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Scottish leader ratings from Ipsos – not good for Rishi – politicalbetting.com

A Scotland-only poll is quite rare and we have a new one from Ipsos. The main leader ratings are featured in their charts above.
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"No 10 has also announced that British training of Ukrainian forces will be expanded to cover fighter jet pilots and marines.
It's also expected the UK will announce fresh sanctions targeting Russia later.
Plans have been announced to train Ukrainian pilots to fly Nato-standard fighter jets in the future, a key request from Ukraine."
https://www.bbc.co.uk./news/uk-politics-64566248
https://twitter.com/andrewdoyle_com/status/1622858585561522176?s=61&t=sWnhbBMXqU7BiNgCoitsoA
Whatever you think of Salmond, he was (and still is, when he chooses to be) quite the orator, and quite the operator
I say it again, I think the Indy movement is now going to split - much worse than the minor Nit/Alba split of before
Rishi also has a higher favourable rating than Boris did in Scotland, 18% to 16%
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/boris-johnsons-ratings-hit-record-low-scotland-snp-support-stays-strong
Weapons, weapons and more weapons are what Ukraine needs.
If you argue that sanctions will not bring Putin down, then I'd agree. But they really hurt Russia's ability to fight - and that's what's important.
Besides, I'd argue there's a moral viewpoint as well: buying gas and oil from Russia when they're acting in the way they are is deeply immoral. We couldn't wean ourselves off it immediately, but it's good we're not paying them.
https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/ct/news/documents/2023-02/Charts_Leaders_SG_performance_GRA_Scottish Political Pulse_Feb23_pptx.pdf
Standouts for me are that:
- Scots back the UK government's blocking of the gender recognition bill by 50% for to 33% against. It wasn't clever of Sturgeon to pick this of all issues on which to have a constitutional battle with the UK government, nor for Sarwar to line up his troops to help vote through the bill.
- Although the SNP outscores Labour on those who have a favourable opinion of the party, the SNP is basically marmite whereas Labour isn't, so the SNP also outscores Labour on unfavourable opinions. Net favourable ratings for the parties are:
SNP 0% net
Lab 0% net
Conservative -44%
Green -8%
LD -18%
- Perceptions of Scottish Government performance are poor, from -16% to -31% on various issues.
The GE voting intention would have been interesting in the above context, it's a shame that IPSOS hasn't published it.
There are other examples.
eg.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-contradicts-scottish-labour-28958637
In general Starmer has succeeded by not saying very much at all, can he carry on doing the ‘otoh this but otoh that’ waltz on the gender issue all the way to the GE?
Later peeps!
(Does not bother removing hat or coat)
Starmer has taken a different stance to Sarwar on the bill, and was widely reported in Scotland as having done so.
eg.
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/politics/keir-starmer-contradicts-scottish-labour-28958637
Especially when the unionist parties also supported the GRR. Even the Tories were so divided that they had a free vote. And is "Sturgeon supported the GRR so I'll have to change my vote" the issue that turns people as opposed to the ones that actually affect them like jobs and prosperity and drugs and connectivity and education etc etc etc?
Sturgeon may well be done. So the question is which new leader wins their 5th election in a few years, not which of the GRR-supporting unionist parties picks up their votes. And yes I am discounting Alba because Salmond couldn't even pick up votes in his own village.
But I’m sure I’d heard that SLab was an entirely autonomous wing of the Labour Party led by Anas Sarwar. Will they be campaigning separately in Scotland?
We need as much pressure put on Russia as possible, and the sanctions are part of that pressure. True, they won't make Russia end the war: but nothing we do short of all-out war would. But they make it harder for Russia to fight the war, make it harder for the oligarchs to spend their money, and damages their economy.
Various people have made the point that Putin factored in sanctions in his decisions in 2014 and 2022 to invade Ukraine: he decided that they were part of doing business. The fact we've put together a package of sanctions orders of magnitude stronger than he expected is hurting him.
And it also makes it less likely for other countries to get such expansionist adventurism.
They're selling oil to India at a massive discount leaving aside the logistics.
They can't sell their gas.
Lots of young educated people have left the country.
Their trying to fund a major war.
They've been cut off from much of the global economy.
(This is lesson #5 in the series "Material engineering for politics geeks")
Your point is irrelevant though, as you know. Labour will be fighting the next UK general election on a UK wide manifesto. And the decision on whether to block an unpopular bill in which the aspiring Queen Nicola has exceeded her powers is down to the UK government.
Anyway, Rishi has found someone he can look straight in the eye (as opposed to chin or chest):
https://twitter.com/RishiSunak/status/1623272630143918080
As I stated earlier, the IPSOS polling is also interesting to me because of the negative opinions it also reveals of the Scottish Government's performance on a range of issues and the fact that the SNP's net favourability rating is now no greater than that of Labour amongst Scots.
And whilst any growth is better than decline, it will require careful spinning by the government, or they risk sounding out of touch (which I hope they aren't) millionaires (which Sunak and Hunt both are. Not bad in itself, but tricky casting).
Plastic deformation is when your material moves under stress & doesn’t spring back afterwards - it’s permanently deformed. Elastic is when it springs back again when you take the stress away. Brittle failure is when the material breaks apart suddenly at a given stress level.
At least I think I have that right...
At any event, glad he is here. Britain's help for Ukraine is something to be proud about.
Surely not!
But yes, I should have used "fails" rather than "snaps"
Zelensky doesn't seem to care about it, though.
BBC: A man
Guardian: A named man
Mail: A person with two names, one characteristically male, one female
Sun: A person with two names who identifies as a woman.
I am sure this is symbolic of something. No idea what.
Most institutions behave plastically, like metals. They absorb lots of shocks by becoming dented. Eventually they weaken, but you need to throw a lot of rocks at them to make them break.
Boris was the interesting one, because he appeared not to dent for a long time- more like fibreglass panels. But the accumulation of tiny cracks meant that he ended up shattering rapidly under a fairly minor scandal.
Truss was like trying to use gingerbread as a structural material. Yes it's been written about and sounds fun, but not a good idea.
You haven't a clue what my tune is, but assuming it's that SLab is a powerless husk whose opinions are irrelevant to the larger Labour party, whose point is being made here do you think?
PS Would it be gazetted somewhere if Johnson were to receive his US citizenship back, or is it only renunciations that get publicly noted?
PPS Some Ford Galaxies from the mid-noughties had front seats that could turn round and face the back. Now that's what I call a cool car.
https://twitter.com/paul_lever/status/1623259360142020608
If the Faroe islands had provided tanks and other equipment on the same scale he would be there.
Just like here in the UK vast wealth transfers are constantly happening from those who are productive and working to those who are unproductive, retired and frequently already wealthy rentiers who are not taxed at the same rate as those working for a living.
But those frequently already wealthy rentiers vote, and the young don't, so both parties here and there pander to them.
Getting both parties to pander to the boomer vote takes no skill, I'd be more impressed if anyone was willing to stand up and say that this is wrong. I shan't be holding my breath though.
https://ru.usembassy.gov/world-war-ii-allies-u-s-lend-lease-to-the-soviet-union-1941-1945/
And you'd barely have had any manufacturing at the start of the war, if you were to discount the plants built by US business.
I can see how Sturgeon goes. Though it won't be this issue, the party will be shocked to discover the financial questions they have been ignoring and will remove her. That is a world away from Scottish voters chosing to abandon their so far solid support for the SNP to vote for unionist parties who want to block the independence they are also supporting.
Post-Brexit whether we are supportive or not, relevant or not, is due to our actions that we choose to take - and not because of or despite Brexit.
The UK would probably have survived but we'd have had to sue for peace and Nazi dominance over the whole European continent would have made our position perilous.
With GRR all you have to do to avoid trouble is to shadow what England and Wales is doing (don't ask, no idea), take any credit and blame any problems on Westminster. Standard stuff.
With GE as 'proxy referendum' you cannot win. If you poll 50%+ everyone else says tough, we never recognised this. If you don't poll 50%+ you have lost on your own terms, and your enemies as well as other parties will be quick to point it out.
Since the Brexit 52/48 vote, pressing for a referendum except when support for the change is so strong it's irresistible is a bit out of fashion.
Why is this gifted (though wrong) politician not doing gritty everyday campaigning to get support for independence up to 60-65%, from which position she could actually get what she says she wants? Since Brexit she is not exactly short of material to work with.
A mere 8 per cent of Scots want a referendum on secession this year, according to the latest poll. 👇
How did the First Minister so spectacularly misjudge what the people want?
https://twitter.com/JohnFerry18/status/1623283235915501569
400,000 jeeps & trucks
14,000 airplanes
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
107,000 tons of cotton
2.7 million tons of petrol products
4.5 million tons of food
The Ihor Kolomoisky fraud trial in London was adjourned last March for a year, because of the war. (Write-up in the Law Gazette.) It's all right for Kolomoisky, isn't it? Fuel the war by funding the Azov battalion and other paramilitaries for years beginning in 2014, get yourself indicted for fraud, and then use the escalation of the war in 2022 as a reason to have your trial postponed.
Secondly it has massive populist appeal if the populace you're trying to attract is right-on individuals in Twitter, the Grauniad etc.
I don't know that you can say 'quite likely', but it's certainly possible.
In a polarized era, the president retains far more power to frame the debate.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2023/02/08/republicans-props-biden-state-of-the-union-00081774
Wales as embodied by Welsh Labour and Drakeford appear to be shadowing Scotland. No doubt the Tories & tabloids wil be going round with pitchforks and flaming torches trying to inflame the issue there but they may have left it a bit too late before their own immolation.
'Welsh Government to seek devolution of gender recognition laws amid Scotland battle'
https://inews.co.uk/news/wales-welsh-government-devolution-gender-recognition-laws-scotland-battle-2131989
If thats right, and its a pretty convincing case, the only way that Russia would have lost would have been if Stalin and the government fell, or fled and sued for peace (unlikely to be granted in a war of anihilation).
There is no question that the western allies spent Russian lives to win the war and bought those lives with lend lease material. We avoided huge death tools in the west by letting the Russians die by the million.
Some may point out ScotGov had been forewarned of this risk by opposition MSPs..
https://twitter.com/deanmthomson/status/1623285775109431296