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There is nothing to Keir but Keir itself – politicalbetting.com
There is nothing to Keir but Keir itself – politicalbetting.com
NEW from @IpsosUK /@standardnews. Labour lead at +23. Changes from Feb.– Labour 49% (-2) – Conservative 26% (+1) – Lib Dems 11% (+2)– Greens 6% (+1) – Other 8% (-1)1,004 GB telephone interviews March 22-29So no change. BUT there is ALOT more going on ?
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When the GE comes and media coverage is equitable I expect Starmer's personal ratings to rise. People will get to see him, hear him, know him more. Someone close to me had a cup of tea and chat with him with a group of friends and said he was funny and easy to get along with.
The second, actually more important point, is that this is arguably not a 124 seat swing requirement.
The 2019 'Get Brexit Done' general election against Corbyn was an abberation. It's a mistake to think it represents anything other than a one-off unique vote.
The real swing is against 2017.
Contentious? Maybe. A point? Yes.
Spare us.
Mike might claim to disapprove of such things, which is mildly amusing to those of us who have seen the LibDems at work, but it's naivety that has cost Labour in the past and the tories are a disgusting mob who will stop at nothing.
So I'm afraid it's gloves off.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-labour-ad-tweet-keir-starmer-2023-dlbw6b5dd
£££
p.s. not saying I approve of such things. But it's politics and it's going to be dirty.
Football: both my EPL bets failed in part to own goals. I feel the universe owes me a booby prize.
On which topic, I had thought the infamous demon eyes campaign against Tony Blair was withdrawn at John Major's instruction but it seems it was in fact the Advertising Standards Authority which instructed its withdrawal?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Labour,_New_Danger
Just bear this in mind if you hear people being sanctimonious about negative campaigning.
Leader approval ratings tend to be extremely volatile and, typically, a 10% shift for a party leader only leads to a 2% change in voting intention (at best).
Much of it is about exposure and the real test only comes during the GE campaign itself when media coverage is supposedly equitable. Of course, it can also lead to the wrong kind of exposure such as when Theresa May was found out to be a MayBot during the disastrous 2017 campaign.
Labour's biggest problem is, of course, dealing with the rich-owned right wing newspapers. Tony Blair solved this largely by wooing them. I don't see the same love-in from Starmer's Labour. But to counteract this, do the dead tree press have the same hold these days? Almost certainly not.
The attack on labour's posters has been led by the Guardian and many of Starmers mps and even Cooper, the shadow home secretary was not made aware of them, rather than the right wing press you so frequently refer to.
You constantly talk of annihilation of the conservatives but Sunak is beginning to be seen as a competent PM and with 18 months before the election it is too soon to forecast the actual result, but one thing is certain, Sunak will come over far better in a GE campaign than Starmer
Hubris and over confidence often fails
https://twitter.com/AgentP22/status/1644816167255539713?t=A-svgKgtEBHATUxTkxV2yA&s=19
Personally, I'd rather our politics be more reasonable than that.
I hope for democracy’s sake that the Tories lose. One party states are a bad thing. We want a government with a modest majority and an opposition that seems to have a decent chance of replacing them and will keep them on their toes. The Coalition years were the first time we’d had that since the 1960s and the years since have not been notable for good governance.
Most of all I hope for the Tories’ sake that they lose. Five more years of this and they will suffer a shellacking they will never recover from.
His treatment of the gender issue is typical. A ruthless leader would have worked out what he thought about it by now, steamrollered internal opposition, and scraped this particular barnacle off the boat. Instead, he has shifted towards a tenable position by salami-sliced increments while allowing senior colleagues to ignore or contradict him. It is painful to watch, and typified by his latest, excruciating statement that 99.9% of women don’t have a penis. In politics, you really have to round up.
https://ianleslie.substack.com/p/the-tortoise
Saying Labour will reduce crime is also good in itself, especially if there is some mechanism promised, such as rebuilding however many courts the Tories have closed, but the personal attacks on Rishi are likely to be unproductive or even counterproductive.
And the fact Labour is just talking about sentencing suggests there is no serious policy there either.
The ideal result at the next election would be something like Labour 335 seats, Conservatives 250, Lib Dems 20, Others 45.
I think the national mood has clearly shifted to “give the other lot a go and chuck the buggers out” - with Sunak though, it may be from a second floor window, not the tenth floor that Heathener daily prays for.
Edited extra bit: Mr. F, it's faintly ironic. Excepting the vaccine rollout and Ukraine, the Government could be attacked on almost anything. Yet Starmer/Labour managed to find something that seems unreasonable.
I think the line that it was all down to Corbyn that Labour in 2019 is true but not for the way you think it is.
The idea that the Corbyn of 2017 was an unknown entity is, frankly, rubbish. His background had been widely publicised, he was open (and radical) about what he wanted to do and - which doesn't get so mentioned - his performance was against the backdrop of two terrorist attacks to where he was extremely vulnerable of a backlash because of his support for "freedom" movements.
When you go back and look at the seats what is very noticeable is that Corbyn stopped the rot in the Red Wall seats which should have fallen based on the trend lines over the previous 15 years. There's a reason for that. Those RW voters liked his economic policies but trusted him on Brexit.
The difference on the 19 Corbyn? The 19 Corbyn squirmed on what Labour would do with Brexit due to the policy of...SKS. Those same voters no longer believed they could trust him on the issue (hence why his personal ratings fell).
If there was an election that was an aberration, it was 2017, not 2019.
The implication for now? Labour he hasn't resolved the underlying fault issues that have weakened the party for years - and Sunak risks detoxifying the Tories enough where the trend continues.
So the gravy train rolls on. The low (and not so low) level corruption continues unabated to the point where single party government becomes inevitable. It survives through a combination of lies, both directly and via its absolute ownership of the means of propaganda, good fortune and a disengaged electorate who care not a jot that a mind so malign as Suella Braverman's runs out domestic affairs and people as absurd as Jacob Rees Mogg and Lee Anderson have the ear of the Prime Minister.
Don't fear for the Conservative Party, it is in rude health. It just might not be the party you had hoped for or even expected.
It is also the 31st anniversary of the most memorable try I ever scored. Fast disappearing over the horizon in the rear view mirror, now, sadly, but I think it was the U18 Cheshire Cup final, probably held at Winnington Park RUFC. We lost 16-6, but I contributed four of the six with a 60 yard run in from a planned backs move from fullback, concluding with a more in-character run-in-to-the-opposing-fullback-rather-than-round-him-and-fall-over-the-line. A few drinks on the back of that - underage drinking much more tolerated in those days. Anyway, later in the evening, back to our clubhouse and my first memories of watching a GE result. I remember the early signs that Labour had not done as well as they hoped, then the Basildon result before setting off for home; by the time I got home around midnight, the next five years of Con government seemed beyond question.
Dunno how that happens.
Second, if the message widens to "Tories bang on about Laura Norder, but their delivery is rubbish", it's got legs.
Whether that's the plan remains to be seen, but it's not totally bonkers.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nothing_to_fear_but_fear_itself
If you follow policy in this area, it is quite predictable. Sensible justice ministers (Clarke, Gove and Rory Stewart), get switch to 'lock em up' populism , pandering to public opinion. It is the same cycle with the opposition, labour come up with interesting ideas and now we are seeing them do the same thing.
The population at large are happy with a system where criminals are banged up for many years, in squalid conditions. Even things like death by careless driving attract popular calls for longer, tougher prison sentences. You then observe the same people driving around whilst using their mobile phones, having near misses....
Sadly justice policy is one area where the elite need to save the people from their own worst instincts.
Labour on 300 seats and Lib Dems on 30 and the Conservatives on 275 seats would suit me. They'd have to drop the batshit and do vote by vote deals, and there'd be an even present threat of LDs/Tories combining to outvote and block Labour.
Edited extra bit: that 5/1 would be very hedegable now, though.
I think that our owners left it far too late to sack Rodgers. Should have gone in the summer.
Next week is Man City away, so probably even better value to lay by next Sunday.
Lots of coverage in the media and let us all pray it will be incident free
We have had an awful choice at all recent elections with little positive to choose from at any of them.
And I wouldn’t call the continuing cost of living crisis and collapse of public services “OK”, but that’s just a personal opinion.
Happy Easter everyone!
On Tuesday, Leicester were awarded an injury time penalty against Villa, disallowed on VAR. It was the correct decision.
There's no big idea from Labour, no vision, no sense of direction, no meaningful program for change. This entirely explains the dissatisfaction of Labour voters with Starmer's leadership: the hardcore partisans may be willing to sing his praises regardless, but the softer flank of Labour's support thinks "You're offering me nothing of value."
Labour are running as the Not Tory party, and that's it. Where does that leave you once the Tories have mollified their ageing core vote and the remainder of the electorate is not actively repelled by the Prime Minister, and thinks that you offer no alternative to his platform? It leaves you stranded in the middle of nowhere.
Then, latterly, football does an about turn, acts as if it invented the concept, and implements it in a uniquely shit way which appears to disrupt the game without leading to better decisions.
Once again, the conclusion seems inescapable that football is the stupidest of all the sports.
Lots of Tories wanting to see that the Tories have stopped being stooopid and are worthy of their vote again. Evidence to date? The pendulum is now swinging that way.
The windows are just painted plywood...
...The party is not going to stop there. According to senior Labour sources, one of the next attack ads will suggest the PM has “effectively decriminalised rape”.
It will claim that under the Tories “only 1.6 per cent of rapists have been charged”. A source said: “We aren’t talking to Twitter. We are talking to the vast majority of the country who want to see child rapists locked up and know the Tories have destroyed the criminal justice system. [Sunak] is leading the government that is responsible and he has got the man [Jeremy Hunt] who butchered the NHS as his chancellor.”
It is understood Labour drew up the messages some time ago and have been waiting for the right time to deploy them....
...It has even been claimed that a group of former Tory election staffers have turned against their own party and approached Labour to help formulate their election strategy.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-labour-ad-tweet-keir-starmer-2023-dlbw6b5dd
The LDs absolute priority would be europhilia but we saw under Cameron how little influence they had on foreign policy even in a formal coalition with double the seats.
https://twitter.com/heraldscotland/status/1644467587819114496?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
A furious Nicola Sturgeon ordered senior party figures to stop asking questions about the party’s finances. During an explosive party meeting, the then First Minister tried to quash questions over the missing £600,000 raised through crowdfunders for a second IndyRef.
And she dismissed concerns the party’s National Executive Committee was raising about the lack of transparency over party finances. In a recorded meeting, she said: “We don’t need to talk about the finances. The finances are absolutely fine.”
A source said: “She told the meeting that there was nothing wrong with the accounts and that people should stop talking about it because it was undermining the party. It’s fair to say she was pretty raging about it. She went on at some length telling everyone that everything was absolutely fine and that it shouldn’t be discussed.”
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/nicola-sturgeon-ordered-snp-chiefs-29664221
The final straw came last week when Suella Braverman, the home secretary, claimed Labour-run councillors failed to act on grooming gangs over fears they would be called racist. A senior party source said: “That was the moment we decided to go for it.”
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rishi-sunak-labour-ad-tweet-keir-starmer-2023-dlbw6b5dd
Like the Nazis, the Tories are reaping the whirlwind they started with their Blitz.
Starmer = Arthur Harris.
Big teams. Before var who can forget the 7 mins injury time when there hadn't been any injuries that allowed Steve Bruce to score against Norwich that led to them winning the title...
Shoppers face price hikes on drinks by up to a third under the Scottish Government’s controversial drinks recycling scheme, which has been compared to a poll tax on the poor. The Sunday Mail can reveal the cost of common items such as beer, water and fizzy juice will soar way beyond the extra 20p-per-item recycling fee when the Deposit Return Scheme (DRS) is launched in August.
Former cabinet secretary for rural development Fergus Ewing said he was astonished by the latest revelation and launched a blistering attack on the SNP and Greens scheme.
Meanwhile, if Labour are going to go big on Justice, expect many reminders (from the Tories and elsewhere) of Starmer’s half decade as DPP.
I’m sure Farage or UKIP can remind the Red Wall about Jimmy Savile, Labour’s strategy here seems to be like a mud fight with a pig.
Is Starmer really so utterly thick? Rishi sending his stormtroopers in under cover is absolute genius.
Does anyone remember the Peter Cook film, the Rise and Rise of Michael Rimmer? Starmer appears to be as foolish as the Labour Prime Minister played by George A. Cooper
https://www.dailyrecord.co.uk/news/scottish-news/shocking-moment-driver-reverses-onto-29662803
It's where the money's meant to come from that's likely to prove their undoing, in the end. They can probably get away with a certain amount of borrowing to invest for infrastructure projects, albeit that they're going to have to be extremely careful not to repeat the mistakes of PFI and end up saddling public sector organisations with even more debt servicing obligations. However, ultimately they need to service the ongoing costs of, for example, paying more for care home places so the staff can be paid enough not to sod off to Aldi, and putting tens of thousands of extra police on the streets, by raising an awful lot of tax.
Low and middle income earners have already been bled white and there's no indication that Labour are willing to milk the obvious source of extra revenue which is asset wealth - residential and commercial property, stocks and shares. So where's the money to pay for all this stuff?
Still a huge seat loss for CON but certainly not the wipeout that some LAB wishful thinkers have suggested.
Watch Labour whine "it isn't fair....".
Michael Rimmer.
Arnold Rimmer.
The Arnold Rimmer song....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4TLto-nKfU&ab_channel=MrsMac5