A disastrous result for the Tories in the Chester by-election – politicalbetting.com
A disastrous result for the Tories in the Chester by-election – politicalbetting.com
The result of the first Westminster by-election since Sunak became prime minister came in the early hours and the result is above.
Comments
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Although not Red Wall... northrrn Tories will be nervous.1
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Those results are quite interesting.
8.4% LD
2.8% Green
2.7 REFUK
Pretty much in line with national polling.
So is 22% Con also in line?
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Pretty much as expected. I suppose the Tories can console themselves with the fact that they still came second.
Also... Rejoin EU...
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The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.4 -
The swing in Chester of 14% to Labour was actually better for the Tories than the 18% swing to Labour in the latest YouGov poll yesterday.
So while not a great result for the Tories and good for Labour it was actually not as disastrous for Sunak as some of the latest polls would suggest0 -
Sir John Curtice on R4 - in Chester Labour performed like they did in the run up to 97, Cons fell less than expected, so Sunak may have unwound some of the Truss damage, but still in a 20 point deep hole.1
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So a single poor by election result while in government in a Labour held seat signifies something? That seems to be giving this more meaning than it deserves, given the history of previous similarly awful results including in seats they held.0
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I'd expect a smaller swing in a Labour held seat, though. Fewer Tory voters to desert the party. This is a disaster for Sunak.HYUFD said:The swing in Chester of 14% to Labour was actually better for the Tories than the 18% swing to Labour in the latest YouGov yesterday.
So while not a great result for the Tories and good for Labour it was actually not as disastrous for Sunak as some of the latest polls would suggest4 -
Though the swing to Labour in the Wakefield by election in the summer under Boris was only 12.5%, below the 14% swing to Labour in Chester last nightjonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.0 -
Probably not. The others are probably more evenly distributed through the country than Labour and the Tories (except where the Lib Dems are in contention).Foxy said:Those results are quite interesting.
8.4% LD
2.8% Green
2.7 REFUK
Pretty much in line with national polling.
So is 22% Con also in line?0 -
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.0 -
On a 14% swing Sunak should hold his own constituency. Not many others though.OnlyLivingBoy said:
I'd expect a smaller swing in a Labour held seat, though. Fewer Tory voters to desert the party. This is a disaster for Sunak.HYUFD said:The swing in Chester of 14% to Labour was actually better for the Tories than the 18% swing to Labour in the latest YouGov yesterday.
So while not a great result for the Tories and good for Labour it was actually not as disastrous for Sunak as some of the latest polls would suggest1 -
It looks a bit of a dull result.
You can't read much into it, but it looks in line with what the polls are telling us.
Back to the cricket.0 -
After twelve long years, Labour look like a potential government in waiting. The Tories are in serious trouble. No one should be surprised.0
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Most likely 18 months to the GE, and more chaos and misery on the way.
How much worse for the Tories can it get?1 -
Another leadership contest would be a laugh. PM4PM Season 3, her with the glasses, the return of Johnson, Shappsie (obviously), eBay Priti, #ready4rehman. Absolute freak show.Foxy said:Most likely 18 months to the GE, and more chaos and misery on the way.
How much worse for the Tories can it get?2 -
Worst result in Chester for the Tories since the 1832 Reform Act is quite a marker.1
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Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?2 -
It is a bit hard to directly compare with when the seat had 2 MPs, but looking over most of modern electoral history this was a safe Tory seat.ydoethur said:
They did worse in 1837 and 1865, and in many if not most of the intervening elections the seat was unopposed.Foxy said:Worst result in Chester for the Tories since the 1832 Reform Act is quite a marker.
It is however comfortably their worst result since there 1867.0 -
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
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So, if you were a Tory strategist what would you do?
Another leadership election? Third time a charm? Hunt/$unak isn’t getting the blue tribe excited.
Bring back Boris, lower taxes and say to hell with the markets.
Try to sell glimmers of economic good news as massive achievements, whilst ignoring the rest.
Dog whistle all the nasty stuff as if your life depended on it.
Er, that’s it.0 -
Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election0 -
Perhaps that you don't like books which aren't very interested in women ?Cyclefree said:
It is v rare for me not to finish a book. With Dickens I cannot get past chapter 1. Mantel: I could not finish Wolf Hall. Her style is deeply annoying and she managed to make Tudor politics boring. Hugely overrated. IMO.Nigelb said:.
Neither of the last two are unreadable, it's just that you don't care for them. It's true that Dickens wasn't great at writing women, but I don't think he's exclusively a male preserve; my daughter likes his novels.Cyclefree said:Unreadable / unjustifiably praised book/author list: Part 1
1.The two biographies of Churchill by Martin Gilbert (one long laundry list of everything Churchill ever did with no attempt to put into context or analyse) and Roy Jenkins: insufferably self-regarding and pompous.
2. Martin Amis
3. Kingsley Amis: parts of Lucky Jim were quite funny but only because no-one else made jokes in books in the 1950s and after that he became a Self-Important Saloon Bar Bore.
4. Hilary Mantel - unreadable.
5. Dickens - also unreadable. Vanity Fair, by contrast, is one of the best novels ever written...
Agree about 1-3, and Vanity Fair.
I like Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot and Brontë. So dunno what it is about Dickens.
That's true of Mantel's trilogy, too.0 -
It was better than Rotherham 1994 which might be the better comparator.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Rotherham_by-election
Ydoethur, please note who the Tory candidate was.
But not as impressive as Barking.
Note the Tory candidate here, anyone know what happened to her?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Barking_by-election0 -
That’s a red herring. Chester was a Labour seat. If it had been a Tory seat, I suspect the swing would have been higher to kick them out.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
No comfort for the Tories there I’m afraid. The only comfort they have is that this might have been worse under peak Truss,2 -
Regarding the political films discussion last night, the great M falls in the category, I think ?0
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Do you mind? I've just had breakfast.TheScreamingEagles said:
It was better than Rotherham 1994 which might be the better comparator.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Rotherham_by-election
Ydoethur, please note who is the Tory candidate.0 -
For Leon.
Pretending is All You Need (to get ChatGPT to be evil). A thread.
https://mobile.twitter.com/zswitten/status/1598088267789787136
It seems all you need for a robopocalypse is to code for irony ?0 -
The Labour share of the vote fell in the Islwyn by election.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Islwyn_by-election
The Tory candidate here is a bit of a roaster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Islwyn_by-election0 -
I thought you would have loved seeing Nick Gibb being humiliated.ydoethur said:
Do you mind? I've just had breakfast.TheScreamingEagles said:
It was better than Rotherham 1994 which might be the better comparator.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Rotherham_by-election
Ydoethur, please note who is the Tory candidate.0 -
5.5% Con to Lab swing in Hemsworth in 1996, so based on last night's swing Starmer is going to win a bigger majority than Blair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Hemsworth_by-election3 -
No, the right will now let Sunak and Hunt take the blame for defeat, then the ERG will try and take over and push the party to the populist hard right in opposition via Braverman, Badenoch and Mogg and hope Labour fails to get a grip with the economyJonathan said:So, if you were a Tory strategist what would you do?
Another leadership election? Third time a charm? Hunt/$unak isn’t getting the blue tribe excited.
Bring back Boris, lower taxes and say to hell with the markets.
Try to sell glimmers of economic good news as massive achievements, whilst ignoring the rest.
Dog whistle all the nasty stuff as if your life depended on it.
Er, that’s it.1 -
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.
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It really looks like the end when a big chunks of Tory party have a massive incentive for defeat.HYUFD said:
No, the right will now let Sunak and Hunt take the blame for defeat, then the ERG will try and take over and push the party to the populist hard right in opposition via Braverman, Badenoch and Mogg and hope Labour fails to get a grip with the economyJonathan said:So, if you were a Tory strategist what would you do?
Another leadership election? Third time a charm? Hunt/$unak isn’t getting the blue tribe excited.
Bring back Boris, lower taxes and say to hell with the markets.
Try to sell glimmers of economic good news as massive achievements, whilst ignoring the rest.
Dog whistle all the nasty stuff as if your life depended on it.
Er, that’s it.1 -
Should be noted though that on the 14% swing in Chester last night the Tories would still win 169 seats on the new boundaries ie more than the 165 they got in 1997
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=30&LAB=47&LIB=11&Reform=2&Green=2&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=14.3&SCOTLAB=30.7&SCOTLIB=6.7&SCOTReform=0.6&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=43.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
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Seeing his face though...it triggers traumatic memories of trying to undo the disasters he wrought in exam reform, and then in the reformed exams.TheScreamingEagles said:
I thought you would have loved seeing Nick Gibb being humiliated.ydoethur said:
Do you mind? I've just had breakfast.TheScreamingEagles said:
It was better than Rotherham 1994 which might be the better comparator.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Rotherham_by-election
Ydoethur, please note who is the Tory candidate.0 -
I doubt there's any seat the Tories can hold in a by-election right now.0
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Without tactical voting, perhaps.HYUFD said:Should be noted though that on the 14% swing in Chester last night the Tories would still win 169 seats on the new boundaries ie more than the 165 they got in 1997
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=30&LAB=47&LIB=11&Reform=2&Green=2&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=14.3&SCOTLAB=30.7&SCOTLIB=6.7&SCOTReform=0.6&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=43.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
At the moment the real ballpark figure we should all be looking at is tory seats 100-150 with the lower end of that plausible.
Anyone thinking the tories can pull this out of the bag is living in cloud cuckoo land.0 -
The biggest hope for the Tories is that Labour need to pick up about 130 seats. That’s a lot. Miss a few here and there and the Tories sneak back in . Heaven help us if they do.Stuartinromford said:
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.0 -
Labour getting a bigger majority than in 97 is less likely because of Scotland. Tories getting fewer seats than in 97 seems more plausible.TheScreamingEagles said:5.5% Con to Lab swing in Hemsworth in 1996, so based on last night's swing Starmer is going to win a bigger majority than Blair
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996_Hemsworth_by-election1 -
Very useful to have these parliamentary by-elections as a way of testing the polling. Particularly in a labour held seat with no prospect or need for tactical voting so there isn’t the same by-election dynamic to create abnormal swings.
I was encouraged by the small Lib Dem vote increase. Bearing in mind 2019 was the Brexit and Corbyn election with the LDs doing pointlessly well in uncompetitive seats like this. Suggests the opportunity is still there for big gains further South.
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It is perhaps worth remembering that if allegations of rape/sexual assault were filtering through to the choices of the electorate, it would have hurt Labour here.Stuartinromford said:
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.
So either you are overstating the case, or Labour would have done even better under different circumstances.0 -
Dagenham 1994 would be a closer match to Chester in terms of starting position, 52/36 vs 49/38, and that saw a 23% swing to Labour.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
Newham NE 1994 would be a closer starting position to Stretford & Urmston, 60/30 vs 61/27, and that saw a 16% swing to Labour.
Has to be said, Labour's by- election record in 1994 wasn't an unalloyed bed of roses, with strong nationalist challenges in Islwyn and Monklands East producing swings against Labour.1 -
Some good news for Sunak, the 14% swing he saw against the Tories last night was better than the 17% swing Brown saw from Labour to Cameron's Tories in the 2008 Crewe by election.
Yet by 2010 Brown got a hung parliament even if only 29% voteshare
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Crewe_and_Nantwich_by-election0 -
Agreed; the Tories are going down.Stuartinromford said:
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.
Starmer is hardly inspiring, but there's absolutely zero incentive for anyone who's not now planning to vote Conservative to do so at the next general election, and that's unlikely to change.
Would even a sudden capitulation by Putin help them much ?0 -
Keep your head down, try to do the right thing, punt some of the more controversial decisions but recognise that you are likely going into opposition so don’t burn any bridgesJonathan said:So, if you were a Tory strategist what would you do?
Another leadership election? Third time a charm? Hunt/$unak isn’t getting the blue tribe excited.
Bring back Boris, lower taxes and say to hell with the markets.
Try to sell glimmers of economic good news as massive achievements, whilst ignoring the rest.
Dog whistle all the nasty stuff as if your life depended on it.
Er, that’s it.
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It's DEFINITELY worse than 1997.Stuartinromford said:
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.
For a start, Black Wednesday looked really bad but didn't impact people in the same was as this cost of living crisis. And as you say, the real difference is that Britain was booming by 1995. You are spot on. This time it's near-catastrophic.
Plus on top of the commensurate sleaze you throw in the hideous last 3 years that everyone will want to put behind them and it's curtains for the tories at the next election.
They will be out of power for 10-15 years. Which is why the bright young things are standing down. Who would want to be left on the decaying rump of the tory parliamentary party having to sit alongside cockahoop Labour MPs because they can't all fit on the Government side?
This isn't hubris. It's the reality.
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Sunak will get less tactical voting against him than Boris did and Truss would haveHeathener said:
Without tactical voting, perhaps.HYUFD said:Should be noted though that on the 14% swing in Chester last night the Tories would still win 169 seats on the new boundaries ie more than the 165 they got in 1997
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=30&LAB=47&LIB=11&Reform=2&Green=2&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=14.3&SCOTLAB=30.7&SCOTLIB=6.7&SCOTReform=0.6&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=43.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
At the moment the real ballpark figure we should all be looking at is tory seats 100-150 with the lower end of that plausible.
Anyone thinking the tories can pull this out of the bag is living in cloud cuckoo land.0 -
I tried that new chat bot mentioned yesterday on a few areas I know a bit about and it's information is really poor.
I guess it's trained on vast quantities of materials from the internet and it has insufficient discrimination to identify better and worse sources of information. If school kids start using it to do their homework they may be disappointed by their results.0 -
The frustrating thing about Mantel is there are largely parts of the trilogy that are just a slog. There are flashes of brilliance, and the source material & research is incredible but it’s hard going at timesNigelb said:
Perhaps that you don't like books which aren't very interested in women ?Cyclefree said:
It is v rare for me not to finish a book. With Dickens I cannot get past chapter 1. Mantel: I could not finish Wolf Hall. Her style is deeply annoying and she managed to make Tudor politics boring. Hugely overrated. IMO.Nigelb said:.
Neither of the last two are unreadable, it's just that you don't care for them. It's true that Dickens wasn't great at writing women, but I don't think he's exclusively a male preserve; my daughter likes his novels.Cyclefree said:Unreadable / unjustifiably praised book/author list: Part 1
1.The two biographies of Churchill by Martin Gilbert (one long laundry list of everything Churchill ever did with no attempt to put into context or analyse) and Roy Jenkins: insufferably self-regarding and pompous.
2. Martin Amis
3. Kingsley Amis: parts of Lucky Jim were quite funny but only because no-one else made jokes in books in the 1950s and after that he became a Self-Important Saloon Bar Bore.
4. Hilary Mantel - unreadable.
5. Dickens - also unreadable. Vanity Fair, by contrast, is one of the best novels ever written...
Agree about 1-3, and Vanity Fair.
I like Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot and Brontë. So dunno what it is about Dickens.
That's true of Mantel's trilogy, too.
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TheScreamingEagles said:
It was better than Rotherham 1994 which might be the better comparator.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Rotherham_by-election
Ydoethur, please note who the Tory candidate was.
But not as impressive as Barking.
Note the Tory candidate here, anyone know what happened to her?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Barking_by-election
Gabble!
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Depends on the economy, if Labour don't also get a grip on inflation and grow the economy and face heavy strikes there will be a swift swing back to the Tory opposition.Heathener said:
It's DEFINITELY worse than 1997.Stuartinromford said:
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.
For a start, Black Wednesday looked really bad but didn't impact people in the same was as this cost of living crisis. And as you say, the real difference is that Britain was booming by 1995. You are spot on. This time it's near-catastrophic.
Plus on top of the commensurate sleaze you throw in the hideous last 3 years that everyone will want to put behind them and it's curtains for the tories at the next election.
They will be out of power for 10-15 years. Which is why the bright young things are standing down. Who would want to be left on the decaying rump of the tory parliamentary party having to sit alongside cockahoop Labout MPs because they can't all fit on the Government side?
This isn't hubris. It's the reality.
It was only economic competence which helped New Labour avoid the fate of previous Labour governments0 -
That's not comparing like with like.HYUFD said:Some good news for Sunak, the 14% swing he saw against the Tories last night was better than the 17% swing Brown saw from Labour to Cameron's Tories in the 2008 Crewe by election.
Yet by 2010 Brown got a hung parliament even if only 29% voteshare
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Crewe_and_Nantwich_by-election
Crewe was held by the governing party, wasn't it ?
By elections in seats held by the opposition are, as Sir John Curtice forcefully pointed out this morning, a completely separate category for psephological purposes.0 -
Since the cricket is a bit dull I'll tell you why Mantel gets my goat.Nigelb said:
Perhaps that you don't like books which aren't very interested in women ?Cyclefree said:
It is v rare for me not to finish a book. With Dickens I cannot get past chapter 1. Mantel: I could not finish Wolf Hall. Her style is deeply annoying and she managed to make Tudor politics boring. Hugely overrated. IMO.Nigelb said:.
Neither of the last two are unreadable, it's just that you don't care for them. It's true that Dickens wasn't great at writing women, but I don't think he's exclusively a male preserve; my daughter likes his novels.Cyclefree said:Unreadable / unjustifiably praised book/author list: Part 1
1.The two biographies of Churchill by Martin Gilbert (one long laundry list of everything Churchill ever did with no attempt to put into context or analyse) and Roy Jenkins: insufferably self-regarding and pompous.
2. Martin Amis
3. Kingsley Amis: parts of Lucky Jim were quite funny but only because no-one else made jokes in books in the 1950s and after that he became a Self-Important Saloon Bar Bore.
4. Hilary Mantel - unreadable.
5. Dickens - also unreadable. Vanity Fair, by contrast, is one of the best novels ever written...
Agree about 1-3, and Vanity Fair.
I like Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot and Brontë. So dunno what it is about Dickens.
That's true of Mantel's trilogy, too.
She can write very well. Some of her descriptive passages are beautiful. She also researches thoroughly and knows her history. In Wolf Hall she was writing about a particularly interesting peiod of history, one I know quite well and enjoy reading about, whether its a contrarian view or not.
So why did I give up on it after 150 pages (and like Cyclefree I rarely fail to finish a book)?
It is written in the 'past in the present'. Cockneys use this mode a lot - 'So I goes in the pub and I sees this geezer....' - and it does have a certain dramatic effect, but only if used sparingly. A whole book written in it is simply tedious.
She uses personal pronouns in the most peculiar way which means that at certain points she has to clarify who she is referring to - e.g. 'He, Moore, came in....' Such stylistic quirks are so common throughout the text that you finish up paying more attention to them than the narrative.
You have to wonder what the point of all this weirdness is. I suspect her readers - and she is enormously popular - mistake it for Art. Or maybe the aim is to stand out from all the other writers of this type of novel. I think if she didn't do it, she would be a perfectly readable but ordinary writer of historic fiction. As it is she is deeply irrating, not least for the reason that this highly artificial and contrived rubbish sells like hot cakes, whilst equally capable writers with less of a penchant for self-publicity are ignored.
She is the Agatha Christie of historical novels - a mediocrity who got herself promoted way above her merit.2 -
Depends what his government does in the next 2 years. He has some pretty tactical-votable-against front benchers.HYUFD said:
Sunak will get less tactical voting against him than Boris did and Truss would haveHeathener said:
Without tactical voting, perhaps.HYUFD said:Should be noted though that on the 14% swing in Chester last night the Tories would still win 169 seats on the new boundaries ie more than the 165 they got in 1997
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=30&LAB=47&LIB=11&Reform=2&Green=2&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=14.3&SCOTLAB=30.7&SCOTLIB=6.7&SCOTReform=0.6&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=43.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
At the moment the real ballpark figure we should all be looking at is tory seats 100-150 with the lower end of that plausible.
Anyone thinking the tories can pull this out of the bag is living in cloud cuckoo land.
0 -
And that will give him a few extra seats down South which may give him slightly more than the 134 Electoral Calculus are estimating but won't bring him close to 200 seats.HYUFD said:
Sunak will get less tactical voting against him than Boris did and Truss would haveHeathener said:
Without tactical voting, perhaps.HYUFD said:Should be noted though that on the 14% swing in Chester last night the Tories would still win 169 seats on the new boundaries ie more than the 165 they got in 1997
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=Y&CON=30&LAB=47&LIB=11&Reform=2&Green=2&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=14.3&SCOTLAB=30.7&SCOTLIB=6.7&SCOTReform=0.6&SCOTGreen=1.7&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=43.7&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2019nbbase
At the moment the real ballpark figure we should all be looking at is tory seats 100-150 with the lower end of that plausible.
Anyone thinking the tories can pull this out of the bag is living in cloud cuckoo land.
Equally I don't think this is the Tory's worst result - there are still whole sets of bad news (NHS, tax, inflation, strikes) where voters won't have grasped the impact yet.0 -
Is the by-election result that bad for the Tories?
The swing was a relatively modest 13.6%.
Somehow the Tories managed to turn out more than six thousand votes.
Labour turned out fewer votes than the losing Tories received at the last GE.
Far-right parties were moribund.
It could have been a lot worse.0 -
Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
0 -
Lol, the Tories came third in Rotherham, and you think that makes it a better result?!TheScreamingEagles said:
It was better than Rotherham 1994 which might be the better comparator.tlg86 said:Worth saying that this was no Dudley West:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Dudley_West_by-election
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Rotherham_by-election
Ydoethur, please note who the Tory candidate was.
But not as impressive as Barking.
Note the Tory candidate here, anyone know what happened to her?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1994_Barking_by-election
Lib Dems not in play in Chester.0 -
I think you are probably correct about the future course of the Tory party, they will climb into their grave and keep digging.HYUFD said:
No, the right will now let Sunak and Hunt take the blame for defeat, then the ERG will try and take over and push the party to the populist hard right in opposition via Braverman, Badenoch and Mogg and hope Labour fails to get a grip with the economyJonathan said:So, if you were a Tory strategist what would you do?
Another leadership election? Third time a charm? Hunt/$unak isn’t getting the blue tribe excited.
Bring back Boris, lower taxes and say to hell with the markets.
Try to sell glimmers of economic good news as massive achievements, whilst ignoring the rest.
Dog whistle all the nasty stuff as if your life depended on it.
Er, that’s it.
It will be 10-15 years before they return to the Centrism that can win back seats.1 -
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.0 -
I'm reminded of Clementine's comment to Winston the morning after the crushing 1945 defeat.LostPassword said:Is the by-election result that bad for the Tories?
She tried to cheer him by up saying that the defeat might be “a blessing in disguise.”
“At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised," he said.1 -
currently the young MPs standing down are doing so because they know they don't have a hope of winning their seats at the next election and they fear the losing will have a great impact on their long term careers than walking away.Heathener said:
It's DEFINITELY worse than 1997.Stuartinromford said:
It's getting on for thirty years ago, and memory can mislead, but this feels worse than then.CarlottaVance said:
Yes it’s encouraging that more are engaged - I take two messages from this: 1) Labour are seen as a government in waiting and 2) the Tories have run out of road. Currently we’re on track for a ‘97 type result - whether that gets better or worse for them depends on how their back benches behave between now and the GE.ydoethur said:Turnout appears to have been a lot higher than the general consensus on PB. There was talk of 20-25% and here it is nudging 40.
A lot of very pissed off people out there wanting to send a giant FU to the government, perhaps?
The sexy sleaze under Major was often strange (who was the MP with the anti-snoring device?) but consensual. Now, we're getting allegations of rape (not just on the government benches, to be fair).
The government, despite virtually no
majority, did have some real achievements. Today's MPs seem to have more loyalty to their town/personal ideals than their party. Some will see this as a good thing, but it's a recipe for not getting difficult stuff done.
And by 1995 Britain was Booming. Even the optimist takes don't see that as the immediate future.
Of course events, it's not the case that the only way is down (baby). But it's the most obvious path for the Conservatives. And for all that Starmer is no Blair, Sunak is no Major either.
For a start, Black Wednesday looked really bad but didn't impact people in the same was as this cost of living crisis. And as you say, the real difference is that Britain was booming by 1995. You are spot on. This time it's near-catastrophic.
Plus on top of the commensurate sleaze you throw in the hideous last 3 years that everyone will want to put behind them and it's curtains for the tories at the next election.
They will be out of power for 10-15 years. Which is why the bright young things are standing down. Who would want to be left on the decaying rump of the tory parliamentary party having to sit alongside cockahoop Labour MPs because they can't all fit on the Government side?
This isn't hubris. It's the reality.
I don't think any of the young MPs who have announced they are leaving are in safe Southern seats they are in traditional Labour ones.0 -
I have tried a couple of times to read Salman Rushdie, but his turgid prose always grinds me to a halt fairly quickly.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.0 -
What is unsaid in interviews matters quite a lot. Wes Streeting this morning on Today R4 had no intention of answering the question: Given that 12% of GDP is spent on health care currently what do Labour think would be the right amount?
Focus on this question would be a good political discipline, and not just for Labour.0 -
If the Labour manifesto is 50 blank pieces of paper, I might vote for it...Theuniondivvie said:
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.1 -
I stuck that 14% into a UNS calculation just to see how reassuring it would be for you, and it came up with 200 lost seats for the Tories. Now that would be nice to see!HYUFD said:The swing in Chester of 14% to Labour was actually better for the Tories than the 18% swing to Labour in the latest YouGov poll yesterday.
So while not a great result for the Tories and good for Labour it was actually not as disastrous for Sunak as some of the latest polls would suggest1 -
It would be their best manifesto ever!tlg86 said:
If the Labour manifesto is 50 blank pieces of paper, I might vote for it...Theuniondivvie said:
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.0 -
The problem with the NHS isn't just money, it is staffing. It is simply impossible to catch up on backlogs when there are so many staff vacancies, particularly across critical areas like operating theatres and district nurses.algarkirk said:What is unsaid in interviews matters quite a lot. Wes Streeting this morning on Today R4 had no intention of answering the question: Given that 12% of GDP is spent on health care currently what do Labour think would be the right amount?
Focus on this question would be a good political discipline, and not just for Labour.
Unless a serious plan is developed to retain staff those backlogs will not dissappear.5 -
I think you either find the effort to adjust your reading to the steam of consciousness style is worthwhile, or you don't. That's a matter of taste rather than right or wrong, I think.Peter_the_Punter said:
Since the cricket is a bit dull I'll tell you why Mantel gets my goat.Nigelb said:
Perhaps that you don't like books which aren't very interested in women ?Cyclefree said:
It is v rare for me not to finish a book. With Dickens I cannot get past chapter 1. Mantel: I could not finish Wolf Hall. Her style is deeply annoying and she managed to make Tudor politics boring. Hugely overrated. IMO.Nigelb said:.
Neither of the last two are unreadable, it's just that you don't care for them. It's true that Dickens wasn't great at writing women, but I don't think he's exclusively a male preserve; my daughter likes his novels.Cyclefree said:Unreadable / unjustifiably praised book/author list: Part 1
1.The two biographies of Churchill by Martin Gilbert (one long laundry list of everything Churchill ever did with no attempt to put into context or analyse) and Roy Jenkins: insufferably self-regarding and pompous.
2. Martin Amis
3. Kingsley Amis: parts of Lucky Jim were quite funny but only because no-one else made jokes in books in the 1950s and after that he became a Self-Important Saloon Bar Bore.
4. Hilary Mantel - unreadable.
5. Dickens - also unreadable. Vanity Fair, by contrast, is one of the best novels ever written...
Agree about 1-3, and Vanity Fair.
I like Elizabeth Gaskell and George Eliot and Brontë. So dunno what it is about Dickens.
That's true of Mantel's trilogy, too.
She can write very well. Some of her descriptive passages are beautiful. She also researches thoroughly and knows her history. In Wolf Hall she was writing about a particularly interesting peiod of history, one I know quite well and enjoy reading about, whether its a contrarian view or not.
So why did I give up on it after 150 pages (and like Cyclefree I rarely fail to finish a book)?
It is written in the 'past in the present'. Cockneys use this mode a lot - 'So I goes in the pub and I sees this geezer....' - and it does have a certain dramatic effect, but only if used sparingly. A whole book written in it is simply tedious.
She uses personal pronouns in the most peculiar way which means that at certain points she has to clarify who she is referring to - e.g. 'He, Moore, came in....' Such stylistic quirks are so common throughout the text that you finish up paying more attention to them than the narrative.
You have to wonder what the point of all this weirdness is. I suspect her readers - and she is enormously popular - mistake it for Art. Or maybe the aim is to stand out from all the other writers of this type of novel. I think if she didn't do it, she would be a perfectly readable but ordinary writer of historic fiction. As it is she is deeply irrating, not least for the reason that this highly artificial and contrived rubbish sells like hot cakes, whilst equally capable writers with less of a penchant for self-publicity are ignored.
She is the Agatha Christie of historical novels - a mediocrity who got herself promoted way above her merit.
It's not Agatha Christie, that's for sure.
In a perhaps similar manner, some found large parts of Iain M Bank's Feersum Endjinn unreadable. Others enjoyed it.
0 -
They will have little scope to do anything much but try and run the economy sensibly.Theuniondivvie said:
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.
They will probably make the wealthier pay a bit more tax than would be the case under the Tories but basically you will have centreist government, rather like you are getting now.
On the whole that will be ok, and certainly a damn site better than we have had for a long while before Sunak/Hunt but it will be a tough gig, and Labour can hardly expect to be loved for doing it.0 -
Agree with much of this, though Mantel trilogy is worth a bit of effort. Also worth much effort is Dickens (who gets a bad press in posts above). Give yourself a leisurely 3 weeks and try Bleak House slowly. Ditto Tale of 2 Cities. If the first chapters, taken slowly don't get you gripped, you ain't going to like him.Foxy said:
I have tried a couple of times to read Salman Rushdie, but his turgid prose always grinds me to a halt fairly quickly.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
Don't start with Pickwick or Hard Times. More or less unreadable for modern readers.
1 -
The by-election is consistent with the Tories losing the next general election, but also remaining the official opposition, not under serious threat from being replaced by a party of the right or the centre.Heathener said:
I'm reminded of Clementine's comment to Winston the morning after the crushing 1945 defeat.LostPassword said:Is the by-election result that bad for the Tories?
She tried to cheer him by up saying that the defeat might be “a blessing in disguise.”
“At the moment it seems quite effectively disguised," he said.
It could be worse.
Given what happened with Truss, it deserves to be worse.3 -
The 3/1 on for Warnock in the Georgia rerun looks to have been great value, should have piled on.
Obama: Mr. Walker has been talking about issues that are of great importance to the people of Georgia like if it’s better to be a vampire or a werewolf.. This is a debate that I must confess I once had myself.. when I was 7
https://mobile.twitter.com/Acyn/status/1598471626638913537
"We all know some folks in our lives who — we don’t wish them ill will. They say crazy stuff & we’re all like, ‘Well, you know, Uncle Joe, you know what happened to him.’ They're part of the family but you don't give them serious responsibilities."2 -
A government that didn't try to incompetently meddle in numerous areas they don't understand would definitely be a step up on the overwhelming majority of postwar governments.londonpubman said:
It would be their best manifesto ever!tlg86 said:
If the Labour manifesto is 50 blank pieces of paper, I might vote for it...Theuniondivvie said:
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.0 -
Could be worse.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
It could be Philippa Gregory...0 -
Since writing styles are on the menu, guesses invited on the pro scribe who sicked up this bit of decomposing tripe.
1 -
How the fuck did Herschel Walker ever get within a thousand miles of a Senate nomination?Nigelb said:The 3/1 on for Warnock in the Georgia rerun looks to have been great value, should have piled on.
Obama: Mr. Walker has been talking about issues that are of great importance to the people of Georgia like if it’s better to be a vampire or a werewolf.. This is a debate that I must confess I once had myself.. when I was 7
https://mobile.twitter.com/Acyn/status/1598471626638913537
"We all know some folks in our lives who — we don’t wish them ill will. They say crazy stuff & we’re all like, ‘Well, you know, Uncle Joe, you know what happened to him.’ They're part of the family but you don't give them serious responsibilities."
You would have thought even the MAGA fundamentalists would have seen he was as mad as a box of frogs.3 -
Broken, sleazy Tories on the slide 0
-
I would have said they've gone right down the slide and are now in the cesspit.Sunil_Prasannan said:Broken, sleazy Tories on the slide
1 -
There is potential for lots of reform that doesn't cost the government any money. We've become too fixated on the government changing the country by spending money, but there's so much more that can be done.Peter_the_Punter said:
They will have little scope to do anything much but try and run the economy sensibly.Theuniondivvie said:
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.
They will probably make the wealthier pay a bit more tax than would be the case under the Tories but basically you will have centreist government, rather like you are getting now.
On the whole that will be ok, and certainly a damn site better than we have had for a long while before Sunak/Hunt but it will be a tough gig, and Labour can hardly expect to be loved for doing it.
Abolishing leasehold, for example, wouldn't cost the government a penny, but it would make life better for a lot of people. I'm confident there is lots of potential for similar reforms.1 -
Damn. I liked Hard Times.algarkirk said:
Agree with much of this, though Mantel trilogy is worth a bit of effort. Also worth much effort is Dickens (who gets a bad press in posts above). Give yourself a leisurely 3 weeks and try Bleak House slowly. Ditto Tale of 2 Cities. If the first chapters, taken slowly don't get you gripped, you ain't going to like him.Foxy said:
I have tried a couple of times to read Salman Rushdie, but his turgid prose always grinds me to a halt fairly quickly.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
Don't start with Pickwick or Hard Times. More or less unreadable for modern readers.1 -
Can an AI write such sycophantic bilge? Or does it require a human?Theuniondivvie said:Since writing styles are on the menu, guesses invited on the the pro scribe who sicked up this bit of decomposing tripe.
6 -
So you can now define a horse?Nigelb said:
Damn. I liked Hard Times.algarkirk said:
Agree with much of this, though Mantel trilogy is worth a bit of effort. Also worth much effort is Dickens (who gets a bad press in posts above). Give yourself a leisurely 3 weeks and try Bleak House slowly. Ditto Tale of 2 Cities. If the first chapters, taken slowly don't get you gripped, you ain't going to like him.Foxy said:
I have tried a couple of times to read Salman Rushdie, but his turgid prose always grinds me to a halt fairly quickly.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
Don't start with Pickwick or Hard Times. More or less unreadable for modern readers.1 -
If they win big they can be braver than that. They can make significant steps toward restoring our relations and trading arrangements with Europe, they can get on with some constitutional reform, they can push the council tax towards the property wealth tax it will one day become.Peter_the_Punter said:
They will have little scope to do anything much but try and run the economy sensibly.Theuniondivvie said:
Strictly speaking all they have to do is let the Tories lose.tlg86 said:
The big unknown is what Labour actually proposed to do in power. We got a little glimpse at that this week with the VAT on private school fees idea. They still need to win rather than just let the Tories lose.jonny83 said:The Conservative Party has been hurtling towards a period of opposition for some time and this result reflects that.
The public mood is that they have been government for too long, reinforced by errors and a lack of judgement.
I don’t see any of the meticulously triangulated plan for government of eg Blair and Brown, only definitely no EU and immigration bad so as not to scare the the red wall horsies.
They will probably make the wealthier pay a bit more tax than would be the case under the Tories but basically you will have centreist government, rather like you are getting now.
On the whole that will be ok, and certainly a damn site better than we have had for a long while before Sunak/Hunt but it will be a tough gig, and Labour can hardly expect to be loved for doing it.3 -
The Tories will be kicking themselves they forced Truss out this morning. Comeback?0
-
Good for you. F R Leavis agrees with you. I must try it again - but I expect hard times doing so.Nigelb said:
Damn. I liked Hard Times.algarkirk said:
Agree with much of this, though Mantel trilogy is worth a bit of effort. Also worth much effort is Dickens (who gets a bad press in posts above). Give yourself a leisurely 3 weeks and try Bleak House slowly. Ditto Tale of 2 Cities. If the first chapters, taken slowly don't get you gripped, you ain't going to like him.Foxy said:
I have tried a couple of times to read Salman Rushdie, but his turgid prose always grinds me to a halt fairly quickly.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
Don't start with Pickwick or Hard Times. More or less unreadable for modern readers.
0 -
Someone who'd be happy to be a corgi, so long as it was the right corgi, was my reaction.Theuniondivvie said:Since writing styles are on the menu, guesses invited on the pro scribe who sicked up this bit of decomposing tripe.
Reminds me of being hauled along to a garden party at Holyroodhouse when my dad got an invite with the rations. I've never recovered from seeing the way supposedly douce and sensible middle-aged matrons behaved in the presence of royalty - like teenage rock fans in slow motion.
Though oin recogniseable writing styles/tones, Peter Conrad (erstwhile of the Sunday Times) gets my vote. I can dip into some magazine, find myself in the middle of some review, and guess instantly who is the reviewer.0 -
You , the ERG and the right are exactly why we are where we are and the idea the conservative party, post the next GE, turns itself into a Corbynite style cabal with the likes of the appalling Braverman and the utterly ridiculous Rees Mogg leading it is the model for immediate political irrelevance and out of power for a generation and beyondHYUFD said:
No, the right will now let Sunak and Hunt take the blame for defeat, then the ERG will try and take over and push the party to the populist hard right in opposition via Braverman, Badenoch and Mogg and hope Labour fails to get a grip with the economyJonathan said:So, if you were a Tory strategist what would you do?
Another leadership election? Third time a charm? Hunt/$unak isn’t getting the blue tribe excited.
Bring back Boris, lower taxes and say to hell with the markets.
Try to sell glimmers of economic good news as massive achievements, whilst ignoring the rest.
Dog whistle all the nasty stuff as if your life depended on it.
Er, that’s it.
It is obvious to most everyone the mood in the nation has changed not least to your little Englander views, and as far as I am concerned Starmer's likely success in Scotland is a real plus as he strengthens support for the Union and my main regret is that Starmer seems to have decided to become more of a Brexiteer than the ERG, when in reality he has a golden opportunity for improving relationship with the EU and trade including the single market2 -
I’m reading Our Mutual Friend at the moment actually.algarkirk said:
Agree with much of this, though Mantel trilogy is worth a bit of effort. Also worth much effort is Dickens (who gets a bad press in posts above). Give yourself a leisurely 3 weeks and try Bleak House slowly. Ditto Tale of 2 Cities. If the first chapters, taken slowly don't get you gripped, you ain't going to like him.Foxy said:
I have tried a couple of times to read Salman Rushdie, but his turgid prose always grinds me to a halt fairly quickly.Heathener said:Agree with PtP and Cyclefree on Mantel. Deathly dull writing.
Nothing to do with female writers or characters. Love a lot of my sorority authors. But I've never got beyond a few chapters of Mantel before grinding to a turgid bored halt.
Don't start with Pickwick or Hard Times. More or less unreadable for modern readers.1 -
Mantel? Rushdie? Dickens? Heathcliff? Hesiod? Ian Hislop?Theuniondivvie said:Since writing styles are on the menu, guesses invited on the pro scribe who sicked up this bit of decomposing tripe.
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Goodness knows how bad it would have looked had Truss still been there.DougSeal said:The Tories will be kicking themselves they forced Truss out this morning. Comeback?
Sunak stopped the worst of the immediate bleeding, which is as much as anyone could realistically hope for.1 -
The usual cycle. Establishment reveals some predictable flaw that creates a victim. Something must be done. A member of the establishment is made the scapegoat. The scapegoated figure becomes the object of sympathy until eventually they are framed as the victim and the original victim is forgotten, or, ideally, blamed. The establishment moves on, learning nothing, changing nothing.Theuniondivvie said:Since writing styles are on the menu, guesses invited on the pro scribe who sicked up this bit of decomposing tripe.
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Oxford Union takes the knee to the trans lobby
An Oxford student union official has apologised for her supposedly trans- exclusionary stance after objecting to the abolition of the women’s officer role.
Ellie Greaves, the vice-president for women at Oxford’s student union, put out a statement after a backlash against her comments in The Times.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/oxford-union-official-ellie-greaves-sorry-for-hurting-trans-people-5v6zg6k5d
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Such vapid bilge seems something the late and lamented lamentable SeanT would write.Theuniondivvie said:Since writing styles are on the menu, guesses invited on the pro scribe who sicked up this bit of decomposing tripe.
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