of it) knows better - Garys Neville and Lineker or Dan Hodges?
No question, Neville and Linekar.
But luvvies or celebrities holding strong political opinions is nothing new and is baked in already.
Neville being against a Tory is about as newsworthy as Morrissey being against the establishment, or a steak.
So hoorah, more Tory governments who increase NI in preference to income tax to retain the elderly (and incidentally nimby) vote, you must be pleased
Not at all.
Not to do a HYUFD but the red lights are flashing that the Tories will lose the next election if they are unable to win back erstwhile Tory voters, of which there are numerous on this site including not just myself.
That doesn't include people like Neville. Neville being against the Tories is as shocking as Corbyn being against them. Nothing he has ever said has ever given the impression that he is a swing voter.
GNev is a Labour member now, so you're right that his political outrage is hardly a surprise.
But look at who he is, who he reaches, and what he is saying. There is harsh reality that the economic condition millions are enduring is increasingly harsh and we haven't even got into the bad stuff yet. GNev is saying what people are experiencing, and the Tories are still either saying "what crisis, here's all we've done for you workshy plebs" or saying "poor people are lazy and stupid, its their own fault".
Either way I can't see where the Swingback comes from once the connection to anything other than their core vote has snapped. We will see next month - when both seats are lost perhaps they will start getting the message that Boris is a shit Marlon Brando and this is Apocalpyse Now.
I doubt he’d have got an end to freedom of movement, but he could have managed a qualification period for benefits
There is no freedom of movement! You cannot move to Spain with no means of supporting yourself - you have to work or have € in the bank. Had we had a clampdown on "benefits tourists" that would have taken a huge amount of the sting away. Besides which the reason we needed such an influx of polish plumbers was because you couldn't get a plumber because proper jobs and training had largely been scrapped.
The issue with the UK was that we had a non contributory welfare system. Maastricht meant all EU citizens had the same rights as UK citizens so effectively they could move without a means to support themselves.
I don’t think a shift to a contributory welfare system for all UK citizens was feasible (I’m sure you, for example, would have bitched about ‘heartless Tories’). But they could have got a system where EU citizens had to be in the UK for say 2 years to be eligible for benefits
Your final word - "benefits" - being the heart of the problem. They are not benefits. They are not generous. The whole language needs to change before we can reform people's horrendous attitudes to what is one of the worst and most punitive safety nets out there.
Social Security was the previous term and is a far better way to describe the welfare state. The idea that the forrin move here to simultaneously take our jobs and steal our benefits was always laughable. But so weaponised has the issue become that people genuinely do think "benefits" can be lived on, and that asylum seekers get loads of free stuff as opposed to the literally zero cash reality etc etc.
Its not the nature of contribution that was the issue...
So not engaging constructively with the debate but accusingly the WWC or being thick and racist. Ok, noted.
Huh? I literally engaged with the debate about contributory vs non-contributory by pointing to the wider context.
As for the WWC I didn't mention them. So many of the people I am referring to would be horrified to be described as working class.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
Not only would I not argue it it is exactly what I said also. It is up to Ukraine.
Some say Russia must not win, others say Ukraine must not lose. I believe it is time to drop unnecessary doubts and complications and formulate the aim clearly: Ukraine must win. Then build policies upon it. Setting clear goals makes ways to achieve them easier. https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1528073185194811396
I therefore conclude that @GaryL is a young gay Russian who hones his English on Twitter
He seems harmless
I mainly wonder why anyone would pay someone for this kind of ineffective shit, and my current hypothesis is that they don't: either this is unpaid intern kinda trolling, or Gazza is working purely independently to construct a trolling portfolio he can take to prospective employers whrn he has built up a substantial body of work.
The more support the West provides to Ukraine the greater the chance that their counteroffensive succeeds, and the stronger their bargaining position in any future negotiation.
If we judge by deeds not words then the west don't want Ukraine to win, they just want to use the country as a punching bag against which the Russians can deplete themselves.
There is a A LOT more the west could and would do if they actually wanted Ukraine to win; whatever that means. Biden could pressure Poland, Slovakia and Bulgaria to hand over their Fulcrum/Frogfoot fleets in very short order backfilling from F-16s at AMARC. (The US has over 900 in storage). Why doesn't he if the goal is to enable Ukraine to win?
Yes there is the view that Ukraine is being used by the USA to deplete Russia The basis of us power is the dollar as a petrocurrency Russia trading energy in rubles threatens this unfortunately the ukrainian people are caught in the middle
There was a view that there would be Russian flags flying in Kiev by the first week of March. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t total bollocks.
Read up on the history of the US Dollar my friend,,,US established Dollar as petrocurrency so they could print money at will in exchange for good and services from abroad
There it is again
Comma comma comma
And “dollar” without The before it. Classic Russian syntax
The odd punctuation isn't normally associated with native Russian speakers though.
A few years ago Twitter identified that Bangladesh was being used to run state-sponsored fake accounts, so maybe Russia is outsourcing its trolling?
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South.
Snipped right there. I remember a long discussion on here about wearside. You opined at length about how wearsiders thought and who they were. We then moved onto the nature of Houghton-le-Spring. I had to point out that someone who lived there for 4 years I knew more about it than you did who had never even visited. Yet you still foamed on.
And more recently your views on Liverpool. And how it is the most socialist city in the UK as proven so you claimed by it having 12 years of LibDem councils.
So please, remove that massive plank from your own eye. You massive plank.
I therefore conclude that @GaryL is a young gay Russian who hones his English on Twitter
He seems harmless
I mainly wonder why anyone would pay someone for this kind of ineffective shit, and my current hypothesis is that they don't: either this is unpaid intern kinda trolling, or Gazza is working purely independently to construct a trolling portfolio he can take to prospective employers whrn he has built up a substantial body of work.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
Then Moscow and St. Petersburg are destroyed an hour later. I'm not saying that this is a threat or saying that this is a desirable outcome, just explaining why he probably won't see that as a desirable way forward. Putin may be under-informed about the willingness of Ukraine to defend itself, but he knows the protocol should he launch a nuclear attack. He's dangerous, but he's not dangerous AND stupid.
No its worse he is dangerous and possibly mad, in the last 6 weeks or so I have come to the conclusion that most of the leadership of Russia is frothing at the brain. Personally I think we are more likely to get world war 3 coming on us now than at any time since the cuban missile incident.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
Really I'm glad you think russia poses no nuclear threat
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
Not only would I not argue it it is exactly what I said also. It is up to Ukraine.
Some say Russia must not win, others say Ukraine must not lose. I believe it is time to drop unnecessary doubts and complications and formulate the aim clearly: Ukraine must win. Then build policies upon it. Setting clear goals makes ways to achieve them easier. https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1528073185194811396
That is exceptionally clear thinking and communication.
The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
That's not an answer just pure emotion Please try and think
Putin controls the entire media in his country. He can easily justify any outcome and remain fairly secure in power.
Unless he really is dying of cancer - but there's not a lot we can do about that.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
Really I'm glad you think russia poses no nuclear threat
Given the state of the USSR Russian military so far mainly being run-down handmedowns from the USSR, it probably isn't that big of a threat. It wouldn't surprise me if the weapons have just been kept in storage where the fissionable material has decayed and the money earmarked for nuclear weapons maintenance has found more pressing demands instead. Like villas, Swiss bank accounts etc
I therefore conclude that @GaryL is a young gay Russian who hones his English on Twitter
He seems harmless
I mainly wonder why anyone would pay someone for this kind of ineffective shit, and my current hypothesis is that they don't: either this is unpaid intern kinda trolling, or Gazza is working purely independently to construct a trolling portfolio he can take to prospective employers whrn he has built up a substantial body of work.
“What did you do in the war granddad?”
“I was part of a special operative team posting on an obscure political blog in Britain”
“Wow that must have been terrifying”
“It was young Nikita but I tell you the worst day, it was a cold day in February and my handler took me to one side and told me I was ready, I was so excited until they gave me my code-name; Gary. The pain will last forever.”
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South.
Snipped right there. I remember a long discussion on here about wearside. You opined at length about how wearsiders thought and who they were. We then moved onto the nature of Houghton-le-Spring. I had to point out that someone who lived there for 4 years I knew more about it than you did who had never even visited. Yet you still foamed on.
And more recently your views on Liverpool. And how it is the most socialist city in the UK as proven so you claimed by it having 12 years of LibDem councils.
So please, remove that massive plank from your own eye. You massive plank.
The evidence however is clear, every constituency in Liverpool voted for Corbyn Labour and it has a Labour Council. Liverpool is a socialist city.
The evidence is also clear that in the South East outside London is has a home ownership rate higher than the North still. Any shift away from the Tories there, especially in local elections but also the Chesham and Amersham by election, has not been to Labour but to the Liberal Democrats over excess building in the countryside. Plus in the most affluent areas over Brexit
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
Really I'm glad you think russia poses no nuclear threat
Given the state of the USSR Russian military so far mainly being run-down handmedowns from the USSR, it probably isn't that big of a threat. It wouldn't surprise me if the weapons have just been kept in storage where the fissionable material has decayed and the money earmarked for nuclear weapons maintenance has found more pressing demands instead. Like villas, Swiss bank accounts etc
I therefore conclude that @GaryL is a young gay Russian who hones his English on Twitter
He seems harmless
I mainly wonder why anyone would pay someone for this kind of ineffective shit, and my current hypothesis is that they don't: either this is unpaid intern kinda trolling, or Gazza is working purely independently to construct a trolling portfolio he can take to prospective employers whrn he has built up a substantial body of work.
“What did you do in the war granddad?”
“I was part of a special operative team posting on an obscure political blog in Britain”
“Wow that must have been terrifying”
“It was young Nikita but I tell you the worst day, it was a cold day in February and my handler took me to one side and told me I was ready, I was so excited until they gave me my code-name; Gary. The pain will last forever.”
I know two Garys. They are the two most cheerful men I know. Men of absolutely overwhelming positivity. A trait which I'm sure will serve our new friend handsomely when he is drafted and sent off with some leftover second world war kit to be shot at in a muddy Donbas field.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
If you think increasing the share of voters who hate the Tories because they can't get on the property ladder is the best way of holding off the Lib Dems then you are utterly delusional.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
If you think increasing the number of homes built in the greenbelt in the South East is the best way of holding off the Liberal Democrats you are delusional.
It is not low levels of home ownership costing the Tories in the South unlike London, it is building too much in the greenbelt and opposition to Brexit in the most affluent areas. On the latter that is a factor the most affluent areas of the South East share with London unlike pro Brexit sentiment in the North and Midlands
Allowing the building of more homes in areas of high demand, is good governance.
It’s what governments with large majorities should be doing. If governments don’t dare to do anything because it might be unpopular, then nothing ever gets done.
If this government builds vast numbers of new homes in the greenbelt without proper infrastructure then it will lose dozens of seats in the South East to the Liberal Democrats, Chesham and Amersham will become a trend.
The threat in the South East is too much building in the greenbelt not low home ownership levels like London
The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
Really I'm glad you think russia poses no nuclear threat
Given the state of the USSR Russian military so far mainly being run-down handmedowns from the USSR, it probably isn't that big of a threat. It wouldn't surprise me if the weapons have just been kept in storage where the fissionable material has decayed and the money earmarked for nuclear weapons maintenance has found more pressing demands instead. Like villas, Swiss bank accounts etc
Tritium is $30K a gram. A modern nuclear warhead contains 5 grams or so.
Without it, the primary would yield perhaps 300 tons - no boosting. Tons, not kilotons or megatons. More than half of that yield would be prompt radiation.
If it has ben replaced with the obvious fake - normal hydrogen - then there would be a fizzle with no significant yield.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
Then Moscow and St. Petersburg are destroyed an hour later. I'm not saying that this is a threat or saying that this is a desirable outcome, just explaining why he probably won't see that as a desirable way forward. Putin may be under-informed about the willingness of Ukraine to defend itself, but he knows the protocol should he launch a nuclear attack. He's dangerous, but he's not dangerous AND stupid.
Does he? Because I don't and I highly doubt you do. Or indeed that there is a protocol at all. If I were Biden and had just seen NYC going mushroom shaped I can see myself saying Aaaah fuck it, the value of our missiles was only ever in the threat, what's the point in retaliation? I can also see Putin thinking that Biden might think that, and thinking that Stalingrad and leningrad got over WW2 and Moscow got over 1812 and the presidential bunker is not in any of those places anyway and I am dying of cancer. Reports of the non-nucularity of 2022 are exaggerated and previous.
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South.
Snipped right there. I remember a long discussion on here about wearside. You opined at length about how wearsiders thought and who they were. We then moved onto the nature of Houghton-le-Spring. I had to point out that someone who lived there for 4 years I knew more about it than you did who had never even visited. Yet you still foamed on.
And more recently your views on Liverpool. And how it is the most socialist city in the UK as proven so you claimed by it having 12 years of LibDem councils.
So please, remove that massive plank from your own eye. You massive plank.
The evidence however is clear, every constituency in Liverpool voted for Corbyn Labour and it has a Labour Council. Liverpool is a socialist city.
The evidence is also clear that in the South East outside London is has a home ownership rate higher than the North still. Any shift away from the Tories there, especially in local elections but also the Chesham and Amersham by election, has not been to Labour but to the Liberal Democrats over excess building in the countryside. Plus in the most affluent areas over Brexit
There's no such thing as 'excess building' which is why the share of homeowners is going down, which is why the Tory vote share is also going down.
As the primary opponents to the Tories in the South, the rise in non-homeowners (who universally don't vote Tory in general) is benefitting the Lib Dems to the detriment of the Tories.
That is the inevitable and justified reaction to your NIMBYism. Good, you deserve it.
The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
If you think increasing the share of voters who hate the Tories because they can't get on the property ladder is the best way of holding off the Lib Dems then you are utterly delusional.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
If you think increasing the number of homes built in the greenbelt in the South East is the best way of holding off the Liberal Democrats you are delusional.
It is not low levels of home ownership costing the Tories in the South unlike London, it is building too much in the greenbelt and opposition to Brexit in the most affluent areas. On the latter that is a factor the most affluent areas of the South East share with London unlike pro Brexit sentiment in the North and Midlands
It absolutely is the lower level of home ownership.
Home ownership used to be in the high 70s. Its now fallen down to the mid 60s and is falling fast.
What you're losing in not having home owners, you're not recuperating elsewhere, so you're losing share.
'Building too much' is a myth shared by NIMBYs looking for excuses, it simply isn't happening, if it was then the home ownership rate would be increasing not falling. 🤦♂️
No it isn't.
Home ownership levels in the South East are still higher than in the North let alone London.
Seats and councils in the local elections were lost in the South East to the LDs and Greens and Residents Associations where Tory councils proposed local plans building too much in the greenbelt and countryside without proper infrastructure not because of low home ownership. Coupled with Tory losses in the most affluent areas of the South East due to opposition to Brexit
The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
The plot thickens. @GaryL might be a really OLD gay Russian, or he is parodying an old gay Russian?
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South.
Snipped right there. I remember a long discussion on here about wearside. You opined at length about how wearsiders thought and who they were. We then moved onto the nature of Houghton-le-Spring. I had to point out that someone who lived there for 4 years I knew more about it than you did who had never even visited. Yet you still foamed on.
And more recently your views on Liverpool. And how it is the most socialist city in the UK as proven so you claimed by it having 12 years of LibDem councils.
So please, remove that massive plank from your own eye. You massive plank.
The evidence however is clear, every constituency in Liverpool voted for Corbyn Labour and it has a Labour Council. Liverpool is a socialist city.
The evidence is also clear that in the South East outside London is has a home ownership rate higher than the North still. Any shift away from the Tories there, especially in local elections but also the Chesham and Amersham by election, has not been to Labour but to the Liberal Democrats over excess building in the countryside. Plus in the most affluent areas over Brexit
There's no such thing as 'excess building' which is why the share of homeowners is going down, which is why the Tory vote share is also going down.
As the primary opponents to the Tories in the South, the rise in non-homeowners (who universally don't vote Tory in general) is benefitting the Lib Dems to the detriment of the Tories.
That is the inevitable and justified reaction to your NIMBYism. Good, you deserve it.
Yes there is, you want to hand dozens of Tory constituencies on a plate to the LDs by building too much in the greenbelt without proper infrastructure. That is the issue the LDs are capitalising on here not low home ownership levels which is more a London problem.
The inevitable result would be more Chesham and Amershams, fortunately Gove has listened and scrapped proposed development zones without local input
It was thanks to Johnson's landslide election win in 2019 the Conservatives have their biggest majority since 1987 and those red wall MPs won their seats anyway. Winning after 10 years of your party in power is always a challenge, hence only Major has managed it in the last 100 years but Johnson is still probably the Tories best bet of doing so.
Currently they are polling 33 to 35% so the situation is not yet irrecoverable
But it is those Red Wall seat MPs who are facing losing their jobs.
Some not all and they only won their seats due to Boris and Brexit, get rid of Boris now Brexit is done and they might all go
That's not the only reason they won their seats.
I've said this repeatedly but the Red Wall has been demographically turning Tory for years. Its housing more than Brexit or Boris that is behind the fall of the Red Wall and that remains true.
Some Red Wall Tory MPs might remain even if the Tories lose the election and go into Opposition, some northern seats that were only narrowly won in 2010 are now safe Tory seats.
Meanwhile thanks to the collapsing home ownership in the South due to your NIMBY policies the South is now swinging more to Labour. Quite frankly, good, the Tories losing NIMBY Councils that have blocked their own young residents from being able to get built and own a home of their own would be karmic justice. 👍
Except that isn't really true. After all home ownership in 2015 or 2017 in those red wall seats was not massively different from 2019. However they stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 only going Conservative in 2019 due to Boris and Brexit. On current polls most of the redwall seats though will go back to Labour now Brexit has been done and Corbyn gone with Boris the best hope of holding the remainder.
The South isn't swinging to Labour at all outside London. Indeed as the local elections proved most gains in the South from the Tories were by the Liberal Democrats, Greens and Residents' Associations all opposed to excess building in the greenbelt.
London might need more affordable homes built to reduce the swing to Labour, the South however needs fewer homes built in the countryside and greenbelt as Gove has recognised after Chesham and Amersham etc, hence he has ended zoning
While you can have an encyclopediac knowledge of opinion polls sometimes, one of your blindspots is you treat everything as binary. Just because the seats stayed Labour in 2015 and 2017 doesn't mean that they weren't already swinging, and doesn't mean that they only went Conservative because of either Boris or Brexit. Tipping points exist and just because you haven't quite reached it, doesn't make only the point that you flip relevant, past the tipping point can be overexaggerated as a significant moment when you were already fast approaching it.
The momentum was already there, they were already swinging. They were already approaching a tipping point.
Boris and Brexit may have helped push some seats over the edge, especially since a rising tide with an 80 seat majority helps lots of boats, but that wasn't the only reason for the change at all.
PS if you think home ownership wasn't massively different in these seats, you are very much mistaken and know nothing of the area.
PPS The idea that the South needs fewer houses not more is pure pandering to NIMBY scum and not liberal or economic or factual at all. Tories backing that are digging their own grave and karma's only a bitch if you are.
The South East, East and South West all still have higher home ownership rates than the North West, Yorkshire and the North East.
It is London where home ownership levels are lowest in the UK and where new affordable housing needs to be built, not the Southern greenbelt and countryside
Again you're missing the nature of momentum and swing.
The South has high rates of home ownership, but less than it used to and its falling still. And votes are changing as a result.
The North has increasing rates of home ownership and its rising still. And votes are changing as a result.
The Midlands has replaced the South as the place with the highest rates of home ownership. And people wonder why the Tories and Boris are popular in the Midlands.
If you don't arrest the decline in home ownership rates in the South, then the South will be the new North and vice-versa in the future when it comes to voting.
PS stripping London out of the South when it comes to these figures presents a really misrepresentative view of the North and South. London is a part of the South and should be incorporated within Southern figures. If you excluded Liverpool and Manchester as a separate region like London is and presented North West figures separated from Liverpool and Manchester then you would get vastly different figures as a result.
The fact that the South East excluding London is only 1.7% higher than the North West including Liverpool and Manchester is truly shocking and is not what it was a generation ago. So its no wonder that the votes are changing accordingly.
The changes between North and South home ownership rates are fractional, even if the changes between South and Midlands home ownership rates are bigger. The biggest changes in home ownership rates are between the North and Midlands and London, not the South.
The biggest swing to Labour is in London therefore and the biggest swing to the Conservatives in the Midlands not the North. The swing to Labour in the South however is negligible, the main swing in the South is actually to the Liberal Democrats in areas where the Conservatives have built too much in the greenbelt like Chesham and Amersham.
London has a bigger population than the entire North West, let alone just Liverpool and Manchester, so of course it is its own region
You need to look at the change in the same locations over time, not the difference between locations at a set moment in time.
In 2001 the South East was 75.7% owner-occupied. It was still 70% in 2011 and now its down to 67.7% in 2021 and its falling still. So the proportion of non-owners has gone up from 1/4 to 1/3rd and is rising still.
In the North West OTOH the proportion of owner-occupiers was falling too but that fall was arrested and has now been reversed meaning it has risen from 65.3% in 2011 to 66.5% in 2021 and is rising still.
The gap in home ownership rates in 2011 between the South East and North West has been narrowing every year and on current trends there'll be a crossover point.
This is similar to the military discussions on culmination. You are merely looking at the snapshot and ignoring all the issues of momentum etc
London may have a large population but that doesn't mean its a region all by itself. If people in the South East are commuting into London then tthey are an exurb of London, just as Cheshire and Lancashire can be an exurb of Liverpool and Manchester.
So home ownership rates are still higher in the South than the North. It is London where home ownership rates have plummeted and Labour have made gains at Tory expense. That is where new affordable housing needs to be focused.
In the South there have been very few Labour gains, the main Tory losses have been to the Liberal Democrats because of too much building in the greenbelt. Built more in the greenbelt and you will see more Chesham and Amershams and more Tory seats lost to the Liberal Democrats
FFS its like bashing your head against the wall sometimes talking to you.
I said that you're ignoring the momentum and changes that are happening and need to look across time at the same locations, rather than between locations at a snapshot - and you retort by looking between locations at a snapshot again.
Yes today home ownership rates are higher in the South (if you exclude London) than the North (if you include its cities) but those rates are changing relatively rapidly.
Just because something is true today, doesn't mean it will be true in the future. Your attitude is like saying because its warm and good weather today, we shouldn't worry about replacing a broken gas boiler since we don't need to heat our homes and why would we need to put the heating on in December given how warm it is today.
Today isn't all that matters. The future matters too and trends matter, especially if you do nothing to change them.
It's similar to the DUP strategy. They don't care about growing the Unionist vote. They only care about holding on to the biggest share of it. That offers nothing more than managed decline.
The Conservatives need to be looking at where they will be in twenty years' time, and gearing policies accordingly.
Indeed. Thanks to Thatcher's reforms those who were then relatively young working age people in the 1980s got on the housing ladder and secured their prosperity for life. That generation of people who were in their 20s and 30s forty years ago are now in their 60s and 70s and very heavily voting Conservative.
But unlike then, the government isn't creating the Tory voters of the future by getting today's young people onto the property ladder. Pulling up the ladder now may keep today's voters happy, but where are the voters of tomorrow. Getting more conservative as you age is linked in no small part to getting on the property ladder and appreciating the responsibility of having a mortgage etc as you do, but if that no longer happens, then that is a big problem.
In 1997 there was a higher home ownership rate amongst under 64s than now but Blair won all of that age group then. In 2019 however Johnson won most voters between 39 and 64 despite a lower home ownership rate amongst that group than in 1997.
So home ownership alone does not mean automatic Tory victory.
But it helps, enormously.
If you look at where the Conservatives win a lower vote share than in 1997, it's mostly in seats where rates of home ownership have declined. It's not the whole story, but it's a big part of it.
Conversely, the places where the Conservatives have seen their vote share rise most sharply are in places where buying one's own home remains a realistic prospect for the average earner.
Yes and most of those seats where the Tory voteshare has declined since 1997 are in London with Labour the beneficiaries and I don't deny we need to build more affordable housing for first time buyers in London and brownbelt areas.
However in most of the South East outside London the threat to the Conservatives is not from Labour but the Liberal Democrats and part of that is due to too much housing being bt in the greenbelt and countryside.
Home ownership is also not the only factor, the fact the North and Midlands voted for Brexit unlike London is a factor too. Cameron for example did much better in London in 2010 in particular and 2015 than Johnson in 2019 but Johnson did much better than Cameron in the North and Midlands in 2019 than Cameron did in 2010 and 2015.
The main reason was Brexit, not a vast change in home ownership in less than a decade
Except there have been significant home ownership rates in less than a decade.
There is not too much building in the South East, there is insufficient building.
Home ownership rates are falling in the South East. Even ignoring London, the South East is going backwards. That is bad news economically, and bad news politically for the Tories.
Until or unless you reverse that problem, the news will only get worse for the Tories too.
Look at the last general election, the only seat the Conservatives lost to Labour in the UK was again in London, in Putney while the Tories made no net gains in London overall. Part of that was due to Brexit hence the Tory gains in the redwall but also due to the low home ownership levels in the capital which is where new affordable homes need to be concentrated.
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 15 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
FFS you still don't get it, do you? Its about the trend not everything happening all at one go, and of course against a "rising tide" of an 80 seat majority there won't be many Tory losses. But seats that were safe in the past won't be next time there isn't an 80 seat majority. 🤦♂️
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
No YOU don't get it.
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South.
Snipped right there. I remember a long discussion on here about wearside. You opined at length about how wearsiders thought and who they were. We then moved onto the nature of Houghton-le-Spring. I had to point out that someone who lived there for 4 years I knew more about it than you did who had never even visited. Yet you still foamed on.
And more recently your views on Liverpool. And how it is the most socialist city in the UK as proven so you claimed by it having 12 years of LibDem councils.
So please, remove that massive plank from your own eye. You massive plank.
The evidence however is clear, every constituency in Liverpool voted for Corbyn Labour and it has a Labour Council. Liverpool is a socialist city.
The evidence is also clear that in the South East outside London is has a home ownership rate higher than the North still. Any shift away from the Tories there, especially in local elections but also the Chesham and Amersham by election, has not been to Labour but to the Liberal Democrats over excess building in the countryside. Plus in the most affluent areas over Brexit
Evidence? Laughable. Frankly @GaryL is a more convincing bot than you are.
Blimey just reading through the anti- @GaryL comments. And his. He could be a Russian Troll or a Pussycat Doll or who the hell cares (plus I see @rcs1000 has played the same "compromised PC" card that was such a success with Russian Troll normal poster @Heathener. )
In this case, the merest hint that Russia may not be losing and Ukraine may not be winning (whatever as we have agreed those terms mean) has unleashed quite a torrent of accusations which are almost as bizarre as they are indicative of those posters' insecurity in something or other who knows what.
Let's suppose that @GaryL is a bona-fide Russian Troll. So what? Tear apart his arguments, repost that clip from twitter showing how Ukraine is decisively winning the war. It really shouldn't be a problem.
Why is everyone so touchy about contrary theses put forward about the war. Don't understand it at all.
He’s welcome to comment here as long as the mods will tolerate him. The same is true for the rest of us, natch
I merely point out that he has a “pro-Russia” or at least “Ukraine must compromise” agenda which he initially mixed with other remarks but is now fairly pure and undisguised. And his punctuation is really weird
I personally hope that is a Russian agent in Irkutsk closely linked to Putin, rather than some old lefty in Holloway, as his commentary implies that Russia is nervous and wants a quick end to the war. Which is good
I don't think saying Ukraine must compromise is incendiary. I have said it in the past. I have pointed out that eventually it is overwhelmingly likely that the war will end via negotiation. The awful decision that Zelensky has to make is when. The dreadful calculus means that waiting will involve more casualties and destruction, while suing for peace means giving up land.
Many commentators have said that there will/should be a negotiated settlement. That " @GaryL " does so shouldn't be too difficult to argue with. I might be on his side if this is his position but I have no right to cede any Ukranian land if Ukraine doesn't want to do so.
As for his grammar he did use an "ain't" which is vaguely suspect but has so far avoided "mate" which is an immediate giveaway.
You are also neglecting the fact that if Ukraine settles and cedes territory Russia has shown that its not just territory you are abandoning but the citizens in those areas to arbitrary rape, murder and forced deportation to labour camps. How does any countries leader negotiate a settlement with that?
Yes all good points. The Russians really are monsters, aren't they. It is part of the calculation.
How much territory do you think Ukraine should cede in exchange for a ceasefire ?
I don't know the history of the area well enough to make any kind of assessment. What about you?
A glib answer (and largely true) would be to say that is up to Ukraine.
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely. You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary. Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
OK you do that,, so what if a cornered putin decides to use nukes Or will he just accept defeat and go fair enough
There is no corner. Apart from the one the evil fucker has painted himself into with Ukrainian blood.
There we go with the Russian talking points. The nuclear threat. NATO has already put that in the rear view mirror. No one is listening to that empty threat any more.
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
Really I'm glad you think russia poses no nuclear threat
Given the state of the USSR Russian military so far mainly being run-down handmedowns from the USSR, it probably isn't that big of a threat. It wouldn't surprise me if the weapons have just been kept in storage where the fissionable material has decayed and the money earmarked for nuclear weapons maintenance has found more pressing demands instead. Like villas, Swiss bank accounts etc
Tritium is $30K a gram. A modern nuclear warhead contains 5 grams or so.
Without it, the primary would yield perhaps 300 tons - no boosting. Tons, not kilotons or megatons. More than half of that yield would be prompt radiation.
If it has ben replaced with the obvious fake - normal hydrogen - then there would be a fizzle with no significant yield.
Precisely. If you're in the supply chain of one of the most corrupt and kleptocratic nations in the world for a weapon that never gets tested, never gets used and you'd never get caught, would you rather the money goes for Tritium or for getting you a nice new luxury villa?
Nuclear weapons need regular maintenance and replacement of the capsules or they're all but useless. Considering the Russian military we've witnessed to date hasn't had much regular maintenance, is it any wonder that the NATO leaders don't seem remotely bothered by the threat of Vlad's nukes?
Comments
A court in Ukraine has jailed a Russian tank commander for life for killing a civilian at the first war crimes trial since the invasion.
Captured soldier Sgt Vadim Shishimarin was convicted of killing Oleksandr Shelipov, 62, in the north-eastern village of Chupakhivka on 28 February.
He admitted shooting Mr Shelipov but said he had been acting on orders and asked forgiveness of his widow.
If Russia wants its forces to stop being depleted, then they can retreat out of Ukraine including Donbas and Crimea and agree to pay reparations. Their forces would stop being depleted immediately, if only they'd retreat back to their own borders.
The Ukrainians aren't "caught in the middle", they have the Americans and the West on their side as they defend their own homeland from barbaric invaders who need to be repelled.
Probably a sensible approach given its enormous downsides and extremely pleasurable qualities. It is already used recreationally
The negative of this is that GPS are totally clueless if you walk in and say “I have a Xanax problem, can you help”
I did exactly that to my GP about ten years ago and she shrugged and said “so come off them”. That’s it. She seemed unaware that a Xanax withdrawal is dangerous, should be supervised, and can actually kill you
So I had to do it myself. Very very carefully
Announce a big windfall tax and allow the companies to offset with tax loss carry forwards
You need the debt unconsolidated - may be the state has a 20% stake, a golden share, and provides a paid for guarantee against debt to a certain level
Realpolitik is not on Russia's side. Realpolitik is that Russia is burning through its military assets faster than it can replenish them, while the Ukrainians aided by NATO are improving their assets faster than they're losing them.
Realpolitik means that Russia is more fucked than a Dockyard Hooker being interviewed on a Casting Couch by their Stepson on Pornhub.
When it comes to foreign policy, Obama was truly useless.
And if you want proof...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1409sXBleg
In the South East however the Tories did not lose a single seat to Labour, the only seat they list was St Albans to the Liberal Democrats. That was then followed by the loss of Chesham and Amersham to the Liberal Democrats in 2021 over excess House building.
The threat in the South East is not from Labour unlike London, it is mainly from the LDs.
To emphasise the point just 7 of the top 100 Labour target seats at the next general election are in the South East but 17 of the top 50 Liberal Democrat target seats are in the South East
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/labour
http://www.electionpolling.co.uk/battleground/targets/liberal-democrat
'Just giving up' in this case means accepting the extinction of democracy in any territory ceded, and the imposition of a regime like that in the existing occupied territories (basically a mafia state similar to current Chechnya.
Advocating for a withdrawal of western support in order to force that outcome deserves a degree of opprobrium, IMO.
Comma comma comma
And “dollar” without The before it. Classic Russian syntax
Beneath the rising tides the undercurrents exist and changes are happening.
If you're a Tory wanting to hold off against a Lib Dem challenge then creating more socialist voters by ensuring people can't afford a home of their own doesn't help you since those socialists will just vote Lib Dem tactically to oust you. And if you pandered to NIMBYs to protect yourself from the Lib Dems, then that will have backfired and you'll deserve to be ousted.
That there were originally 1,200 Russian tanks deployed, and that they’re now sending out T-62s from the ‘60s to get blown up, suggests that there are not many of that initial deployment remaining.
"Russia's counsellor to the UN resigns over war in Ukraine - reports
Russia's counsellor to the United Nations in Geneva has resigned, according to reports.
Boris Bondarev said "never have I been so ashamed of my country as of 24 February" as he described the Kremlin's invasion of Ukraine as "the most serious crime against the people of Russia".
In his resignation letter, he went on to say those who had conceived the war wanted only one thing - "to remain in power forever".
He went on to call Russia's Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of a "good illustration of the degradation of this system".
The letter was shared on social media by international lawyer Hillel Neuer."
https://news.sky.com/story/ukraine-news-live-public-dissatisfaction-predicted-in-russia-after-claim-they-have-lost-as-many-troops-as-in-nine-year-afghan-war-12541713
Ukraine has been invaded by the USSR and is defending itself as that is what Ukraine wants to do - they know that if they stop fighting, they will be annihilated as a people and as a nation.
The US and the West are helping Ukraine to do what Ukraine wants to do. The Ukraine is not doing anyone's bidding but their own.
How many of the red-to-blue wall shifts have been caused by this? Former mining/industrial towns now being more middle class commuter hubs?
A few years ago Twitter identified that Bangladesh was being used to run state-sponsored fake accounts, so maybe Russia is outsourcing its trolling?
https://twitter.com/TwitterSafety/status/1075724306204778497
As time goes by Russia has no alternative but to use increasingly inferior equipment from storage as they've ran out of their good stuff and can't replace it. They don't have the self-sufficient military industrial complex required for a long war.
Meanwhile Ukraine is getting access to ever-better levels of equipment, and they're getting the skills, experience and training to use it too.
Logistics wins wars and the logistics only aid one side. That is the realpolitik and that is why Zelenskyy is right to make it clear that he will not support the loss of any territory.
Indeed if possibly, when they're ready for a counter-offensive, Zelenskyy should be looking to end this conflict not just at pre-war borders, but liberating their territories that Russia invaded in 2014. They'll never have a better opportunity to do so.
Bad @Malmesbury! Bad boy!
We only supplied weapons in the first place, prior to the invasion, because we knew they would fight an invasion whether or not we did so. And there was a slim chance it might deter Putin.
It remains the case that the eventual boundaries are not what we are prepared to fight for, but what Ukraine is prepared to fight for. The only calculation open to us is how far we are prepared to support them - and as has been argued above, more support makes a long war less, not more likely.
You can argue that assessment, but IMO even an outright military defeat for Ukraine would mean an extended Iraq/Afghanistn style conflict.
From the point of view of a defensible Ukraine in the future, retaking territory back to the status quo of 2014 is probably necessary.
Deterring future Russian efforts might mean retaking the occupied Donbas.
But £22 and £18 are still under consideration…
You are a Northerner, you don't understand us here in the South. The main threat for we Tories here is NOT from Labour as it is for Tories in the North and in London it is from the Liberal Democrats.
The reason voters are moving LD here is in part due to too much building in the greenbelt, not low levels of home ownership which is why voters are going to Labour in London.
Brexit is also a factor in the most affluent parts of the South as it is in London in seeing voters moving away from the Tories even if in the North where you live and Midlands and Wales it saw voters move to the Tories in 2019
This site thrives because we have a free flowing and rational debate. Doesn’t really matter that no one changes their mind.
If you have a bot or troll just pushing out a fixed series of lines then it dilutes the quality of the whole. As a self-policing community (sorry mods) it is incumbent on all of us to stand up to that
Whereas Russia started with nearly 200k in country and are now having problems manning 90+ understrength BTGs, i.e. less than 100k in country. And their replacements are less and less trained, older and less fit, and poorly equipped (in some instances, trainers, not boots; WW2 helmets and no body armour; WW1 vintage rifles).
Ask for directions in Russia and they will say “it is over there. Long way. You get train”
Not THE train
I agree the repeated commas and missing full stops are simply odd
PS that was in response to GaryL(avrov), not BlancheLivermore ,,,
I kid ye not
https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/comma-ellipses/
I therefore conclude that @GaryL is a young gay Russian who hones his English on Twitter
They were absolutely not wanted by the US but were a response to Kennedy’s tax policy. They only later accepted it as a fait accompli
Southern Baptist leaders covered up sex abuse, kept secret database, report says
Among the findings was a previously unknown case of a pastor who was credibly accused of assaulting a woman a month after leaving the presidency of the Southern Baptist Convention
https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2022/05/22/southern-baptist-sex-abuse-report/
We give them Schleswig-Holstein. We wait until the Russian Fleet is there. Then The Flashman Option Part One.
That is taking the short-termism discussed earlier to preposterous lengths. The Lib Dems can simultaneously appeal to those who have other objections such as NIMBYism while simultaneously tactically getting the votes of those who can't get on the property ladder.
All you're doing is creating new voters who will vote Lib Dem to oust you. If you think that's good for the Tories, then you're deluding yourself.
*narrow eyes and tilts head*
This is fun
“I’ve been spending a fair bit of time recently with the comma ellipsis, which is three commas (,,,) instead of dot-dot-dot. I’ve been looking at it for over a year and I’m still figuring out what’s going on there. There seems to be something but possibly several somethings.
One use is by older people who, in some cases where they would use the classic ellipsis, use commas instead. It’s not quite clear if that’s a typo in some cases, but it seems to be more systematic than that. Maybe they’re preferring the comma because it’s a little bit easier to see if you’re on the older side, and your vision is not what it once was. Or maybe they just see the two as equivalent. It then seems to have jumped the shark into parody form. There’s a Facebook group in which younger people pretend to be to be baby boomers, and one of the features people use there is this comma ellipsis. And then in some circles there also seems to be a use of comma ellipses that is very, very heavily ironic. But what exactly the nature is of that heavy irony is still something that I’m working on figuring out”
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2019/oct/05/linguist-gretchen-mcculloch-interview-because-internet-book?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other
From trying to read this as it was explained, my conclusion from the link, is that the comma ellipsis is to be read in exactly the same tone of voice as the classic ellipsis, but with a meaningful widening of the eyes.
It is not low levels of home ownership costing the Tories in the South unlike London, it is building too much in the greenbelt and opposition to Brexit in the most affluent areas. On the latter that is a factor the most affluent areas of the South East share with London unlike pro Brexit sentiment in the North and Midlands
The only rational answer is to assume that the Russian regime will in the end act out of rational self preservation.
Perhaps now you'd like to answer some of my questions for a change ?
The 2023 locals in the shires will be a tipping point if he survives Rita, Sue, and Bob too.
Remember the. cost of living crisis is going to get a lot worse.
I'm not saying that this is a threat or saying that this is a desirable outcome, just explaining why he probably won't see that as a desirable way forward.
Putin may be under-informed about the willingness of Ukraine to defend itself, but he knows the protocol should he launch a nuclear attack. He's dangerous, but he's not dangerous AND stupid.
It’s what governments with large majorities should be doing. If governments don’t dare to do anything because it might be unpopular, then nothing ever gets done.
The interesting discussion, as always, is between decent people, who apply rules to themselves as well as others, think there is a case for both sides on tricky questions, don't demonise others as extremists and are prepared to change their minds.
Religious people who support choice and feminists who are anti abortion are more interesting places to look than narcissistic fundamentalists.
What do you think of the Covid-19 vaccines, have you heard any stories about them killing BA pilots and ethnic minorities?
Home ownership used to be in the high 70s. Its now fallen down to the mid 60s and is falling fast.
What you're losing in not having home owners, you're not recuperating elsewhere, so you're losing share.
'Building too much' is a myth shared by NIMBYs looking for excuses, it simply isn't happening, if it was then the home ownership rate would be increasing not falling. 🤦♂️
As for the WWC I didn't mention them. So many of the people I am referring to would be horrified to be described as working class.
https://twitter.com/DmytroKuleba/status/1528073185194811396
I mainly wonder why anyone would pay someone for this kind of ineffective shit, and my current hypothesis is that they don't: either this is unpaid intern kinda trolling, or Gazza is working purely independently to construct a trolling portfolio he can take to prospective employers whrn he has built up a substantial body of work.
And more recently your views on Liverpool. And how it is the most socialist city in the UK as proven so you claimed by it having 12 years of LibDem councils.
So please, remove that massive plank from your own eye. You massive plank.
Your guesses look good as well
He can easily justify any outcome and remain fairly secure in power.
Unless he really is dying of cancer - but there's not a lot we can do about that.
Vladimir and his nukes...
https://twitter.com/BlakesWort/status/1517976655326814209
“I was part of a special operative team posting on an obscure political blog in Britain”
“Wow that must have been terrifying”
“It was young Nikita but I tell you the worst day, it was a cold day in February and my handler took me to one side and told me I was ready, I was so excited until they gave me my code-name; Gary. The pain will last forever.”
The evidence is also clear that in the South East outside London is has a home ownership rate higher than the North still. Any shift away from the Tories there, especially in local elections but also the Chesham and Amersham by election, has not been to Labour but to the Liberal Democrats over excess building in the countryside. Plus in the most affluent areas over Brexit
The threat in the South East is too much building in the greenbelt not low home ownership levels like London
Mykonos. THE classic destination for old gay Russians
Without it, the primary would yield perhaps 300 tons - no boosting. Tons, not kilotons or megatons. More than half of that yield would be prompt radiation.
If it has ben replaced with the obvious fake - normal hydrogen - then there would be a fizzle with no significant yield.
As the primary opponents to the Tories in the South, the rise in non-homeowners (who universally don't vote Tory in general) is benefitting the Lib Dems to the detriment of the Tories.
That is the inevitable and justified reaction to your NIMBYism. Good, you deserve it.
You appear to be right.
Home ownership levels in the South East are still higher than in the North let alone London.
Seats and councils in the local elections were lost in the South East to the LDs and Greens and Residents Associations where Tory councils proposed local plans building too much in the greenbelt and countryside without proper infrastructure not because of low home ownership. Coupled with Tory losses in the most affluent areas of the South East due to opposition to Brexit
The inevitable result would be more Chesham and Amershams, fortunately Gove has listened and scrapped proposed development zones without local input
Nuclear weapons need regular maintenance and replacement of the capsules or they're all but useless. Considering the Russian military we've witnessed to date hasn't had much regular maintenance, is it any wonder that the NATO leaders don't seem remotely bothered by the threat of Vlad's nukes?