Thursday’s locals – the Westminster polls compared with 2019 – politicalbetting.com
Thursday’s locals – the Westminster polls compared with 2019 – politicalbetting.com
Thanks to David Cowling for compiling the above tables which give a real sense of how the political environment has changed since 2019 when most of the seats up on Thursday were last fought.
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I'm sure that's correct. The problem most people seem to have is knowing which party in their ward has most chance of causing hurt to the Tories. Surprisingly few seem to even know which party is currently in charge.
We'll see what actually happens.
Far more fun than today's politics.
However the Labour voteshare is up over 10% from where it was from May 2019 so still expect significant Labour gains from the Tories. The LD voteshare though is little changed and indeed actually down from where it was in May 2019, so the Tories could even gain a few seats from the LDs as might Labour
Picking up on Mike's point, it's all about coalitions. Johnson triumphed in.2019 GE because he could add the votes of the Brexit Party to the Conservatives without losing the votes of non diehard Brexiteers in his party. If Starmer can do the same with Lib Dems and Greens, it will be a landslide for him.
That may well change between now and next October, but as things stand, the unpopularity of the Conservatives means that Starmer has been presented with an open goal on a sloping pitch so he doesn't even need to kick the ball in.
I got blocked on Twitter by Tom Blenkinsop - who has turned into some kind of Labour absolutist - when I pointed out that the path to a big Labour win is for people in Surrey Heath and Esher and similar places to vote LibDem, not Labour.
So my watchout in the locals is the vote against the Tories more than it is the vote for Labour. I also hear that Labour on Teesside remain as riven, disorganised and arrogant as ever. They have utterly failed to go after the Teesworks corruption scandal because they are unable to speak across the various CLPs without factionalism getting in the way. Meanwhile the Tories under the figurehead of Ben Houchen International Airport are unified because they successfully purged anyone who disagrees with handing hundreds of millions over to a few select developers for nothing.
I don't know whose situation is more unfortunate, really: the UK, where centrists have to awkwardly cohabit with the far left (or occasionally the ERG); or France, where there is a choice of either centrists, smug and aloof, or the far left or the far right.
Here, I have a choice of at least three big(gish) parties; I may not like any of them much but all are more sane than not, and if one were to alienate me too much I have elsewhere to turn. In France, I can imagine no situation whatsoever in which I wouldn't reluctantly vote for LREM - with the result that LREM can basically do what it wants.
Could be a metaphor for some political marketing I guess.
I believe today is the day when the verdict is delivered that Gray broke the Civil Service code and she will be barred from working for a year for Labour, apparently Case wanted the ban to be substantially longer. So he's not partisan at all. No siree.
So the PB narrative can once again be that of Rishi again crushing the hopeless, hapless Sir Softie.
How on earth you can do factionalist infighting when you have so few MPs was truly impressive.
Having a double-barrelled surname was a sign of class and elitism, today it means your mum’s a slapper.
The housing “debt” is huge.
The only long term solution is to “pay down” the debt by building more houses.
Also, terrible party name.
Silicon Valley Bank: HSBC says UK buyout boosted profit by $1.5bn
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-65332752
Banking giant HSBC says its profits got a $1.5bn (£1.2bn) boost from the purchase of collapsed Silicon Valley Bank's British business (SVB UK).
Europe's biggest bank posted a pre-tax profit of $12.9bn for the three months to the end of March.
That is more than three times the amount it made for the same time last year.
In March, HSBC bought SVB UK for a nominal £1 ($1.25), in a deal led by the government and the Bank of England...
(Though of course you would have needed billions in capital reserves to have been able to make the purchase.)
https://winchester.greenparty.org.uk/people/
I remember that gleeful "We're out" farmer's billboard on the road to Oxford a few years ago after the referendum. I suspect the same farmer is probably now less pleased.
The High Lane area of Stockport, meanwhile (Marple South ward - or was last time I looked, at any rate), was comfortably Lib Dem (with posters for the Lib Dems in most cases on the same houses as posters opposing new development in High Lane).
We did a satisfying walk from Edale around Lords Seat and Mam Tor. Mam Tor, by the way, was absolutely heaving. Which delights me. There was something of a carnival atmosphere at the top: some of these people were serious all-the-kit walkers on longer hikes, but many were clearly park-at-the-bottom-and-a-quick-half-hour-to-the-top types, and some were clearly doing it for the first time and appeared tremendously pleased with their achievement in getting to the top and surprised and impressed by the reward in doing so. Hopefully some of these will be motivated to come back and explore more of the high areas of their country.
No we’re not!
Ha ha, forced to deny it, no smoke (& lice) without fire!
Etc
French-speaking primary and secondary school pupils will no longer be on holiday at the same time as their Dutch-speaking peers.
https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2023/05/01/in-belgium-when-kids-have-their-school-holidays-will-depend-on-what-language-they-speak_6025024_4.html (English, £££)
I suppose we do something similar, with Scotland especially having its own term dates, and even some small variations between local authorities.
I remember when I was a student, a fellow student being unsure whether then-Prime-Minister John Major was Conservative or Labour. She wasn't stupid - she went on to be an optician - just not really interested in current affairs. And that was in the days of four channels and no Netflix, when news was rather less avoidable than it is now.
https://twitter.com/WingsScotland/status/1653059178552868866?s=20
Political parties in democracies oughtn't to grow from the top down anyway. They should've all just jumped to the LDs. I did feel for Luciana Berger though, who received an absolute torrent of hideous abuse*.
*Esp from the Momentum dolts. I wonder what set her apart for particularly nasty treatment? It's truly a mystery.
We all know Boris Johnson was a socialist Prime Minister from his big state, big government, high taxation fiscal policy.
I wouldn't characterise it as not being clever though. It's a bit like saying I'm stupid because I don't know who won the Six Nations.
On one hand, when your authority has a half term out of synch with everyone else's, it's an opportunity for a holiday you wouldn't normally be able to afford. On the other, for those with children whose schools are out of step with each other - or who are teachers in a different authority to that of their kids - it can be a right pain in the arse.
Still, with the total LLG vote seeming that much higher this time there may still be tactical opportunity for them in seats where they are the obvious main challenger. Quite possibly offset by losses in other areas where Labour come through. The LD-Lab swing in parts of the South looks quite significant.
The county council is run by an LD/Lab/Green alliance. Of the districts, the city is Labour, one rural district is LD, another is LD/Green, a third is LD/Lab/Green. Only one district (Cherwell) is still Con.
Good rundown of the 2023 locals for Oxfordshire here: https://oxfordclarion.uk/local-elections-preview-2023/
Last year was an all up election due to ward boundary changes resulting in 50 Lib Dem, 4 C,1 G and 1 Independent.
18 seats are up this year with 16 LD 1C and 1G defending.
It really, really wasn't much of a risk...
TBF she would rather their hols were not synched up though.
They should have jumped to the LDs, but the fact that they didn't shows the nadir the LDs were in at the time.
CUK: We need a party outside the big two!
LDs: er...
CUK: And we need a party which prioritises overturning the referendum!
LDs: well as it happens...
CUK: If only there was a party which would take this approach! What can we do?
LDs: we're just over here...
CUK: Can you hear something? No? OK - we'll just have to start our own party.
LDs: Oh. Anyway, trans-toilets...
Then when the winds changed, being loyal to the leadership and 'bashing lefties' became attacking the leadership and defecting to start a new party with the lefties.
The grief I got one year (as a Governor) when we followed the Catholic calendar (because it made way more sense when you looked at the teaching weeks) is something I don't want to remember.
If in doubt, look out the window. If the view is "leafy" or you can see a cathedral, vote Lib Dem. If you can see a University or a lack of leaves, vote Labour.
If that doesn't work, ask yourself whether Focus leaflets are so numerous that you have to have a separate recycling bin for them. If you do, you may live in a Lib Dem target.
Government missed a trick in not participating; I don't think anyone's arguing HSBC aren't entitled to profit, though.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=efP2Bqm3FgE
Brexit murdered“moderate” Conservatism
Now it justifies the right’s stab-in-the-back myths
https://nickcohen.substack.com/p/brexit-murderedmoderate-conservatism
...For understandable, if not forgivable, psychological reasons the right has embraced denial. I do not hold with the liberal-left orthodoxy that Brexit was wholly built on the back of an enormous lie. Boris Johnson lies as easily as he breathes, of course, but a few supporters of Brexit sincerely believed they would inaugurate a national renaissance. When ministers approved a policy document in January 2022 setting out how “the government will use its new freedoms to transform the UK into the best regulated economy in the world,” they were lying to themselves before all others.
Supporters of Brexit cannot believe in May 2023 what they believed in January 2022. But rather than admit to a mistake, the right retreats into a stab-in-the-back myth: the conspiracy theory of the defeated. Brexit was sabotaged by “anti-Brexit activist civil servants” (Dominic Raab), “a Europhile blob” (Daniel Hannan), and “ the objection and obstruction” of remainers (Jacob Rees-Mogg).
So intoxicating is the conspiracy theory that not one leading supporter of Brexit has admitted that leaving the European Union was a mistake...
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/may/02/gove-hunt-beware-surrey-turf-out-tories-conservatives
<<But here was the dream Lib Dem door-knock: a young couple with a small boy, ex-Tory voters who had voted Brexit and were now full of indignant regret, had a lot to say and out it all poured. “We were turkeys voting for Christmas,” said the father, shaking his head in disbelief. His company supplies many others struggling with Brexit fallout: “They can’t sell into the EU, takes too long, too expensive.” Why did they vote Brexit? “I wish we hadn’t,” says his wife. “I just thought, ‘We’re British, we don’t want to be pushed around.’ We had no idea how well we did out of it. Oven-ready? Boris had nothing. He just lied and lied, even to the Queen. We won’t forgive Tories.>>
For better or worse, Brexit is the thing that defines the politicians of this generation. A big binary choice one way or the other.
To say "I thought this would be great, but it's actually gone badly"... How can you say that in public and expect to be taken seriously about anything ever again? It's career death.
To say to yourself "This thing I strove for for years, it's harmed the country"... How can you say that and live with yourself? It requires a lot of integrity.
And to save the arguments, this works equally whichever side of the 2016 debate people were. The most you can hope for is that your former opponents stop talking and try to change the subject.
I've mentioned before the old physics aphorism. It's relevant here, except that science has a much stronger "if the facts change, you should change your model" than most human endeavours.
Max Planck: A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it ...
An important scientific innovation rarely makes its way by gradually winning over and converting its opponents: it rarely happens that Saul becomes Paul. What does happen is that its opponents gradually die out, and that the growing generation is familiarized with the ideas from the beginning: another instance of the fact that the future lies with the youth.
Or Science progresses one funeral at a time.
The challenge for Team Brexit is that the young and middle aged aren't buying their vision. Not yet, anyway.