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Can the LDs become the 3rd party once again? – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited March 2023 in General
imageCan the LDs become the 3rd party once again? – politicalbetting.com

Before the weekend my old friend Ed Davey, the Lib Dem leader, was in town as part of his party’s local elections campaign and I managed to speak to him about the party’s objectives at the next general election.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • It feels like re-establishing third place might be a better bet for the General Election after next, I think.

    Yes, at this stage they're likely to gain seats (though they'll have to devote a fair amount of resource to maintaining those three by-election wins). Yes, they'll probably benefit from an increase in tactical voting as they did in 1997. Yes, there's a strong possibility the SNP's star will fade a bit under a new leader (but we've no idea by how much yet).

    But my feeling is the gap they have to overcome is so large they'll need at least those three to come home and more if they're to recapture third place.

    I'd say the probability of it happening at the next General Electionbare no more than 10%.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Your old friend who?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    Oh, and they'd be better off with a leader named Daisy not Davey.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    Oh, and they'd be better off with a leader named Daisy not Davey.

    Who not who?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    edited March 2023
    Mike’s article focuses on parliamentary numbers, with a specific reference to number of PMQ questions. Highly misleading.

    The real problem for the Lib Dems isn’t arithmetic within the Westminster Bubble, it is the harsh realities of real world.

    They are a 10th tier political entity. Lots and lots of public organisations and personalities are ahead of Mike’s old pals in terms of public influence and prominence. To take just a few examples, the Royals, DUP, Sinn Féin, Welsh Labour and Scottish Greens are also well ahead of the LDs in the public eye. Then you have all the Whitehall characters (Gray etc). And then all the international personalities (Ukraine, US, the list is endless). And then all the celebs and sports stars. And all the other media personalities. And that’s before you get to the TikTok generation, who have probably never even heard of the LD brand.

    There is simply no space left for the Lib Dems. In a well-stocked grocery section (not in the UK obvs) the Lib Dems are the floppy wee carrot that has been kicked under the display unit and will be discovered and disposed of during the next renovation.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    Can they? Yes. But will they? Not in the near future, unless the Conservatives collapse utterly.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    ...
  • Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,019
    The Lib Dems seem more interested in the EU than liberalism.

    What exactly is their pitch?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Good morning, everyone.

    Can they? Yes. But will they? Not in the near future, unless the Conservatives collapse utterly.

    The SNP imploding would be more important - and by ‘imploding’ I mean losing 40 seats.

    Even after last night’s train crash that’s not easy to see happening.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    Happy International Women's Day!*

    (* except for viewers in Farageland, where it’s Happy Englandshire Wives, Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives and Aunts Day!)
  • ClippPClippP Posts: 1,667

    .................They have to hope and pray nobody else can be bought off ahead of them - as with the DUP in 2017...........................

    A bit of re-writing of history there, Mr Mark, as you Tories always do.

    The Lib Dems were not there waiting to be "bought off", as you put it, after their damaging experience of being in coalition with the Tories. Having been stabbed in the back by their so-called coalition partners, they made it quite clear that they would steer clear of the treacherous bastards (as their own Conservative Leader John Major used to call them). The only group that the Tories could look to for support was the DUP, their last resort - and as OGH has frequently pointed out - now there is nobody left willing to play ball with the Tories. Deservedly.

    Mr Dixon sneers at the Lib Dems - as again is his custom - but he does so from his bolt-hole in deepest Scandinavia. His only source of information is what he picks up from the media - which is even less reliable as a source than Mr Mark's biased outpourings.

    Is local government not an important area of influence and power?
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    The Lib Dems seem more interested in the EU than liberalism.

    What exactly is their pitch?

    Don’t vote Red Vipers or Blue Vipers, vote Yellow Vipers. We’re different!
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    “The SNP has lost its way,” Regan had said and the spectacle of last night’s bruising encounter proved her point. So many things that were essential two weeks ago, such as the National Care Service, the Green government pact, the Deposit Return Scheme and an alcohol advertising ban, have to be scrapped, overhauled or delayed.

    It was a good night . . . for Labour and the Tories. We should have leadership contests more often — said no one in the SNP.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/yousafs-record-condemned-by-forbes-during-heated-debate-dwxfkcvxn
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    ClippP said:



    .................They have to hope and pray nobody else can be bought off ahead of them - as with the DUP in 2017...........................

    A bit of re-writing of history there, Mr Mark, as you Tories always do.

    The Lib Dems were not there waiting to be "bought off", as you put it, after their damaging experience of being in coalition with the Tories. Having been stabbed in the back by their so-called coalition partners, they made it quite clear that they would steer clear of the treacherous bastards (as their own Conservative Leader John Major used to call them). The only group that the Tories could look to for support was the DUP, their last resort - and as OGH has frequently pointed out - now there is nobody left willing to play ball with the Tories. Deservedly.

    Mr Dixon sneers at the Lib Dems - as again is his custom - but he does so from his bolt-hole in deepest Scandinavia. His only source of information is what he picks up from the media - which is even less reliable as a source than Mr Mark's biased outpourings.

    Is local government not an important area of influence and power?
    Hahahaha. Nice try.

    For a couple of decades, the LibDems tried to be all things to all voters. To Tories, they appealed as being not as scary as Labour. To Labour voters, they were nothing like those Tory scum. Riding two horses at once finally got spectaculalry unseated when you had issues of governance to cope with. Like tuition fees. Like an EU referendum - first promised to voters, then a term of the Coalition Agreement that "thou shall never talk of EU referenda".

    The pretence of being two-faced could only work until you actually had power.

    As to local government, the LibDems are quite good at getting control. They then show themselves to be utterly shite at governing. And their fall is equally spectacular.

    But frankly, it is the only one trick pony your party can ride these days.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739

    As to local government, the LibDems are quite good at getting control. They then show themselves to be utterly shite at governing.

    The current administrations at Westminster and Holyrood have entered the chat...
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,739
    Nicola Sturgeon resigned only three weeks ago but already her independence strategy is in tatters. The two leading contenders for her crown are intent on a much more cautious approach. We are heading for a historic realignment of Scottish nationalism.

    Both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes have raised the bar on when Scotland should hold a referendum on breaking up Britain. Last week Yousaf said that independence had to be the “sustained settled will” before a vote was triggered. Forbes echoed this, using the phrase “sustained majority”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-s-new-order-is-taking-a-smarter-route-to-independence-sfn9t73b3
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    The Lib Dems seem more interested in the EU than liberalism.

    What exactly is their pitch?

    Don’t vote Red Vipers or Blue Vipers, vote Yellow Vipers. We’re different!
    ’Yellow Vipers’ is a good description of the Nats after last night.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,572
    Reading the thread header, the prospect of the LDs becoming the third party is held to be clearly dependent on a significant Labour revival in Scotland, not only in votes but also in parliamentary seats. I think that Mike is correct in that.

    But two threads ago, the title of the thread was "WHY I STILL THINK LAB WILL STRUGGLE TO GET A MAJORITY". And a lot of Mike's thinking there was predicated on the idea that the electoral system would remain heavily biased against Labour and increasingly so. Yet a significant Labour revival in Scotland would undo a lot of that bias and make it more likely that Labour will get a majority. So two threads ago, Mike in effect implied that a Scottish Labour revival of any significance was unlikely to happen.

    So this and the last but one thread effectively contradict one another. If the idea of a Labour revival in Scotland is being discounted, you would expect to see this thread have a title more like "WHY I DON'T THINK THAT THE LDS CAN BECOME THE 3RD PARTY ONCE AGAIN".
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Reading the thread header, the prospect of the LDs becoming the third party is held to be clearly dependent on a significant Labour revival in Scotland, not only in votes but also in parliamentary seats. I think that Mike is correct in that.

    But two threads ago, the title of the thread was "WHY I STILL THINK LAB WILL STRUGGLE TO GET A MAJORITY". And a lot of Mike's thinking there was predicated on the idea that the electoral system would remain heavily biased against Labour and increasingly so. Yet a significant Labour revival in Scotland would undo a lot of that bias and make it more likely that Labour will get a majority. So two threads ago, Mike in effect implied that a Scottish Labour revival of any significance was unlikely to happen.

    So this and the last but one thread effectively contradict one another. If the idea of a Labour revival in Scotland is being discounted, you would expect to see this thread have a title more like "WHY I DON'T THINK THAT THE LDS CAN BECOME THE 3RD PARTY ONCE AGAIN".

    Well, last night has happened since.

    Equally, as I say upthread it’s hard to see a complete collapse for the SNP. They might lose 15-20 seats at the outside if this goes on but unless it’s an exceptionally good night for the Oranges elsewhere that probably won’t be enough.
  • Scott_xP said:

    Nicola Sturgeon resigned only three weeks ago but already her independence strategy is in tatters. The two leading contenders for her crown are intent on a much more cautious approach. We are heading for a historic realignment of Scottish nationalism.

    Both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes have raised the bar on when Scotland should hold a referendum on breaking up Britain. Last week Yousaf said that independence had to be the “sustained settled will” before a vote was triggered. Forbes echoed this, using the phrase “sustained majority”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-s-new-order-is-taking-a-smarter-route-to-independence-sfn9t73b3

    What does look positive for the SNP is that at least one of the candidates is pointing out the multiple deep failings of the SNP government. You can't just blame Westminster for those failings without saying you can't actually govern.
  • JonathanJonathan Posts: 20,901
    Not at all sure what the Lib Dems stand for these days. They’re not a safe protest vote either. A zombie party.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Scott_xP said:

    Nicola Sturgeon resigned only three weeks ago but already her independence strategy is in tatters. The two leading contenders for her crown are intent on a much more cautious approach. We are heading for a historic realignment of Scottish nationalism.

    Both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes have raised the bar on when Scotland should hold a referendum on breaking up Britain. Last week Yousaf said that independence had to be the “sustained settled will” before a vote was triggered. Forbes echoed this, using the phrase “sustained majority”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-s-new-order-is-taking-a-smarter-route-to-independence-sfn9t73b3

    What does look positive for the SNP is that at least one of the candidates is pointing out the multiple deep failings of the SNP government. You can't just blame Westminster for those failings without saying you can't actually govern.
    What odds are you offering for that?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,167

    Scott_xP said:

    Nicola Sturgeon resigned only three weeks ago but already her independence strategy is in tatters. The two leading contenders for her crown are intent on a much more cautious approach. We are heading for a historic realignment of Scottish nationalism.

    Both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes have raised the bar on when Scotland should hold a referendum on breaking up Britain. Last week Yousaf said that independence had to be the “sustained settled will” before a vote was triggered. Forbes echoed this, using the phrase “sustained majority”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-s-new-order-is-taking-a-smarter-route-to-independence-sfn9t73b3

    What does look positive for the SNP is that at least one of the candidates is pointing out the multiple deep failings of the SNP government. You can't just blame Westminster for those failings without saying you can't actually govern.
    It’s an interesting feature of changes of leadership while in power. The Tories have done it multiple times. Criticise their own previous administration as a way of showing they’re the change candidate. Worked for them, maybe it’ll work for the SNP too.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 9,167
    edited March 2023
    On topic I hadn’t quite appreciated how big the cliff edge in PMQs is between third and fourth party.

    In the mean time the LDs need to focus on building up locally. They already have a good presence in council seats and should be able to build from there. But national relevance is always going to be a struggle.

    This is where major local government devolution would help. Labour have promised devolution but at the region and city level. I think we we need a much bigger rebalancing of democracy to the local community. That, coupled with voting reform for council elections (so we don’t have the silliness of 50/50 seats for a single party in my borough), could see the LDs and Greens carving out an important niche.
  • kyf_100kyf_100 Posts: 3,911
    Jonathan said:

    Not at all sure what the Lib Dems stand for these days. They’re not a safe protest vote either. A zombie party.

    Quite.

    I struggle to name a single policy. Are they still the party of rejoin? Are they anything else?

    Their biggest problem is they're only ever going to get into government in coalition with either Labour or the Tories, and we've no idea how they'll behave in coalition, though the 2010-2015 era gives us a few hints, i.e. if they have any red lines, they'll quickly drop them. But what even are those red lines? What would they push for, as part of a coalition government?

    Having a clearly defined document of what their red lines would be and what they'd demand in exchange for, say, getting Labour over the line at the next GE would help a lot. All we have at the moment is their 2019 manifesto (simply titled "stop Brexit" - a bit late for that now...)

  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    TimS said:

    On topic I hadn’t quite appreciated how big the cliff edge in PMQs is between third and fourth party.

    In the mean time the LDs need to focus on building up locally. They already have a good presence in council seats and should be able to build from there. But national relevance is always going to be a struggle.

    This is where major local government devolution would help. Labour have promised devolution but at the region and city level. I think we we need a much bigger rebalancing of democracy to the local community. That, coupled with voting reform for council elections (so we don’t have the silliness of 50/50 seats for a single party in my borough), could see the LDs and Greens carving out an important niche.

    Starmer could do worse than adopt one SNP policy that looks to have been an unqualified success - their voting reform for local council elections.
  • Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.
  • ydoethur said:

    Scott_xP said:

    Nicola Sturgeon resigned only three weeks ago but already her independence strategy is in tatters. The two leading contenders for her crown are intent on a much more cautious approach. We are heading for a historic realignment of Scottish nationalism.

    Both Humza Yousaf and Kate Forbes have raised the bar on when Scotland should hold a referendum on breaking up Britain. Last week Yousaf said that independence had to be the “sustained settled will” before a vote was triggered. Forbes echoed this, using the phrase “sustained majority”.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/snp-s-new-order-is-taking-a-smarter-route-to-independence-sfn9t73b3

    What does look positive for the SNP is that at least one of the candidates is pointing out the multiple deep failings of the SNP government. You can't just blame Westminster for those failings without saying you can't actually govern.
    What odds are you offering for that?
    Odds? Forbes was literally doing what I said, tearing Humza apart because he is a shot minister. Great fun!

    Point is that the SNP's best play for independence is be credible and successful as a government. Increasingly they have been neither. Forbes could fix that. Won't make independence come quickly, but otherwise the risk is the SNP fall apart.

    Sorry, not risk. Hope.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    That last line is very harsh, Mr Eagles.

    Lionel Hutz was funny.
  • On topic, yes they can but probably in 2029.

    In 2024 they'll pick up some blue wall seats and potentially some SNP seats if Humza Yousaf proves to be as useless as expected or if the MSP for Gilead wins.

    By 2029 they should pick up some Labour seats.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    ydoethur said:

    Reading the thread header, the prospect of the LDs becoming the third party is held to be clearly dependent on a significant Labour revival in Scotland, not only in votes but also in parliamentary seats. I think that Mike is correct in that.

    But two threads ago, the title of the thread was "WHY I STILL THINK LAB WILL STRUGGLE TO GET A MAJORITY". And a lot of Mike's thinking there was predicated on the idea that the electoral system would remain heavily biased against Labour and increasingly so. Yet a significant Labour revival in Scotland would undo a lot of that bias and make it more likely that Labour will get a majority. So two threads ago, Mike in effect implied that a Scottish Labour revival of any significance was unlikely to happen.

    So this and the last but one thread effectively contradict one another. If the idea of a Labour revival in Scotland is being discounted, you would expect to see this thread have a title more like "WHY I DON'T THINK THAT THE LDS CAN BECOME THE 3RD PARTY ONCE AGAIN".

    Well, last night has happened since.

    Equally, as I say upthread it’s hard to see a complete collapse for the SNP. They might lose 15-20 seats at the outside if this goes on but unless it’s an exceptionally good night for the Oranges elsewhere that probably won’t be enough.
    In 2019, there were 48 MPs on Team Sporran and 11 on Team Sandal.

    If the next election goes really well for the Lib Dems, what's their optimistic-realistic target? Lib Dems really need to fight a doorstep to doorstep ground war to win seats, which limits how many they can go for.

    And their likely demographics- graduate heavy Remain 2016 seats, the leafiest of suburbs and cities with a cathedral but not a university- are limited, if fairly well-defined.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,837
    Problem they have now is both main Parties have sensible leaders.
    They only way to get any publicity at all is by being radically borderline crazy.
    Not Ed Davey at all.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,254
    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    Reading the thread header, the prospect of the LDs becoming the third party is held to be clearly dependent on a significant Labour revival in Scotland, not only in votes but also in parliamentary seats. I think that Mike is correct in that.

    But two threads ago, the title of the thread was "WHY I STILL THINK LAB WILL STRUGGLE TO GET A MAJORITY". And a lot of Mike's thinking there was predicated on the idea that the electoral system would remain heavily biased against Labour and increasingly so. Yet a significant Labour revival in Scotland would undo a lot of that bias and make it more likely that Labour will get a majority. So two threads ago, Mike in effect implied that a Scottish Labour revival of any significance was unlikely to happen.

    So this and the last but one thread effectively contradict one another. If the idea of a Labour revival in Scotland is being discounted, you would expect to see this thread have a title more like "WHY I DON'T THINK THAT THE LDS CAN BECOME THE 3RD PARTY ONCE AGAIN".

    Well, last night has happened since.

    Equally, as I say upthread it’s hard to see a complete collapse for the SNP. They might lose 15-20 seats at the outside if this goes on but unless it’s an exceptionally good night for the Oranges elsewhere that probably won’t be enough.
    In 2019, there were 48 MPs on Team Sporran and 11 on Team Sandal.

    If the next election goes really well for the Lib Dems, what's their optimistic-realistic target? Lib Dems really need to fight a doorstep to doorstep ground war to win seats, which limits how many they can go for.

    And their likely demographics- graduate heavy Remain 2016 seats, the leafiest of suburbs and cities with a cathedral but not a university- are limited, if fairly well-defined.
    Anything over 20 would surely be a good result. More than 25 and Ed Davey should channel Mark J Williams and do his press conference naked.

    Can't see the SNP going significantly below 30 unless Yousaf wins and is even more inept than he looks. The latter would be some achievement.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    The Lib Dems generally do better when the Tories are weak. There are a swathe of seats in the south west and the more university dominated parts of the south where they have the potential to pick up Tory seats, if the Tories are weak enough.

    But the Lib Dems have benefited from strong and interesting personalities over the last 40 years, people who have something to say and seem worth listening to. Ted Wavey or Ed Pavey or whoever is as noticeable as a small branch bank manager, if such things still exist. There is no moral, clarion cry to be heard. They are irrelevant and, even worse, dull.

    Take today as an example. The UK government is putting forward legislation that on the balance of probabilities of their own inhouse lawyers breaks international law. They are doing so to victimise the other, to blame desperate people who want to improve their lives by coming to a country that they admire (seriously, they do) rather than address their own failings. Where is the moral outrage? Who has the courage to face down the red tops and say, "we are better than this"? Does anyone doubt that Kennedy would have done? Or Ashcroft, or Clegg? It's sad in its way.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069

    On topic, yes they can but probably in 2029.

    In 2024 they'll pick up some blue wall seats and potentially some SNP seats if Humza Yousaf proves to be as useless as expected or if the MSP for Gilead wins.

    By 2029 they should pick up some Labour seats.

    Yes, I think that a realistic plan, and Davey is one for realism.

    Despite being ignored by the media and political establishment 1 in 12 Britons or more plan to vote LD at the GE, and possibly twice that at the Local Elections.

    We are the third party already in terms of national popular vote, just penalised nationally by the current electoral system.

    As to what we stand for, those with open minds might want to follow the LD Spring Conference the weekend after next, having lost our autumn conference to the Royal mourning.

    https://events.libdems.org.uk/events/45197/liberal-democrat-spring-conference-2023
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    edited March 2023
    The Rest is Politics podcast is entertaining this morning.

    Their tickets sell out as quickly as Eurovision, and Matt Hancock has the best Whatsapp line on Dominic Cummings: "his insight is as bad as his eyesight".
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M_0Z-UYk3vI and other podcast platforms.

    ETA I've not listened to all of it, and add this disclaimer in case they go on to advocate the slaughter of the first-born.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,959
    kyf_100 said:

    Jonathan said:

    Not at all sure what the Lib Dems stand for these days. They’re not a safe protest vote either. A zombie party.

    Quite.

    I struggle to name a single policy. Are they still the party of rejoin? Are they anything else?

    Their biggest problem is they're only ever going to get into government in coalition with either Labour or the Tories, and we've no idea how they'll behave in coalition, though the 2010-2015 era gives us a few hints, i.e. if they have any red lines, they'll quickly drop them. But what even are those red lines? What would they push for, as part of a coalition government?

    Having a clearly defined document of what their red lines would be and what they'd demand in exchange for, say, getting Labour over the line at the next GE would help a lot. All we have at the moment is their 2019 manifesto (simply titled "stop Brexit" - a bit late for that now...)

    The great irony is that by blocking any discussion of a referendum on the EU in 2010, the LibDems created the perfect scenario for the issue to fester to the point where it delivered Brexit.

    If Clegg and Cameron had stood in the rose garden at Number 10 in late 2010 and announced a referendum "to define our position in the EU for the ages", they would have got a 60-40 win. And would indeed have locked us into the EU for all time.

    The LibDems are just shite at politics.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 38,879
    edited March 2023

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so clearly designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people whose support he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming. Meanwhile, anti-Tory tactical voting will be turbocharged.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    You really will need that diet wonder drug.
  • DavidL said:

    The Lib Dems generally do better when the Tories are weak. There are a swathe of seats in the south west and the more university dominated parts of the south where they have the potential to pick up Tory seats, if the Tories are weak enough.

    But the Lib Dems have benefited from strong and interesting personalities over the last 40 years, people who have something to say and seem worth listening to. Ted Wavey or Ed Pavey or whoever is as noticeable as a small branch bank manager, if such things still exist. There is no moral, clarion cry to be heard. They are irrelevant and, even worse, dull.

    Take today as an example. The UK government is putting forward legislation that on the balance of probabilities of their own inhouse lawyers breaks international law. They are doing so to victimise the other, to blame desperate people who want to improve their lives by coming to a country that they admire (seriously, they do) rather than address their own failings. Where is the moral outrage? Who has the courage to face down the red tops and say, "we are better than this"? Does anyone doubt that Kennedy would have done? Or Ashcroft, or Clegg? It's sad in its way.

    Agreed. All the umph has gone out of the party and it really is sad to see. There is an obvious moral liberal attack on this illegal illegal migration bill, but SirEdNice isn't capable of going after it.

    Do have to laugh at the people who defend this bill though. A nastier retread of the existing law which doesn't work. None of the steps the bill proposes are actionable. It will bring international condemnation. And it's illegal. Yet political toddlers will say ite betraying the country not to support it.

    We used to have serious politics. Proper disagreements about serious policies. Not crayon drawings for idiots couched in absurd rhetoric.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146
    London
    Lab 68%
    Con 15%
    Grn 7%
    LD 6%
    UKIP 3%
    Ref 1%

    Rest of South
    Con 41%
    Lab 34%
    LD 12%
    Grn 6%
    Ref 4%
    UKIP 2%

    Midlands
    Lab 56%
    Con 29%
    LD 7%
    Grn 5%
    Ref 3%

    North
    Lab 53%
    Con 34%
    Ref 9%
    LD 3%
    Grn 1%

    Wales
    Lab 41%
    Con 24%
    LD 14%
    Grn 13%
    PC 3%
    Ref 1%

    Scotland
    SNP 46%
    Lab 30%
    Con 10%
    LD 9%
    Grn 2%
    Ref 2%

    Deltapoll; 1,063; 2-6 March)
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    Jonathan said:

    Not at all sure what the Lib Dems stand for these days. They’re not a safe protest vote either. A zombie party.

    Safe? What votes are remotely safe? It is a case of hoping there is a mildly incompetent and corrupt candidate to beat the hugely incompetent, corrupt and malign candidate.
  • ydoethur said:

    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
    Do the Falkland Islands have grammar schools?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    dixiedean said:

    Problem they have now is both main Parties have sensible leaders.
    They only way to get any publicity at all is by being radically borderline crazy.
    Not Ed Davey at all.

    Both have sensible leaders? Did you miss yeaterday?

    Ed Davey isn't as noticeable as some previous LD leaders, but was a very effective minister, and is a very astute organiser, as we see from the LD by-election gains.

  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    DavidL said:

    The Lib Dems generally do better when the Tories are weak. There are a swathe of seats in the south west and the more university dominated parts of the south where they have the potential to pick up Tory seats, if the Tories are weak enough.

    But the Lib Dems have benefited from strong and interesting personalities over the last 40 years, people who have something to say and seem worth listening to. Ted Wavey or Ed Pavey or whoever is as noticeable as a small branch bank manager, if such things still exist. There is no moral, clarion cry to be heard. They are irrelevant and, even worse, dull.

    Take today as an example. The UK government is putting forward legislation that on the balance of probabilities of their own inhouse lawyers breaks international law. They are doing so to victimise the other, to blame desperate people who want to improve their lives by coming to a country that they admire (seriously, they do) rather than address their own failings. Where is the moral outrage? Who has the courage to face down the red tops and say, "we are better than this"? Does anyone doubt that Kennedy would have done? Or Ashcroft, or Clegg? It's sad in its way.

    As usual I am agreeing with you both in your analysis on when the LDs do well and their lack of personalities now. In the past I have always been impressed with the quality of most of their MPs, which I put down to the difficulty in getting selected and elected in a winnable seat. I can't explain why that is not applicable now, but it is. As a LD I find this disappointing.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    DavidL said:

    The Lib Dems generally do better when the Tories are weak. There are a swathe of seats in the south west and the more university dominated parts of the south where they have the potential to pick up Tory seats, if the Tories are weak enough.

    But the Lib Dems have benefited from strong and interesting personalities over the last 40 years, people who have something to say and seem worth listening to. Ted Wavey or Ed Pavey or whoever is as noticeable as a small branch bank manager, if such things still exist. There is no moral, clarion cry to be heard. They are irrelevant and, even worse, dull.

    Take today as an example. The UK government is putting forward legislation that on the balance of probabilities of their own inhouse lawyers breaks international law. They are doing so to victimise the other, to blame desperate people who want to improve their lives by coming to a country that they admire (seriously, they do) rather than address their own failings. Where is the moral outrage? Who has the courage to face down the red tops and say, "we are better than this"? Does anyone doubt that Kennedy would have done? Or Ashcroft, or Clegg? It's sad in its way.

    Sad, but understandable. Part of the government strategy is to try and have that argument. Not necessarily because they can win it, but because it will rally a useful number of voters. It's like wrestling with a muddy pig. You can't win, you get covered in mud and the pig might enjoy it.

    But yes, we ought to be better than this. It ought to be possible to help people who need help and return those who are trying it on. It used to be how it worked. But the British State doesn't have enough competence any more, and some people really seem to want to cut asylum numbers to zero.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
    Do the Falkland Islands have grammar schools?
    Nah. Fully comprehensive.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Falkland_Islands

    However, they do apparently pay for A-level students to board at colleges in the South of England, which makes them sort of privately educated. So I suppose that would meet with his approval.
  • eekeek Posts: 24,797
    Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Problem they have now is both main Parties have sensible leaders.
    They only way to get any publicity at all is by being radically borderline crazy.
    Not Ed Davey at all.

    Both have sensible leaders? Did you miss yeaterday?

    Ed Davey isn't as noticeable as some previous LD leaders, but was a very effective minister, and is a very astute organiser, as we see from the LD by-election gains.

    Ed Davey isn't as noticeable because he's just lower down the media pecking order because the Lib Dems are less important.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
    Do the Falkland Islands have grammar schools?
    Nah. Fully comprehensive.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Falkland_Islands

    However, they do apparently pay for A-level students to board at colleges in the South of England, which makes them sort of privately educated. So I suppose that would meet with his approval.
    Not if they try to become Labour leader.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,254
    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    You really will need that diet wonder drug.
    I intend to do 30 lengths of that lovely pool. Also the food is fresh Vietnamese spring rolls - Gỏi cuốn

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gỏi_cuốn

    Possibly the healthiest poolside snack imaginable. Vietnamese food is outstandingly good. There are almost no fat Vietnamese people. Love it

    Ok the beer, but it’s 30C!
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    ydoethur said:

    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
    Do the Falkland Islands have grammar schools?
    If the soldiers references to the locals as Bennies and then later Stills (when banned from calling them Bennies) I doubt it (Story told to me by soldiers who served there).
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
    Do the Falkland Islands have grammar schools?
    Nah. Fully comprehensive.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Falkland_Islands

    However, they do apparently pay for A-level students to board at colleges in the South of England, which makes them sort of privately educated. So I suppose that would meet with his approval.
    Not if they try to become Labour leader.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited March 2023

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    kjh said:

    Sorry off topic but just to respond to @hyufd after I left the thread last night:

    You say Grammar schools give parents more choice. They don't. If your child fails the 11 plus they get less choice.

    On the 'leftie' nonsense you haven't responded to the fact that I am not a 'leftie' and that successive Conservative governments have done nothing to remove comprehensives and that Tory controlled councils like Surrey implemented and supported them. When I identified David Johnston as a Tory MP who writes against Grammars you call him a leftie. I mean one of your own MPs. You also referred to him as a Heathite. Was Heath's government leftie then? What about Thatcher's government who didn't undo comprehensives? Or Surrey Country Council? All lefties?

    Are everyone lefties other than yourself? This is very confusing if most Tories are lefties, especially as many of your own views are indistinguishable from far left authoritarianism.

    Let it go. We all know when he's talking nonsense but nobody has ever changed his mind on anything significant.

    Just be glad you weren't talking about the Falklands.
    Do the Falkland Islands have grammar schools?
    Nah. Fully comprehensive.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Education_in_the_Falkland_Islands

    However, they do apparently pay for A-level students to board at colleges in the South of England, which makes them sort of privately educated. So I suppose that would meet with his approval.
    Not if they try to become Labour leader.
    Does he feel so strongly about it you need to say it twice?

    I don't think it will shift his views, however often you say it!
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    edited March 2023
    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    One step would be to restrict the sale of dinghies larger than a yacht tender, and require ID and boat licence from anyone buying an outboard motor. There are few legitimate uses for a dinghy that can hold 50 people. Fine or imprison the importers who sell the dingies and outboards.



  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    edited March 2023
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
    I was thinking filling in the channel. Big picture. Shame Boris is no longer PM or I could have found an old Etonian chum of his to do a £50m publicly funded feasability study.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    One step would be to restrict the sale of dinghies larger than a yacht tender, and require ID and boat licence from anyone buying an outboard motor. There are few legitimate uses for a dinghy that can hold 50 people. Fine or imprison the importers who sell the dingies and outboards.



    Hmmm.

    Would that stop them buying them elsewhere and dropping them off in Northern France from a passing ship?

    And anyway, wouldn't they just use the smaller dinghies?
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited March 2023

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
    I was thinking filling in the channel. Big picture. Shame Boris is no longer PM or I could have found an old Etonian chum of his to do a £50m publicly funded feasability study.
    That might stop the boats, but wouldn't people just walk across instead? Which isn't likely to be a problem atm unless Jesus suddenly decides to take a hand.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    You really will need that diet wonder drug.
    I intend to do 30 lengths of that lovely pool. Also the food is fresh Vietnamese spring rolls - Gỏi cuốn

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gỏi_cuốn

    Possibly the healthiest poolside snack imaginable. Vietnamese food is outstandingly good. There are almost no fat Vietnamese people. Love it

    Ok the beer, but it’s 30C!
    Ozempic is quite risky with alcohol, due to risk of low blood sugar. Best go teetotal or near if planning to use it, and get a proper doctors opinion rather than grey market Ozempic.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    You really will need that diet wonder drug.
    I intend to do 30 lengths of that lovely pool. Also the food is fresh Vietnamese spring rolls - Gỏi cuốn

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gỏi_cuốn

    Possibly the healthiest poolside snack imaginable. Vietnamese food is outstandingly good. There are almost no fat Vietnamese people. Love it

    Ok the beer, but it’s 30C!
    Fair enough good luck with the lengths. But beers and nibbles at 3pm doesn't usually denote a fitness campaign.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,089
    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.

    Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 23,926
    TimS said:

    On topic I hadn’t quite appreciated how big the cliff edge in PMQs is between third and fourth party.

    [Rest snipped]

    Some of us have been saying this for years. It is not just PMQs, where the third party (currently the SNP) gets two questions in a prominent slot and the LibDem leader hopes to catch the Speaker's eye ahead of the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the DUP and Sinn Fein, who don't even turn up, to ask a single question that probably will not be heard by the public or journalists who stopped listening in order to file their reports on Sunak vs Starmer, and that will be swatted away without a serious answer.

    It is also, and perhaps more significantly, that the LibDems are no longer called to add balance to news and current affairs programmes. Question Time has had just one LibDem guest this year. And let's face it, no-one is going to invite Ed Davey on to light entertainment programmes, as they did with Chat Show Charlie. The LibDems are invisible to the public, and even PBers on this thread are ignorant of their current policies, because they lost that crucial third place.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    edited March 2023

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.

    Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
    But that wouldn't, would it? Because anyone turned away from the asylum centre would simply get on a boat...

    Edit - and since quite a lot of these people are likely being trafficked anyway, that's again not going to help.

    My personal view is that this needs sorting out at the root, i.e. in Albania. But exactly how you would do that I do not know. Armed intervention isn't usually considered acceptable, assassinations less so and the country's in such a state anyway that removing the people wouldn't remove the business model.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    In Scotland to get SNP down to about 20 seats could be SNP 32% Lab 30% Con 20% LD 10% G 4% REFUK 3%
    30 seats more like SNP 34% Lab 28% others the same.

    Latest Yougov polling SNP 38% Lab 29% Con 19% LD 6% G 4%

    So yes it is definitely possible for LDs to become third party.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884
    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    It’s a glorious late winter day here. A couple of inches of snow have rendered the countryside a winter wonderland. Some of us like cold weather.
  • StuartDicksonStuartDickson Posts: 12,146

    TimS said:

    On topic I hadn’t quite appreciated how big the cliff edge in PMQs is between third and fourth party.

    [Rest snipped]

    Some of us have been saying this for years. It is not just PMQs, where the third party (currently the SNP) gets two questions in a prominent slot and the LibDem leader hopes to catch the Speaker's eye ahead of the Greens, Plaid Cymru, the DUP and Sinn Fein, who don't even turn up, to ask a single question that probably will not be heard by the public or journalists who stopped listening in order to file their reports on Sunak vs Starmer, and that will be swatted away without a serious answer.

    It is also, and perhaps more significantly, that the LibDems are no longer called to add balance to news and current affairs programmes. Question Time has had just one LibDem guest this year. And let's face it, no-one is going to invite Ed Davey on to light entertainment programmes, as they did with Chat Show Charlie. The LibDems are invisible to the public, and even PBers on this thread are ignorant of their current policies, because they lost that crucial third place.
    They have policies?!?
  • kamskikamski Posts: 4,199
    Foxy said:

    On topic, yes they can but probably in 2029.

    In 2024 they'll pick up some blue wall seats and potentially some SNP seats if Humza Yousaf proves to be as useless as expected or if the MSP for Gilead wins.

    By 2029 they should pick up some Labour seats.

    Yes, I think that a realistic plan, and Davey is one for realism.

    Despite being ignored by the media and political establishment 1 in 12 Britons or more plan to vote LD at the GE, and possibly twice that at the Local Elections.

    We are the third party already in terms of national popular vote, just penalised nationally by the current electoral system.

    As to what we stand for, those with open minds might want to follow the LD Spring Conference the weekend after next, having lost our autumn conference to the Royal mourning.

    https://events.libdems.org.uk/events/45197/liberal-democrat-spring-conference-2023
    Voters: "I have no idea what the LibDems stand for"
    LibDem: "Follow the LD Spring Conference"

    Can't you give us a little bit of a spoiler?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 24,587

    "A statistic I like is what happened at GE1997 when the LDs went from 20 MPs at GE1992 to 46 on a reduced national vote share."

    ....and were utterly irrelevent in having any influence on Tony Blair or Gordon Brown for 13 years, who increaed their seats by 146.

    LibDems have to hope and pray they hold the balance in a hung Parliament.

    They have to hope and pray Labour don't get a majority.

    They have to hope and pray nobody else can be bought off ahead of them - as with the DUP in 2017.

    They have to hope and pray for the Tories or Labour to fall short of a majority by about 15 seats. Any less and the Ulstermen hold the key to power. Any more, and the Scotsmen do.

    That's a pretty narrow Window of Relevance.

    A rainbow coalition of Cons, DUP and LDs, now that would be a thing. Irrelevant you say?
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    Never say it can't be done. The Royal Australian Navy did it.



  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
    I was thinking filling in the channel. Big picture. Shame Boris is no longer PM or I could have found an old Etonian chum of his to do a £50m publicly funded feasability study.
    That might stop the boats, but wouldn't people just walk across instead? Which isn't likely to be a problem atm unless Jesus suddenly decides to take a hand.
    You asked me to stop the boats with concrete? Not stop people crossing.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,069
    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    One step would be to restrict the sale of dinghies larger than a yacht tender, and require ID and boat licence from anyone buying an outboard motor. There are few legitimate uses for a dinghy that can hold 50 people. Fine or imprison the importers who sell the dingies and outboards.



    Hmmm.

    Would that stop them buying them elsewhere and dropping them off in Northern France from a passing ship?

    And anyway, wouldn't they just use the smaller dinghies?
    It all makes the business more difficult.

    Obviously requires support from the EU countries to enforce.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Dura_Ace said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    Never say it can't be done. The Royal Australian Navy did it.



    Do they have some ships we could borrow?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,254
    ydoethur said:

    Foxy said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    One step would be to restrict the sale of dinghies larger than a yacht tender, and require ID and boat licence from anyone buying an outboard motor. There are few legitimate uses for a dinghy that can hold 50 people. Fine or imprison the importers who sell the dingies and outboards.



    Hmmm.

    Would that stop them buying them elsewhere and dropping them off in Northern France from a passing ship?

    And anyway, wouldn't they just use the smaller dinghies?
    You ask a legit question which almost no one is willing to answer because all the answers are either brutally cruel or politically suicidal and so on

    We cannot sustain endless and infinite migration - legal or otherwise. In the end people will vote for Nazi parties, or start their own militias. See Sweden for a country that has swung from decades of social democracy to the hard right in 20 years. And this is all going to get worse

    These farcical ideas about “arresting employers” or “working with France” or “getting tough on sellers of dinghies” or “providing more secure asylum routes” are just ways of saying “I don’t know what the fuck to do other than nasty things, and I don’t want to appear like a Nazi, so here is my ludicrous pretendy idea”

    In the end it will be: are we prepared to let everyone in, who can make it - which leads to a very hard right reaction - or are we prepared to be brutally violent with the boat people, and let them drown (which is evil and appalling, of course)

    Or I suppose we can at least try a Rwanda type scheme. But actually do it properly. Actually see it through -and deport everyone immediately

    It is unlikely to work. Australia made it work because it is lucky with its geography. But it is better than the other two
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 40,950
    edited March 2023
    The fact is people have consistently voted for governments to "do something" about the boat people.

    Nick Robinson playing the "your father" card on Suella right now on R4.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Stopping the boats, if that's your main aim, is pretty simple. A UK asylum centre in Calais and ferry tickets to Dover.

    Stopping boats without letting people in another way? Can't help you there.
    Is it that simple? Will the Albanians simply give up when rejected at Calais?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,254

    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    It’s a glorious late winter day here. A couple of inches of snow have rendered the countryside a winter wonderland. Some of us like cold weather.
    Did I say otherwise? Enjoy your sleet!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712
    edited March 2023
    On voteshare of course the LDs are still the third party UK wide (150 years ago the Liberals were the second or even first party of course). On seats though I can't see them moving ahead of the SNP. Most of any SNP losses will be to Labour and Sunak is polling a bit better than Boris was in the bluewall seats the LDs were targeting in the South even if a bit worse than Boris in the redwall
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Good morning, everyone.

    I have the perfect solution to the boats: an agreement with Russia.

    We have a border problem, they have a demographic crisis. Ship them off to Siberia to help make up the numbers.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 39,749

    Happy International Women's Day!*

    (* except for viewers in Farageland, where it’s Happy Englandshire Wives, Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives and Aunts Day!)

    This means that it’s also Why Isn’t There An International Men’s Day Day which coincidentally falls on the same date as There Is One You Stupid, Self pitying **** Day.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
    I was thinking filling in the channel. Big picture. Shame Boris is no longer PM or I could have found an old Etonian chum of his to do a £50m publicly funded feasability study.
    That might stop the boats, but wouldn't people just walk across instead? Which isn't likely to be a problem atm unless Jesus suddenly decides to take a hand.
    You asked me to stop the boats with concrete? Not stop people crossing.
    My other suggestion yesterday was if we all start speaking Welsh it will reduce the numbers who want to cross.....
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Good morning, everyone.

    I have the perfect solution to the boats: an agreement with Russia.

    We have a border problem, they have a demographic crisis. Ship them off to Siberia to help make up the numbers.

    Wouldn't they be recruited to Wagner instead?

    I mean, it's very even-handed to help both sides militarily but the Ukrainians might be displeased.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 12,880
    ydoethur said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    Never say it can't be done. The Royal Australian Navy did it.



    Do they have some ships we could borrow?
    RAN did it with Cape class OPVs (new ones now being commissioned as ADV rather than HMAS, republic watchers) so the UK could do with River class. Of which the RN has an abundance because the government had to keep buying them as BAE had threatened to close the shipyard at Govan.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,407
    Yes of course the LDs can.

    In our lifetimes? That's trickier. Maybe.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
    I was thinking filling in the channel. Big picture. Shame Boris is no longer PM or I could have found an old Etonian chum of his to do a £50m publicly funded feasability study.
    That might stop the boats, but wouldn't people just walk across instead? Which isn't likely to be a problem atm unless Jesus suddenly decides to take a hand.
    You asked me to stop the boats with concrete? Not stop people crossing.
    My other suggestion yesterday was if we all start speaking Welsh it will reduce the numbers who want to cross.....
    Although you'd all have to become Welsh rugby fans, so @Tse would suddenly want to cross the other way...
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,772
    In 1951 the UN appointed a Style committee to refine the draft Convention on Refugees. The UK were on that committee and played a prominent role. The Convention itself, which came into force in 1954, contains amongst its preliminaries the following:

    "The Conference,
    considering that many persons still leave their country of origin for reasons of persecution and are entitled to special protection on account of their position,
    recommends that Governments continue to receive refugees in their territories and that they act in concert in a true spirit of international cooperation in order that these refugees may find asylum and the possibility of resettlement."

    We have repeatedly affirmed our commitment to the Convention, along with most other states.

    Article 8 provides:
    With regard to exceptional measures which may be taken against the person,
    property or interests of nationals of a foreign State, the Contracting States shall
    not apply such measures to a refugee who is formally a national of the said State
    solely on account of such nationality. Contracting States which, under their
    legislation, are prevented from applying the general principle expressed in this
    article, shall, in appropriate cases, grant exemptions in favour of such refugees.

    Article 16(1) provides:
    A refugee shall have free access to the courts of law on the territory of all
    Contracting States

    Article 25(1) provides:
    1. When the exercise of a right by a refugee would normally require the
    assistance of authorities of a foreign country to whom he cannot have
    recourse, the Contracting States in whose territory he is residing shall
    arrange that such assistance be afforded to him by their own authorities or
    by an international authority.

    Article30 provides:
    1. The Contracting States shall not expel a refugee lawfully in their territory save on grounds of national security or public order.
    2. The expulsion of such a refugee shall be only in pursuance of a decision
    reached in accordance with due process of law. Except where compelling reasons of national security otherwise require, the refugee shall be allowed to submit evidence to clear himself, and to appeal to and be represented for the purpose before competent authority or a person or persons specially designated by the competent authority.
    3. The Contracting States shall allow such a refugee a reasonable period
    within which to seek legal admission into another country. The Contracting
    States reserve the right to apply during that period such internal measures as
    they may deem necessary.


    The suggestion by the Inhouse lawyers that there is a better than 50% chance of the current bill being in breach of international law sounds like the kind of odds on bet that we would all like to take. The government really should be offering odds.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,712

    London
    Lab 68%
    Con 15%
    Grn 7%
    LD 6%
    UKIP 3%
    Ref 1%

    Rest of South
    Con 41%
    Lab 34%
    LD 12%
    Grn 6%
    Ref 4%
    UKIP 2%

    Midlands
    Lab 56%
    Con 29%
    LD 7%
    Grn 5%
    Ref 3%

    North
    Lab 53%
    Con 34%
    Ref 9%
    LD 3%
    Grn 1%

    Wales
    Lab 41%
    Con 24%
    LD 14%
    Grn 13%
    PC 3%
    Ref 1%

    Scotland
    SNP 46%
    Lab 30%
    Con 10%
    LD 9%
    Grn 2%
    Ref 2%

    Deltapoll; 1,063; 2-6 March)

    The Bluewall is back in Tory hands!!!
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758
    Dura_Ace said:

    ydoethur said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    Never say it can't be done. The Royal Australian Navy did it.



    Do they have some ships we could borrow?
    RAN did it with Cape class OPVs (new ones now being commissioned as ADV rather than HMAS, republic watchers) so the UK could do with River class. Of which the RN has an abundance because the government had to keep buying them as BAE had threatened to close the shipyard at Govan.
    You're saying the Rivers could stop the flow?
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,884

    Happy International Women's Day!*

    (* except for viewers in Farageland, where it’s Happy Englandshire Wives, Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives and Aunts Day!)

    This means that it’s also Why Isn’t There An International Men’s Day Day which coincidentally falls on the same date as There Is One You Stupid, Self pitying **** Day.
    It’s easy to sneer at that type of response but I would argue the media make much more of the International Womens Day, than the Mens version.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,254
    edited March 2023

    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    It’s a glorious late winter day here. A couple of inches of snow have rendered the countryside a winter wonderland. Some of us like cold weather.
    Deleted due to too many https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gỏi_cuốn and Saigon beers
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    ydoethur said:

    Had a chat with a barrister with impeccably right wing credentials and no fan of illegal border crossings.

    Says yesterday's legislation is simply the worst piece of drafted legislation he has ever seen.

    Like it was focus grouped and then drafted.

    He feels sorry for the GLD teams that will have to defend this shit in court.

    There's a retroactive clause in the bill that must have been written by Lionel Hutz.

    It isn't serious law. Braverman sends a letter to Tory MPs saying she doesn't know if the bill is legal but there is "a greater than 50% chance" it isn't.

    Then we get Dishi in front of a Stop The Boats lectern. Speaking in his Jackanory voice. Quite literally telling stories to political toddlers.

    They know the plan - laughable to even use that word - doesn't work practically. They know it doesn't work legally. But they also know their remaining voters don't care, they just want action. Though I don't think "blame the courts" works as an excuse any longer.
    The third plan in three years and legislation so obviously designed for dividing lines rather than results is too obviously transparent to fool most voters. And making Braverman the face of it just compounds the problem. She is massively unpopular.

    I really can’t see it ending well for Sunak. The people he is targeting are those most likely to buy the Farage/Reform betrayal narrative that will inevitably explode into the right-wing press this summer when the boats keep on coming.

    Cooper was right yesterday: people want results, not performative gestures that won’t work.

    In a serious question:

    How *would* anyone stop the boats?

    It doesn't seem to me, short of major military operations on the beaches of Northern France, which ain't happening, or arranging odd accidents for all the traffickers - and even that would presumably pause rather than eliminate the problem - that there's much to be done about it.

    That doesn't mean we can't still point and laugh at the stupidity of this idea, but are there are any concrete suggestions? If so, let's hear them.
    Concrete you say......would take a lot of it....
    Depends what you use it for. Concrete overcoats for the gang masters?
    I was thinking filling in the channel. Big picture. Shame Boris is no longer PM or I could have found an old Etonian chum of his to do a £50m publicly funded feasability study.
    That might stop the boats, but wouldn't people just walk across instead? Which isn't likely to be a problem atm unless Jesus suddenly decides to take a hand.
    You asked me to stop the boats with concrete? Not stop people crossing.
    My other suggestion yesterday was if we all start speaking Welsh it will reduce the numbers who want to cross.....
    Although you'd all have to become Welsh rugby fans, so @Tse would suddenly want to cross the other way...
    Arent they quite good at rugby? Should have thought of this when Bale when was in his prime though.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 66,758

    Leon said:

    The Arctic blast continues. I have sought shelter


    It’s a glorious late winter day here. A couple of inches of snow have rendered the countryside a winter wonderland. Some of us like cold weather.
    No snow here yet. Forecast for later and pretty much all day tomorrow.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Doethur, good point. Send them to the Ukrainians.

    Mr. Tubbs, aye. Anyone getting information from the media would suppose women are far likelier to be the victim of physical assault, which isn't true. There's just more concern expressed about it.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrxYZk9qQr4
This discussion has been closed.