Yesterday I read @bigjohnowls list of Strarmers u turns and while I know BJO is the 'bete noire' of some on here it is hard to disagree with him
I was speaking to my son in Vancouver last night and he said there is not a politician or leader anywhere that instills confidence, and he was highly critical of Trudeau and said Biden age and dementia will see him not standing next year as the US heads into further political chaos
Truth is the global problems with climate change and war require global solutions when politicians only seek to fight each other
I think Starmer will be out of his depth the minute he walks into no 10, and at times like this we need to bury politics and have a National government drawn across all politics
What we need is a period when the barking Brexiteers have minimal influence on our policies. Starmer offers the best chance of this.
And how's that going to happen ?
If Sir Bland waltzes off on his anti-Brexit crusade he;s simply going to wake the sleeping dogs and then youll have a bigger problem.
You have just inserted an “anti-Brexit crusade” into the discussion. And I thought SKS had no policies. Which is it? Having a group of politicians in charge who’s idea of a debate over EU relations is a choice between no cooperation and nuking it is not an “anti-Brexit crusade”. If that were a possibility this thread would not have a header. It’s a dream of many and a nightmare of others.
And who are these politicians in charge who wont talk to the EU ? Sunak has received credit from all sides for trying to improve relations with the EU, even from the EU. SKS is flip flopping all over the place by trying to keep his remainers on board but also his lost red wall. Thats not a policy its political chancerism.
You have an enviable ability to move the goalposts and just bang on about whatever pops into your head even when it completely contradicts your point. Where is SKS’s “Anti-Brexit crusade” of two posts ago? Now he’s “flip flopping”? Which is it?
The sentence started with "if" . This is where SKS heart is and where he makes reassuring noises to the middle class idiots while also trying to keep red wallers on board. At some point he is going to have to come clean since he cant do both. So still he hasnt got a policy.
Are you really a lawyer ?
Yes. You can tell because you are being forced to reinterpret what you said. Are you really a General?
LOL dont be silly Brooke was a Field Marshal,
Anyway thrilling as this is I now have to go out and buy Sunday lunch,
And I shall reflect on the words of @CR to you just down thread
"It's remarkable how instantly you lose you shit the second you think Brexit has come up as a subject. Quite quite deranged."
He has a point.
You really need to calm down when someone criticises your point. Chill out FFS. This isn’t healthy.
Maaate..
I’ll accept much criticism - but that I most certainly am not.
I am not surprised that the USA declined in GDP per capita by 46% between 1770 and 1790. It was in a state of civil war, with Patriot controlled areas economically blockaded by British control of the seas. The war ended in 1783, but it was only with the US Constitution in 1789 that a single market and currency was established, setting the foundations of economic growth.
The exodus of often wealthy Loyalists to what is now Canada, the West Indies and back to GB must have significantly contributed to loss of both economic and social capital.
Yesterday I read @bigjohnowls list of Strarmers u turns and while I know BJO is the 'bete noire' of some on here it is hard to disagree with him
I was speaking to my son in Vancouver last night and he said there is not a politician or leader anywhere that instills confidence, and he was highly critical of Trudeau and said Biden age and dementia will see him not standing next year as the US heads into further political chaos
Truth is the global problems with climate change and war require global solutions when politicians only seek to fight each other
I think Starmer will be out of his depth the minute he walks into no 10, and at times like this we need to bury politics and have a National government drawn across all politics
What we need is a period when the barking Brexiteers have minimal influence on our policies. Starmer offers the best chance of this.
And how's that going to happen ?
If Sir Bland waltzes off on his anti-Brexit crusade he;s simply going to wake the sleeping dogs and then youll have a bigger problem.
Hence Starmer's current strategy. Establish the meme that Brexit Isn't Working and make reassuring noises about making it work. Leave the bit about the only way of MBW being to dilute it to homeopathic levels unsaid, even though it's obvious.
Lest we forget, Starmer is a proven lawyer, and lawyers know not to ask questions until they are sure what the answer is.
But the first step is getting the nutters out of office. Something in which the nutters are proving surprisingly co-operative.
Yes. But it will be hard. Those who want a competent well governed country and don't think unicorn thoughts need to win the next election. The nearest possible thing to it is a Lab/LD majority. The next nearest is a Lab majority.
The non unicorn future is quite painful and this is not complicated. Think: Tax, debt, deficit, Brexit, climate change, inflation, war, getting poorer, strikes, productivity, Trumpism in USA, the revolt of the professionals, refugees, housing.
The next election is gearing up thus: Tories will campaign on a narrow Trump-lite selfish self interest basis, and, incredible but true, will try to blame Labour. Reflect upon the last week or two.
Lab (and LD to an extent) will campaign on: Time for change and greater competence and sotto voce tactical voting. Don't go into details. All detail is open to attack.
NOM the more likely outcome.
If the Tory tactic were to succeed (Tories 317 approx seats +) then I think we would be in a fearful state. They would not govern with 'losers consent' - which would be 60% of the population. A further step to the Americanisation of politics.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
Debatable and in any event nothing to do with the point that CR or I were discussing.
Given that the UK hasn't had a 46% fall in per capita income as the early USA did then the relevance of comparing Samuel Adams to David Davis is more than dubious.
In reality the working class Leave block which voted for immigration control, higher wages and more spending on the NHS has got what it wanted.
While the middle class extremists, on both sides, the 'go global' Brexiteers and the 'job losses and pension cuts' Remainers are both disappointed.
People who use the NHS couldn't give a monkey's whether more money is spent on it or less. They're not accountants or public administration wonks. What they want is the standard of service to improve...or in many cases to re-enter existence. There are many who have been waiting years for proper treatment. Of course they haven't got what they wanted.
Who cares about Brexit? Just another bunch of broken promises by politician c***s - that's how many see it, and indeed rightly.
I wonder how many who voted all those years ago in 2014 in the EU membership referendum even remember which option they voted for. A significantly smaller proportion than the proportion of PB contributors and readers who remember.
This picture tells a story. It also gives hope - false hope or real, you decide - that a change of government could bring a change of fortunes as it did from 1997 onwards.
Yesterday I read @bigjohnowls list of Strarmers u turns and while I know BJO is the 'bete noire' of some on here it is hard to disagree with him
I was speaking to my son in Vancouver last night and he said there is not a politician or leader anywhere that instills confidence, and he was highly critical of Trudeau and said Biden age and dementia will see him not standing next year as the US heads into further political chaos
Truth is the global problems with climate change and war require global solutions when politicians only seek to fight each other
I think Starmer will be out of his depth the minute he walks into no 10, and at times like this we need to bury politics and have a National government drawn across all politics
What we need is a period when the barking Brexiteers have minimal influence on our policies. Starmer offers the best chance of this.
And how's that going to happen ?
If Sir Bland waltzes off on his anti-Brexit crusade he;s simply going to wake the sleeping dogs and then youll have a bigger problem.
Hence Starmer's current strategy. Establish the meme that Brexit Isn't Working and make reassuring noises about making it work. Leave the bit about the only way of MBW being to dilute it to homeopathic levels unsaid, even though it's obvious.
Lest we forget, Starmer is a proven lawyer, and lawyers know not to ask questions until they are sure what the answer is.
But the first step is getting the nutters out of office. Something in which the nutters are proving surprisingly co-operative.
Its still nonsense.
Your so called "nutters" are only behaving themselves since they are the government. Once outside its gloves off. The Remainers are simply getting an easy time atm because nobody is running with daily guff which comes from the EU bureaucracy machine, We had a glimpse of how things might go on the vaccine spat when being outside was suddenly seen as a good thing. That will be the norm of and the popularity of the EU will reverse if the stay outs have a free hand,
You can bet your bottom dollar the regret will flip back the other way very quickly if we ever do end up going back in. It will be insufferable.
I'm perfectly happy with Brexit.
The Brexit balance sheet at present is
Remainers havent had the big downside they forecast Leavers havent produced the big upside they forecast
Scoreless draw.
However changing the status quo simply opens the can of worms. Going back in requires sacrifices for indeterminate benefits. The polls will quickly change.
Yes. But Brexit has made things (even?) crappier. Most people know that, hence the massive polled sentiment against Brexit and the desire of residual Leavers to change the subject.
But you're right on one point. We're going to have learn to live with the crap.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
They lost a lot of population (by choice, because they basically booted out the Loyalists) in the advent of the American Revolution, lost some trading advantages and then had to build all the infrastructure of an independent country whilst rebuilding from extensive war damage to several ports and cities. Meanwhile the UK started to rapidly industralise from the 1780s onwards, leading also to a large boom in population growth, whilst America remained largely agrarian for some time.
I don't think it was until the 1860s/1870s that the USA overtook the UK, probably delayed by the civil war too.
OTOH (and bearing in mind the existence of alternative sources such as Egypt and the Windies) the UK industrial revolution remained partly dependent on US agrarianism, or rather slave plantationism, for critical resources - cotton, sugar (for cheap urban proletariat fodder), etc.
Thats the modern Woke take and almost certainly bollocks.
Oh here we go again…academic view based on extensive research is dismissed as “woke” and “bollocks”. I swoon at the intellectual rigour.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
Debatable and in any event nothing to do with the point that CR or I were discussing.
Given that the UK hasn't had a 46% fall in per capita income as the early USA did then the relevance of comparing Samuel Adams to David Davis is more than dubious.
In reality the working class Leave block which voted for immigration control, higher wages and more spending on the NHS has got what it wanted.
While the middle class extremists, on both sides, the 'go global' Brexiteers and the 'job losses and pension cuts' Remainers are both disappointed.
People who use the NHS couldn't give a monkey's whether more money is spent on it or less. They're not accountants. What they want is the standard of service to improve...or in many cases to re-enter existence. There are many who have been waiting years for proper treatment. Of course they haven't got what they wanted.
Nor are they going to.
But they do care how much is spent on the NHS when it comes from the taxes they have to pay.
There's 300k more NHS employees than there was four years ago.
So how many more would it need to be 'the envy of the world' ? Another 300k ? 600k ? An extra million ? Or two ?
Whatever the number, and for the NHS idolaters its infinite, its more than the country is willing to pay.
Yesterday I read @bigjohnowls list of Strarmers u turns and while I know BJO is the 'bete noire' of some on here it is hard to disagree with him
I was speaking to my son in Vancouver last night and he said there is not a politician or leader anywhere that instills confidence, and he was highly critical of Trudeau and said Biden age and dementia will see him not standing next year as the US heads into further political chaos
Truth is the global problems with climate change and war require global solutions when politicians only seek to fight each other
I think Starmer will be out of his depth the minute he walks into no 10, and at times like this we need to bury politics and have a National government drawn across all politics
What we need is a period when the barking Brexiteers have minimal influence on our policies. Starmer offers the best chance of this.
It is quite amazing that we now have a government which basically the posh end of UKIP (not the ones who live in caravans in East Anglia and eat Turkey Twizzlers) with a large majority. Fortunately they are choosing to do largely nothing with that untrammeled political power.
"Lib Dem councillor suggests he’d gas anti-Ulez campaigners Michael Tarling says he would ‘happily fill the room with carbon monoxide’ in response to post about meeting against new zone"
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
They lost a lot of population (by choice, because they basically booted out the Loyalists) in the advent of the American Revolution, lost some trading advantages and then had to build all the infrastructure of an independent country whilst rebuilding from extensive war damage to several ports and cities. Meanwhile the UK started to rapidly industralise from the 1780s onwards, leading also to a large boom in population growth, whilst America remained largely agrarian for some time.
I don't think it was until the 1860s/1870s that the USA overtook the UK, probably delayed by the civil war too.
OTOH (and bearing in mind the existence of alternative sources such as Egypt and the Windies) the UK industrial revolution remained partly dependent on US agrarianism, or rather slave plantationism, for critical resources - cotton, sugar (for cheap urban proletariat fodder), etc.
Thats the modern Woke take and almost certainly bollocks.
Oh here we go again…academic view based on extensive research is dismissed as “woke” and “bollocks”. I swoon at the intellectual rigour.
I must say I was a bit taken aback to see such references as the Spectator in 1864 dismissed as modern wokery and in terms more appropriate for Mrs Dorries's Australian dinners al fresco.
I distinctly remember referencing the Lancashire Cotton Famine resulting from reliance on Southern US supply in my A-Level History exam. Perhaps my offer from Oxford and my subsequent life should simply be cancelled as being “woke”. And the Spectator too.
You do realise that limited and rather bizarre link doesn't support your thesis, don't you?
Maybe I've got you badly wrong and you're actually just a bit thick.
Yesterday I read @bigjohnowls list of Strarmers u turns and while I know BJO is the 'bete noire' of some on here it is hard to disagree with him
I was speaking to my son in Vancouver last night and he said there is not a politician or leader anywhere that instills confidence, and he was highly critical of Trudeau and said Biden age and dementia will see him not standing next year as the US heads into further political chaos
Truth is the global problems with climate change and war require global solutions when politicians only seek to fight each other
I think Starmer will be out of his depth the minute he walks into no 10, and at times like this we need to bury politics and have a National government drawn across all politics
What we need is a period when the barking Brexiteers have minimal influence on our policies. Starmer offers the best chance of this.
It is quite amazing that we now have a government which basically the posh end of UKIP (not the ones who live in caravans in East Anglia and eat Turkey Twizzlers) with a large majority. Fortunately they are choosing to do largely nothing with that untrammeled political power.
Well UKIP only ever had one policy and that one is done. So perhaps "the posh end of UKIP" is enacting all their other policies....
Sunak's interesting strategy for re-election: Things may have gone to the dogs under the Conservatives. It's all the fault of net-zero and corporate diversity policies, so vote for us.
I reckon Sunak has now seriously begun to formulate an election-winning strategy that he thinks will secure victory. It's based around transport. It consists of:
- Save the motorist. Abandon HS2, ban LTNs and ULEZ. - Stop the boats. - A helipad in every neighbourhood.
Abandoning HS2 only makes sense if he's given up all hope of winning seats in the north.
Northerners use roads not railways.
That would surprise anyone using the Tyneside metro, or the Sheffield trams.
Over 80% of journeys are made by car, proportionally even more so outside London.
On public transport more journeys are made by bus than rail.
From that source, the 80%+ figure is "passenger km", not "journeys" (or "trips" as they call them).
When counted in "trips" the "trips by car" share falls to around 60-65%.
But that has nothing to do with the current arguments, which are about short local trips of just a few miles, and whether people living in a housing area are to be forced to endure rat-runners driving at dangerously high speed down their residential streets, or not.
The Government are doubling down on this, and sod the human cost - what do a few thousand extra dead people from road kill or chronic conditions matter if it saves the Government's political skin?
From the Guardian piece linked earlier:
Downing Street is reportedly considering a ban on councils introducing new LTNs (although government sources described this as “speculation”), as well as denying local authorities access to the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency database, making the zones unenforceable.
This follows an announcement earlier this year that LTNs would no longer be able to be created using government money. For cash-strapped councils already struggling to make ends meet, the decision may lead to them scrapping their plans altogether. This has prompted questions as to whether we are seeing the end of LTNs nationally.
There is the start of a new pattern of campaigning here. Obvs the Tories can't blame a Labour government for very much by now. What it is starting to do is to look at local government (many of course are Labour) and attack them for implementing what are in fact government policies. Local authorities have of course no powers or duties whatever apart from those given them by parliament/government.
A lot of voters are simple souls and won't spot this.
I reckon Sunak has now seriously begun to formulate an election-winning strategy that he thinks will secure victory. It's based around transport. It consists of:
- Save the motorist. Abandon HS2, ban LTNs and ULEZ. - Stop the boats. - A helipad in every neighbourhood.
Abandoning HS2 only makes sense if he's given up all hope of winning seats in the north.
Northerners use roads not railways.
That would surprise anyone using the Tyneside metro, or the Sheffield trams.
Yes. Tyneside Metro is awesome. And very well used.
It's on its knees. The new trains are desperately needed.
Frequent cancellations, and all too often a complete collapse of the service.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
Debatable and in any event nothing to do with the point that CR or I were discussing.
Given that the UK hasn't had a 46% fall in per capita income as the early USA did then the relevance of comparing Samuel Adams to David Davis is more than dubious.
In reality the working class Leave block which voted for immigration control, higher wages and more spending on the NHS has got what it wanted.
While the middle class extremists, on both sides, the 'go global' Brexiteers and the 'job losses and pension cuts' Remainers are both disappointed.
People who use the NHS couldn't give a monkey's whether more money is spent on it or less. They're not accountants or public administration wonks. What they want is the standard of service to improve...or in many cases to re-enter existence. There are many who have been waiting years for proper treatment. Of course they haven't got what they wanted.
Who cares about Brexit? Just another bunch of broken promises by politician c***s - that's how many see it, and indeed rightly.
I wonder how many who voted all those years ago in 2014 in the EU membership referendum even remember which option they voted for. A significantly smaller proportion than the proportion of PB contributors and readers who remember.
This picture tells a story. It also gives hope - false hope or real, you decide - that a change of government could bring a change of fortunes as it did from 1997 onwards.
That suggests that satisfaction increased when the government started pumping extra money in around 2003 and lasted until covid.
The problem being that money is already being pumped in and that there are fundamental problems - aging population, covid aftereffects, NHS productivity, doctors pay demands - which aren't going away.
So unless there is a huge new source of NHS funding - and the only realistic possibility looks to be property taxation - then dissatisfaction will continue.
Of course increasing taxation brings its own problems.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
Debatable and in any event nothing to do with the point that CR or I were discussing.
Given that the UK hasn't had a 46% fall in per capita income as the early USA did then the relevance of comparing Samuel Adams to David Davis is more than dubious.
In reality the working class Leave block which voted for immigration control, higher wages and more spending on the NHS has got what it wanted.
While the middle class extremists, on both sides, the 'go global' Brexiteers and the 'job losses and pension cuts' Remainers are both disappointed.
People who use the NHS couldn't give a monkey's whether more money is spent on it or less. They're not accountants or public administration wonks. What they want is the standard of service to improve...or in many cases to re-enter existence. There are many who have been waiting years for proper treatment. Of course they haven't got what they wanted.
Who cares about Brexit? Just another bunch of broken promises by politician c***s - that's how many see it, and indeed rightly.
I wonder how many who voted all those years ago in 2014 in the EU membership referendum even remember which option they voted for. A significantly smaller proportion than the proportion of PB contributors and readers who remember.
This picture tells a story. It also gives hope - false hope or real, you decide - that a change of government could bring a change of fortunes as it did from 1997 onwards.
It certainly won't if the NHS in Labour Wales is to go by
Sunak's interesting strategy for re-election: Things may have gone to the dogs under the Conservatives. It's all the fault of net-zero and corporate diversity policies, so vote for us.
I guess the aim is to work people up so much about net-zero and corporate diversity policies they don't notice they can't afford food and accommodation any more, and that public services are in a state of collapse.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
Debatable and in any event nothing to do with the point that CR or I were discussing.
Given that the UK hasn't had a 46% fall in per capita income as the early USA did then the relevance of comparing Samuel Adams to David Davis is more than dubious.
In reality the working class Leave block which voted for immigration control, higher wages and more spending on the NHS has got what it wanted.
While the middle class extremists, on both sides, the 'go global' Brexiteers and the 'job losses and pension cuts' Remainers are both disappointed.
People who use the NHS couldn't give a monkey's whether more money is spent on it or less. They're not accountants or public administration wonks. What they want is the standard of service to improve...or in many cases to re-enter existence. There are many who have been waiting years for proper treatment. Of course they haven't got what they wanted.
Who cares about Brexit? Just another bunch of broken promises by politician c***s - that's how many see it, and indeed rightly.
I wonder how many who voted all those years ago in 2014 in the EU membership referendum even remember which option they voted for. A significantly smaller proportion than the proportion of PB contributors and readers who remember.
This picture tells a story. It also gives hope - false hope or real, you decide - that a change of government could bring a change of fortunes as it did from 1997 onwards.
It certainly won't if the NHS in Labour Wales is to go by
Which I find strange because everyone who witnessed / has heard about the care my Uncle got in Beddgelert are incredibly complimentary.
I suspect as with other parts of the NHS the actual quality of the service you get will depend on incredibly local factors..
Starmer is doing just fine. Oppositions don't win elections, remember?, governments lose them and this one is doing it in spades, imo already has. Labour have a large and solid poll lead. They can withstand some swingback and still achieve a decisive majority.
The continual negative comparison to Tony Blair is becoming a bit of a trope. Was the 97 landslide really delivered by a country fired up by enthusiasm for him and his policies rather wanting rid of the Tories? I don't think so. I bet if you polled floating voters and Con/Lab switchers back then on whether they were driven by a liking for Labour or being sick to the bones of the Conservatives you'd find it was the latter. Bit of both, obviously, but mainly the latter. Just like now.
The most important thing Blair did was make Labour a safe (in their eyes) repository for those votes. This, plus tactical voting, secured his big win. Keir Starmer is doing exactly the same and with just as much success. On the key metrics he IS Tony Blair and he's on track for a similarly dramatic election victory.
If the government wants to cut our reliance on fossil fuel imports, you might find it strange that they are funding the development of at least one new CCGT (with CCS) and at least two blue hydrogen projects. All locking in natural gas consumption for decades.
Once again, we're back to the difference between policy and politics - policy is what you'll do when you're elected, politics is what you do to get elected.
Starmer is in the "politics" phase - he is building his coalition (all successful forays from Opposition to Government need a coalition of voters, an integral part of which is or are disillusioned supporters of the Government).
The "policy" phase will have to begin in the autumn - that means laying out if not a detailed five-year plan at least a sense of what an incoming Labour Government will prioritise and how it will be different to the current administration. It's somewhat less beguiling than Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils and many will feel over-dressed but it will at least provide some insight.
Trying to watch the Conservatives frantically seeking to re-launch for the fifth or sixth time (apparently, we've not really had the opportunity, despite two majorities, to have a proper "Conservative" Government) will be good entertainment but the problem for Sunak is the very words "Conservative Party" have become by-words for venality, incompetence, ineptitude, broken promises and failure.
People look at what has happened and want to give someone a kicking - kicking the local Conservative Councillor isn't enough, the local MP has to take his or her "punishment". Once that's done, the Conservatives can start agsain with a clear slate but the longer they dodge and weave and seek to delay the reckoning, the worse it will be.
Starmer isn't Blair any more than Sunak is Thatcher. Oddly enough, trying to be Blair would be a mistake - nobody expects the tribute act to be as good as the original. Starmer, for me, is nearer to Wilson in terms of party management. Most of Labour (just as in the 90s) has decided it's boring to keep losing and winning might be more fun.
Thus we have the sense that competence will replace incompetence but that's about all - radical policies may have to wait for the second term (I think Starmer is also working on the assumption he won't have much room for manoeuvre in terms of a majority). For now, it's about making the tent as big as possible and bringing people in - Sunak is probably Starmer's biggest ally in this. Once the votes are counted, I agree Starmer's problems will begin but he is astutely downwardly managing expectations so perhaps, pace Wilson, he can go to the country after a reasonable 18 months and win a proper mandate.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’m a strident Leaver. Perfectly content with my vote and I’d vote Leave again
Brexit is irritating because it’s BORING. It’s done. We’re never going back in. Once you sit down and think of the political practicalities of re-entry - rather than venting about UKIPpy Tories - it becomes obvious. There are so many insurmountable obstacles - not least, as @Peter_the_Punter points out: they wouldn’t want us. Or they would want such a price we would never pay it
Sunak's interesting strategy for re-election: Things may have gone to the dogs under the Conservatives. It's all the fault of net-zero and corporate diversity policies, so vote for us.
I guess the aim is to work people up so much about net-zero and corporate diversity policies they don't notice they can't afford food and accommodation any more, and that public services are in a state of collapse.
Net zero does of course have complications. It is a Tory government policy - and all mainstream parties accept it in some form.
But there are buts. One is that no-one believes it can or will in truth be implemented; and the second is that everyone knows it is without meaning or effect without global implementation.
The Blair Institute's solution (!) to all this is the Step One is Global Implementation. This outfit has enormous income and bright staff. It is taken seriously. It is seriously saying that The Solution is the very thing which is in fact The Problem. Ie, Global Implementation.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
Debatable and in any event nothing to do with the point that CR or I were discussing.
Given that the UK hasn't had a 46% fall in per capita income as the early USA did then the relevance of comparing Samuel Adams to David Davis is more than dubious.
In reality the working class Leave block which voted for immigration control, higher wages and more spending on the NHS has got what it wanted.
While the middle class extremists, on both sides, the 'go global' Brexiteers and the 'job losses and pension cuts' Remainers are both disappointed.
People who use the NHS couldn't give a monkey's whether more money is spent on it or less. They're not accountants or public administration wonks. What they want is the standard of service to improve...or in many cases to re-enter existence. There are many who have been waiting years for proper treatment. Of course they haven't got what they wanted.
Who cares about Brexit? Just another bunch of broken promises by politician c***s - that's how many see it, and indeed rightly.
I wonder how many who voted all those years ago in 2014 in the EU membership referendum even remember which option they voted for. A significantly smaller proportion than the proportion of PB contributors and readers who remember.
This picture tells a story. It also gives hope - false hope or real, you decide - that a change of government could bring a change of fortunes as it did from 1997 onwards.
It certainly won't if the NHS in Labour Wales is to go by
Which I find strange because everyone who witnessed / has heard about the care my Uncle got in Beddgelert are incredibly complimentary.
I suspect as with other parts of the NHS the actual quality of the service you get will depend on incredibly local factors..
Certainly there will be exceptions it is not our experience, indeed I waited 3 years for a bi hernia operation
Trying to watch the Conservatives frantically seeking to re-launch for the fifth or sixth time (apparently, we've not really had the opportunity, despite two majorities, to have a proper "Conservative" Government) will be good entertainment but the problem for Sunak is the very words "Conservative Party" have become by-words for venality, incompetence, ineptitude, broken promises and failure.
The Kippers in government think they can win the next election by chasing even fewer UKIP votes...
A sound thrashing is the best chance Conservatives have to reclaim their party
Starmer is doing just fine. Oppositions don't win elections, remember?, governments lose them and this one is doing it in spades, imo already has. Labour have a large and solid poll lead. They can withstand some swingback and still achieve a decisive majority.
The continual negative comparison to Tony Blair is becoming a bit of a trope. Was the 97 landslide really delivered by a country fired up by enthusiasm for him and his policies rather wanting rid of the Tories? I don't think so. I bet if you polled floating voters and Con/Lab switchers back then on whether they were driven by a liking for Labour or being sick to the bones of the Conservatives you'd find it was the latter. Bit of both, obviously, but mainly the latter. Just like now.
The most important thing Blair did was make Labour a safe (in their eyes) repository for those votes. This, plus tactical voting, secured his big win. Keir Starmer is doing exactly the same and with just as much success. On the key metrics he IS Tony Blair and he's on track for a similarly dramatic election victory.
The big difference is what happens afterwards.
Blair received a golden economic legacy in a world with few problems.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
If the government wants to cut our reliance on fossil fuel imports, you might find it strange that they are funding the development of at least one new CCGT (with CCS) and at least two blue hydrogen projects. All locking in natural gas consumption for decades.
If the alternative is the lights going out they have to do it.
I was also re-thinking @TSE's point about Labour potential unpopularity and it seems more flawed than I thought.
If you're not that into their policies then you're less, not more, likely not to be disappointed. If your expectations aren't high, Labour aren't going to let you down.
So it might turn out the opposite of what people like Casino Royale hope. Indeed, it's entirely plausible that with a low bar of expectation, Labour exceed them.
Might be that rare example of a party increasing its majority the second time election after their historic win, especially if the Conservatives have continued their lurch into the wilderness Right.
I hadn't thought of it from that point of view.
Like many on the 'never Tory' side, I just don't see anything much to vote for on the Labour side apart from a vague possibility of competence (which given the current shambles, will be enough for most people). If anything it looks like little more than a potentially more competent conservative government in waiting.
I remember that in 1995-6 Labour was so scared of losing that it too promised very little and was exceptionally timid once in government. Given Blair now seems to be influential behind the scenes this seems to be the playbook again. I get that they can't really make any spending commitments because there's no money to pay for anything, but where's the vision? As someone who should vote Labour if they are to have an outside chance of winning here, I think I will vote Green or LD just so they don't just assume huge support for their policy of not doing very much.
But maybe you're right about the large number of people who don't pay much attention to politics rather than people like us here, and setting a low bar for expectations and then just about delivering on it may be a successful strategy.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
They lost a lot of population (by choice, because they basically booted out the Loyalists) in the advent of the American Revolution, lost some trading advantages and then had to build all the infrastructure of an independent country whilst rebuilding from extensive war damage to several ports and cities. Meanwhile the UK started to rapidly industralise from the 1780s onwards, leading also to a large boom in population growth, whilst America remained largely agrarian for some time.
I don't think it was until the 1860s/1870s that the USA overtook the UK, probably delayed by the civil war too.
OTOH (and bearing in mind the existence of alternative sources such as Egypt and the Windies) the UK industrial revolution remained partly dependent on US agrarianism, or rather slave plantationism, for critical resources - cotton, sugar (for cheap urban proletariat fodder), etc.
Thats the modern Woke take and almost certainly bollocks.
Oh here we go again…academic view based on extensive research is dismissed as “woke” and “bollocks”. I swoon at the intellectual rigour.
I must say I was a bit taken aback to see such references as the Spectator in 1864 dismissed as modern wokery and in terms more appropriate for Mrs Dorries's Australian dinners al fresco.
I distinctly remember referencing the Lancashire Cotton Famine resulting from reliance on Southern US supply in my A-Level History exam. Perhaps my offer from Oxford and my subsequent life should simply be cancelled as being “woke”. And the Spectator too.
You do realise that limited and rather bizarre link doesn't support your thesis, don't you?
Maybe I've got you badly wrong and you're actually just a bit thick.
@Casino_Royale - what part of this extract from the @Carnyx 's The Spectator link don't you understand? I appreciate it's in 19th C English but really - you are so dense planets orbit you.
"The cotton famine may be said to have commenced in October, 1861, with the development of the American contest from an angry party struggle into the greatest of civil ware. The price of cotton then first began leaping upwards with a rapidity only checked by one circumstance independent of the war. The trade had for two years previously been overstocking the markets of the world with a profuseness which, but for the famine, would have made 1862 one of the worst masters' years ever known in Lancashire. They had glutted India, Australia, and America, had in fact so completely outrun consumption that they were in possession directly or indirectly of a surplus stock of 300,000,000 pounds' weight of manufactured goods." (emphasis all mine to assist you)
But it's "woke" so it can't be true. Go learn to read.
Harry Potter studio tour is a huge international tourist draw for Britain. This is the second family I know who’ve based an entire holiday to the UK around taking the kids there.
One of a select few examples of a single visitor attraction forming the basis for a whole trip to a foreign country - along with Disneyworld, Santiago de Compostela, Rovaniemi, El Bulli, Memphis and of course Mecca.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
They lost a lot of population (by choice, because they basically booted out the Loyalists) in the advent of the American Revolution, lost some trading advantages and then had to build all the infrastructure of an independent country whilst rebuilding from extensive war damage to several ports and cities. Meanwhile the UK started to rapidly industralise from the 1780s onwards, leading also to a large boom in population growth, whilst America remained largely agrarian for some time.
I don't think it was until the 1860s/1870s that the USA overtook the UK, probably delayed by the civil war too.
OTOH (and bearing in mind the existence of alternative sources such as Egypt and the Windies) the UK industrial revolution remained partly dependent on US agrarianism, or rather slave plantationism, for critical resources - cotton, sugar (for cheap urban proletariat fodder), etc.
Thats the modern Woke take and almost certainly bollocks.
Oh here we go again…academic view based on extensive research is dismissed as “woke” and “bollocks”. I swoon at the intellectual rigour.
I must say I was a bit taken aback to see such references as the Spectator in 1864 dismissed as modern wokery and in terms more appropriate for Mrs Dorries's Australian dinners al fresco.
I distinctly remember referencing the Lancashire Cotton Famine resulting from reliance on Southern US supply in my A-Level History exam. Perhaps my offer from Oxford and my subsequent life should simply be cancelled as being “woke”. And the Spectator too.
You do realise that limited and rather bizarre link doesn't support your thesis, don't you?
Maybe I've got you badly wrong and you're actually just a bit thick.
@Casino_Royale - what part of this extract from the @Carnyx 's The Spectator link don't you understand? I appreciate it's in 19th C English but really - you are so dense planets orbit you.
"The cotton famine may be said to have commenced in October, 1861, with the development of the American contest from an angry party struggle into the greatest of civil ware. The price of cotton then first began leaping upwards with a rapidity only checked by one circumstance independent of the war. The trade had for two years previously been overstocking the markets of the world with a profuseness which, but for the famine, would have made 1862 one of the worst masters' years ever known in Lancashire. They had glutted India, Australia, and America, had in fact so completely outrun consumption that they were in possession directly or indirectly of a surplus stock of 300,000,000 pounds' weight of manufactured goods." (emphasis all mine to assist you)
But it's "woke" so it can't be true. Go learn to read.
What does "go learn to read" mean? I've never heard or seen that sentence before.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Interesting about Worcestershire. Used to be Gerald Nabarro country as I recall, though that was rather a long time ago. A good example to modern Tories in that he brought in the Clean Air Act
"Lib Dem councillor suggests he’d gas anti-Ulez campaigners Michael Tarling says he would ‘happily fill the room with carbon monoxide’ in response to post about meeting against new zone"
Yep, you have to be a bit cautious with the anti-ULEZ folk. There is someone in Edinburgh going around with an angle-grinder and cutting down cameras, and some of the cycle campaigners have had physical/death threats.
I was also re-thinking @TSE's point about Labour potential unpopularity and it seems more flawed than I thought.
If you're not that into their policies then you're less, not more, likely not to be disappointed. If your expectations aren't high, Labour aren't going to let you down.
So it might turn out the opposite of what people like Casino Royale hope. Indeed, it's entirely plausible that with a low bar of expectation, Labour exceed them.
Might be that rare example of a party increasing its majority the second time election after their historic win, especially if the Conservatives have continued their lurch into the wilderness Right.
I hadn't thought of it from that point of view.
Like many on the 'never Tory' side, I just don't see anything much to vote for on the Labour side apart from a vague possibility of competence (which given the current shambles, will be enough for most people). If anything it looks like little more than a potentially more competent conservative government in waiting.
I remember that in 1995-6 Labour was so scared of losing that it too promised very little and was exceptionally timid once in government. Given Blair now seems to be influential behind the scenes this seems to be the playbook again. I get that they can't really make any spending commitments because there's no money to pay for anything, but where's the vision? As someone who should vote Labour if they are to have an outside chance of winning here, I think I will vote Green or LD just so they don't just assume huge support for their policy of not doing very much.
But maybe you're right about the large number of people who don't pay much attention to politics rather than people like us here, and setting a low bar for expectations and then just about delivering on it may be a successful strategy.
Labour needs to be reasonably competent sounding to get a couple of million Tories to vote for it. Too many 'already Labour' voters are delusional about public finances. 'Usually Tory' voters are not. Sometimes there is a bit of space for this, but not now. We are already in max tax, debt, deficit and state expenditure territory. And it hasn't made socialists supremely happy. or anyone else.
Sir K is not going to convert socialists to vote Tory. He approach is correct.
What does "go learn to read" mean? I've never heard or seen that sentence before.
"Go and learn to read". I'm hoping that fewer words in a sentence will assist in his comprehension given the difficulties he's clearly otherwise having.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
There have always been some grim areas of Malvern, especially the area around Malvern Link. I used to work in Dyson Perrins school many years ago and it was easy to spot the social problems.
I suspect the difference there is wealthy people are no longer coming in to pump up the money as spa towns are no longer fashionable.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Obesity now being a sign of real and obvious poverty ?
Some areas/demographics are improving and some areas/demographics are declining.
One group which have been struggling for decades are the rural working class.
I reckon Sunak has now seriously begun to formulate an election-winning strategy that he thinks will secure victory. It's based around transport. It consists of:
- Save the motorist. Abandon HS2, ban LTNs and ULEZ. - Stop the boats. - A helipad in every neighbourhood.
Abandoning HS2 only makes sense if he's given up all hope of winning seats in the north.
Northerners use roads not railways.
That would surprise anyone using the Tyneside metro, or the Sheffield trams.
(Snip)
Notice how much politicians, the media and PB talk about trains compared with buses ?
Trains are a male middle class obsession.
Memories of the Rocket and Mallard when Britain led the world.
Plus childhood Hornby railways.
I've pondered this in the past. Whilst there is some truth in it (see Wolmar thinking public transport is all trains and tube when he wanted to be Labour candidate for MoL...), I also think it is more complex.
Railways are a self-contained infrastructure. If you want trains, you need a railway line, and that is a complex and costly thing. In contrast, busses are (relatively) cheap to buy and operate, and mostly use existing infrastructure. When they do not ad new infrastructure is needed - say, the MisGuided Bus here in Cambridge, or the proposed Cambridge to Cambourne busway, they can become very 'hot' topics, with lots of NIMBYs and BANANAs.
Railways are also much more heavily unionised than busses, and hence are of more interest to those on the left as well
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’m a strident Leaver. Perfectly content with my vote and I’d vote Leave again
Brexit is irritating because it’s BORING. It’s done. We’re never going back in. Once you sit down and think of the political practicalities of re-entry - rather than venting about UKIPpy Tories - it becomes obvious. There are so many insurmountable obstacles - not least, as @Peter_the_Punter points out: they wouldn’t want us. Or they would want such a price we would never pay it
Move on. It’ll be better for your hypertension
Since youre overseas you probably missed that R4 were re running the radio version of the White Hotel. As I listened it struck me youre probably not that far from many of the main settings.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
Lol. If you’re not going to accept basic statements of personal belief why bother engaging?
Moreover, why would I lie? I’m not the easily-embarrassed type. As may be obvious. I’ve made some damn fool judgements in my time - supporting the Iraq War was probably the worst. Shamefully stupid
But Brexit is not one of those misjudgments. I occasionally think about this, because Brexit has been in many ways a shitshow (partly because the EU has done its level best - more than anyone expected - to make it a shitshow)
I ask myself: How would I vote now. And I get the exact same mix of feelings I had in 2016. I am torn. Part of me wants an easy life. Freedom of movement is a deep loss, which I regret. So: Rejoin?
But then - as in 2016 - I look at the fundamentals of democracy - or non democracy - in the EU - which is actually getting worse as legislation pours out of Brussels - and I sadly think No. Stay out.
Ergo: I would vote Leave again. You can choose whether to believe me or not, I do not repine
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more.
Conspicuous consumption is indeed the unofficial tagline of the Game Fair
£35 to get in the gate
£9 for a sausage-in-a-bun
One of the exhibitors sold a second-hand Land Rover Defender to a customer for £50,000
Champagne flowing on the expensive clothing stands to pretty young things who all aspire to look and dress identically.
It's a fun day out though...
Evesham is a prime example of the death of the high street. 15 years ago there were many and various options for shopping.
Now it's charity shops, bookies and mobile phones.
I reckon Sunak has now seriously begun to formulate an election-winning strategy that he thinks will secure victory. It's based around transport. It consists of:
- Save the motorist. Abandon HS2, ban LTNs and ULEZ. - Stop the boats. - A helipad in every neighbourhood.
Abandoning HS2 only makes sense if he's given up all hope of winning seats in the north.
Northerners use roads not railways.
That would surprise anyone using the Tyneside metro, or the Sheffield trams.
(Snip)
Notice how much politicians, the media and PB talk about trains compared with buses ?
Trains are a male middle class obsession.
Memories of the Rocket and Mallard when Britain led the world.
Plus childhood Hornby railways.
I've pondered this in the past. Whilst there is some truth in it (see Wolmar thinking public transport is all trains and tube when he wanted to be Labour candidate for MoL...), I also think it is more complex.
Railways are a self-contained infrastructure. If you want trains, you need a railway line, and that is a complex and costly thing. In contrast, busses are (relatively) cheap to buy and operate, and mostly use existing infrastructure. When they do not ad new infrastructure is needed - say, the MisGuided Bus here in Cambridge, or the proposed Cambridge to Cambourne busway, they can become very 'hot' topics, with lots of NIMBYs and BANANAs.
Railways are also much more heavily unionised than busses, and hence are of more interest to those on the left as well
Also much easier to close down a bus route. The operators in this general area have been known to shut down services with little notice, causing a scramble - sometimes filled by Lothian Buses.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Evesham has been weirdly sketchy for many years. I’ve got friends who grew up there
It was heavily Leave because - I am told - it had a lot of Eastern European immigration
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
There have always been some grim areas of Malvern, especially the area around Malvern Link. I used to work in Dyson Perrins school many years ago and it was easy to spot the social problems.
I suspect the difference there is wealthy people are no longer coming in to pump up the money as spa towns are no longer fashionable.
Some are and some wont be.
Many of the rural areas which are fashionable have the problems of housing being bought by retirees / second homers / holiday leters.
With the locals, especially the young, being forced to leave for work and housing opportunities.
Its something that Sunak should be well aware of:
The Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire may be as picturesque as they come, but it also has one of the most rapidly declining populations in the UK, according to the latest government census.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
The market town has been a big loser in the last seventy years. Hollowed out by the middle class - doctors, solicitors, headteachers - moving out to the pretty villages and commuting in.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’m a strident Leaver. Perfectly content with my vote and I’d vote Leave again
Brexit is irritating because it’s BORING. It’s done. We’re never going back in. Once you sit down and think of the political practicalities of re-entry - rather than venting about UKIPpy Tories - it becomes obvious. There are so many insurmountable obstacles - not least, as @Peter_the_Punter points out: they wouldn’t want us. Or they would want such a price we would never pay it
Move on. It’ll be better for your hypertension
A strident leaver?
Not like that SeanT bloke who dithered and swithered right up to putting his mark in the leave box then.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Well, quite. I was basically 50/50. Heart v head. Money v democracy. I could see very plausible arguments for both sides (the Remain side were inferior at making those plausible arguments). Also arguments against both sides
In the end I titled, personally, 52/48 towards Leave, so I voted Leave. Now I’m probably about 55/45. I’ve got slightly LeaviER
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’m a strident Leaver. Perfectly content with my vote and I’d vote Leave again
Brexit is irritating because it’s BORING. It’s done. We’re never going back in. Once you sit down and think of the political practicalities of re-entry - rather than venting about UKIPpy Tories - it becomes obvious. There are so many insurmountable obstacles - not least, as @Peter_the_Punter points out: they wouldn’t want us. Or they would want such a price we would never pay it
Move on. It’ll be better for your hypertension
A strident leaver?
Not like that SeanT bloke who dithered and swithered right up to putting his mark in the leave box then.
I was taking strident to mean “noisy and noticeable”. Not “committed and polarised”
I was indeed divided about the vote, like that SeanT dude, right up to the day
But then - as in 2016 - I look at the fundamentals of democracy - or non democracy - in the EU - which is actually getting worse as legislation pours out of Brussels - and I sadly think No. Stay out.
Whatever your view of the merits of Brexit, the argument that Brexit makes the UK "more democratic" than the EU is the dumbest of all
If the Remain campaign had put out just one positive PPB during the campaign I think they might have won the referendum.
Most of them were part of Bettertogether who won by not putting out one positive PPB during the campaign, and were in fact the originators of the Project Fear concept. They complacently thought they could repeat that.
Harry Potter studio tour is a huge international tourist draw for Britain. This is the second family I know who’ve based an entire holiday to the UK around taking the kids there.
One of a select few examples of a single visitor attraction forming the basis for a whole trip to a foreign country - along with Disneyworld, Santiago de Compostela, Rovaniemi, El Bulli, Memphis and of course Mecca.
And the (now closed) Dr Who exhibition in Cardiff. For Americans of a certain age (and probably now dead) the Churchill War Rooms too, although in 50 per cent of my sample, that was combined with France so...)
If the Remain campaign had put out just one positive PPB during the campaign I think they might have won the referendum.
Yes. They should have been much more passionately pro EU benefits - especially Freedom of Movement. Pictures of happy pensioners in Spain. Students in Amsterdam. Ski workers in the Alpine snow. More retirees on the sunny Algarve. Move the debate beyond migration to something positive: that we were throwing away
That could have tilted it. In the end it was all Project Fear and Negativity. Tut
Yes. They should have been much more passionately pro EU benefits - especially Freedom of Movement. Pictures of happy pensioners in Spain. Students in Amsterdam. Ski workers in the Alpine snow. More retirees on the sunny Algarve. Move the debate beyond migration to something positive: that we were throwing away
The Brexiteers said we wouldn't lose any of those benefits.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
I was (and am) europsceptic, but voted remain as I felt that leave did not have a coherent offer. Something I was probably correct about, and which led to much of the political mess that followed.
At times since, I have felt my vote was correct. At others - say, during the Covid vaccination nonsense - I felt that the EU were being stupid and we were better off out.
I'm currently on the leaving-was-a-mistake side, as the Brexiteers appear to be the same sh*ts they always were, and continue to do harm to the country. See JRM et al.
Hence Brexit has been a massive mistake. As me in a year's time, and I will hopefully feel differently.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Well, quite. I was basically 50/50. Heart v head. Money v democracy. I could see very plausible arguments for both sides (the Remain side were inferior at making those plausible arguments). Also arguments against both sides
In the end I titled, personally, 52/48 towards Leave, so I voted Leave. Now I’m probably about 55/45. I’ve got slightly LeaviER
The campaign, the vote and the aftermath indicate clearly two things: There was no real majority for either being in or out of the EU; and there was and is no democratic 'losers consent' for either being in or out of the EU.
Simply this is because the UK government, as the project developed, allowed it to develop with exactly that divide, by allowing the uniting of state/political union with close trade relationships.
To Germany and France these two may be obviously the same thing, but to us, just as the Swiss and Norway, they are obviously not.
If the Remain campaign had put out just one positive PPB during the campaign I think they might have won the referendum.
Most of them were part of Bettertogether who won by not putting out one positive PPB during the campaign, and were in fact the originators of the Project Fear concept. They complacently thought they could repeat that.
Which was a bit stupid of them given the polls in SindyRef closed markedly over the course of the campaign, suggesting actually negative campaigning was counterproductive.
But then - as in 2016 - I look at the fundamentals of democracy - or non democracy - in the EU - which is actually getting worse as legislation pours out of Brussels - and I sadly think No. Stay out.
Whatever your view of the merits of Brexit, the argument that Brexit makes the UK "more democratic" than the EU is the dumbest of all
It’s what I fiercely believe and you’re so insane on this subject my eyes now glaze over if you ever try and make an argument otherwise. So you might as well save your time and not talk about Brexit. To me, at least
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
That would be Henley-in-Arden, part of Stratford on Avon District Council which went to Liberal Democrat majority control for the first time in its history in May.
The two MPs representing constituencies within the District Council's boundaries both have about 20,000 to spare over the LDs but with a Conservative vote collapse and a bit of tactical voting, who knows? Certainly, the 29% swing seen in Somerton & Frome would sweep both Conservative MPs aside.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Interesting about Worcestershire. Used to be Gerald Nabarro country as I recall, though that was rather a long time ago. A good example to modern Tories in that he brought in the Clean Air Act
OT a little: Worcestershire are interesting.
Their current Cabinet Member for Highways is Mike Rouse, who as a youngster got his start as the tech side of Iain Dale's 18 Doughty Street political TV station back in 2008.
He's pro active travel, and said so on ConHome last autumn, which brought out the motohoons in the comments - but also quite a few pros. It's not a black-and-white issue, even though Mark Harper is trying to make it one. *
Worcestershire have been developing a network of cycleways in Worcester, but are even now putting anti-access chicane barriers on all them, which increases inconvenience to an extent that forces people riding bikes back onto the roads.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Well, quite. I was basically 50/50. Heart v head. Money v democracy. I could see very plausible arguments for both sides (the Remain side were inferior at making those plausible arguments). Also arguments against both sides
In the end I titled, personally, 52/48 towards Leave, so I voted Leave. Now I’m probably about 55/45. I’ve got slightly LeaviER
The campaign, the vote and the aftermath indicate clearly two things: There was no real majority for either being in or out of the EU; and there was and is no democratic 'losers consent' for either being in or out of the EU.
Simply this is because the UK government, as the project developed, allowed it to develop with exactly that divide, by allowing the uniting of state/political union with close trade relationships.
To Germany and France these two may be obviously the same thing, but to us, just as the Swiss and Norway, they are obviously not.
And all avoidable - as we have often discussed - if the arrogant europhiles had allowed us an EARLIER referendum. On Maastricht or the Constitution or Lisbon. But no, in their wisdom they kept ignoring the people, or blatantly lying to us, leading to the fatal rupture at the end
It really is the greatest lesson in the merits of democracy. You need the people on board, or eventually they will rebel in an explosive way
But yet again we are rehashing old arguments and I do find it quite dull and I have an entire Ukraine to explore. And cricket to watch. Later
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Blair couldn't turn Stratford Upon Avon red in 97. Judging the Tories will win the next election on how well people are doing in Henley in Arden or Lapworth is a bit like judging they won't based on Bootle.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Interesting about Worcestershire. Used to be Gerald Nabarro country as I recall, though that was rather a long time ago. A good example to modern Tories in that he brought in the Clean Air Act
OT a little: Worcestershire are interesting.
Their current Cabinet Member for Highways is Mike Rouse, who as a youngster got his start as the tech side of Iain Dale's 18 Doughty Street political TV station back in 2008.
He's pro active travel, and said so on ConHome last autumn, which brought out the motohoons in the comments - but also quite a few pros. It's not a black-and-white issue, even though Mark Harper is trying to make it one. *
Worcestershire have been developing a network of cycleways in Worcester, but are even now putting anti-access chicane barriers on all them, which increases inconvenience to an extent that forces people riding bikes back onto the roads.
Very good start from Australia, no swing at all. Anderson and Broad both looking quite ineffective as a result. I would get Wood a bowl while the ball's still hard.
I reckon Sunak has now seriously begun to formulate an election-winning strategy that he thinks will secure victory. It's based around transport. It consists of:
- Save the motorist. Abandon HS2, ban LTNs and ULEZ. - Stop the boats. - A helipad in every neighbourhood.
Abandoning HS2 only makes sense if he's given up all hope of winning seats in the north.
Northerners use roads not railways.
That would surprise anyone using the Tyneside metro, or the Sheffield trams.
(Snip)
Notice how much politicians, the media and PB talk about trains compared with buses ?
Trains are a male middle class obsession.
Memories of the Rocket and Mallard when Britain led the world.
Plus childhood Hornby railways.
I've pondered this in the past. Whilst there is some truth in it (see Wolmar thinking public transport is all trains and tube when he wanted to be Labour candidate for MoL...), I also think it is more complex.
Railways are a self-contained infrastructure. If you want trains, you need a railway line, and that is a complex and costly thing. In contrast, busses are (relatively) cheap to buy and operate, and mostly use existing infrastructure. When they do not ad new infrastructure is needed - say, the MisGuided Bus here in Cambridge, or the proposed Cambridge to Cambourne busway, they can become very 'hot' topics, with lots of NIMBYs and BANANAs.
Railways are also much more heavily unionised than busses, and hence are of more interest to those on the left as well
Also much easier to close down a bus route. The operators in this general area have been known to shut down services with little notice, causing a scramble - sometimes filled by Lothian Buses.
Yes; it's precisely because railways and tram lines require expensive infrastructure that building them is a convincing signal that government cares about public transport -- it's effectively a commitment to being there for the long term, and to not just leaving it all to a private company that will cut services whenever they feel it's not profitable.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Interesting about Worcestershire. Used to be Gerald Nabarro country as I recall, though that was rather a long time ago. A good example to modern Tories in that he brought in the Clean Air Act
OT a little: Worcestershire are interesting.
Their current Cabinet Member for Highways is Mike Rouse, who as a youngster got his start as the tech side of Iain Dale's 18 Doughty Street political TV station back in 2008.
He's pro active travel, and said so on ConHome last autumn, which brought out the motohoons in the comments - but also quite a few pros. It's not a black-and-white issue, even though Mark Harper is trying to make it one. *
Worcestershire have been developing a network of cycleways in Worcester, but are even now putting anti-access chicane barriers on all them, which increases inconvenience to an extent that forces people riding bikes back onto the roads.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Well, quite. I was basically 50/50. Heart v head. Money v democracy. I could see very plausible arguments for both sides (the Remain side were inferior at making those plausible arguments). Also arguments against both sides
In the end I titled, personally, 52/48 towards Leave, so I voted Leave. Now I’m probably about 55/45. I’ve got slightly LeaviER
The campaign, the vote and the aftermath indicate clearly two things: There was no real majority for either being in or out of the EU; and there was and is no democratic 'losers consent' for either being in or out of the EU.
Simply this is because the UK government, as the project developed, allowed it to develop with exactly that divide, by allowing the uniting of state/political union with close trade relationships.
To Germany and France these two may be obviously the same thing, but to us, just as the Swiss and Norway, they are obviously not.
And all avoidable - as we have often discussed - if the arrogant europhiles had allowed us an EARLIER referendum. On Maastricht or the Constitution or Lisbon. But no, in their wisdom they kept ignoring the people, or blatantly lying to us, leading to the fatal rupture at the end
It really is the greatest lesson in the merits of democracy. You need the people on board, or eventually they will rebel in an explosive way
But yet again we are rehashing old arguments and I do find it quite dull and I have an entire Ukraine to explore. And cricket to watch. Later
There’s a fine line between arrogant and nervous, I think. Sure there were always arrogant we know best types on both sides of the argument, but this sort of Europhilic arrogance always felt more of a French and Belgian/Lux thing. I think British politicians dared not hold referendums because they (probably rightly) feared them becoming protest votes.
British engagement with the EU has always been timid. We never seemed to embrace the all-in European vision, or more cynically focused on maximising what we could get out of our membership. It was always about hiding from the Eurosceptic press by slipping in integration as quietly as possible while loudly focusing on protecting the UK from bad things.
The EU membership equivalent of an Atherton led England batting for a draw in the Ashes.
Really shabby over so far. Got better but England are really struggling for penetration here. This is not going to be easy. Pitch is good. Maybe the rain will spice things up a bit.
Just read that the Americans paid a huge economic price for independence: per capita income collapsed by 46% between 1774 and 1790, and as late as 1805 per capita wealth was still around 14% lower than it had been in 1774.
Of course, it had all paid off about a century later but breaking up integrated empires and trading blocs does come at a price - sometimes for many decades.
Your issue is that a recent departure from a “trading bloc” was not sold as such. Economic benefits, or at least the no diminution in economic prosperity, were promised by your band or merry charlatans. The American Revolutionaries were absolutely upfront about it.
In other words -
“If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom, go home from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that ye were our countrymen.” - Samuel Adams
vs
"There will be no non-tariff barriers to trade" — Boris Johnson (or “There will be no downside to Brexit, only a considerable upside.” - David Davis. Others are available on request).
Though the American revolution had as a spark a refusal to pay taxes.
WTF has that got to do with this specific discussion?
Paying fewer taxes, especially to an overseas government, means you keep the money for yourself.
I'm confident that there were plenty of American revolutionaries who thought they would become richer if they could exploit the continent without the restrictions Britain placed on them.
They lost a lot of population (by choice, because they basically booted out the Loyalists) in the advent of the American Revolution, lost some trading advantages and then had to build all the infrastructure of an independent country whilst rebuilding from extensive war damage to several ports and cities. Meanwhile the UK started to rapidly industralise from the 1780s onwards, leading also to a large boom in population growth, whilst America remained largely agrarian for some time.
I don't think it was until the 1860s/1870s that the USA overtook the UK, probably delayed by the civil war too.
OTOH (and bearing in mind the existence of alternative sources such as Egypt and the Windies) the UK industrial revolution remained partly dependent on US agrarianism, or rather slave plantationism, for critical resources - cotton, sugar (for cheap urban proletariat fodder), etc.
Thats the modern Woke take and almost certainly bollocks.
Oh here we go again…academic view based on extensive research is dismissed as “woke” and “bollocks”. I swoon at the intellectual rigour.
I must say I was a bit taken aback to see such references as the Spectator in 1864 dismissed as modern wokery and in terms more appropriate for Mrs Dorries's Australian dinners al fresco.
I distinctly remember referencing the Lancashire Cotton Famine resulting from reliance on Southern US supply in my A-Level History exam. Perhaps my offer from Oxford and my subsequent life should simply be cancelled as being “woke”. And the Spectator too.
You do realise that limited and rather bizarre link doesn't support your thesis, don't you?
Maybe I've got you badly wrong and you're actually just a bit thick.
@Casino_Royale - what part of this extract from the @Carnyx 's The Spectator link don't you understand? I appreciate it's in 19th C English but really - you are so dense planets orbit you.
"The cotton famine may be said to have commenced in October, 1861, with the development of the American contest from an angry party struggle into the greatest of civil ware. The price of cotton then first began leaping upwards with a rapidity only checked by one circumstance independent of the war. The trade had for two years previously been overstocking the markets of the world with a profuseness which, but for the famine, would have made 1862 one of the worst masters' years ever known in Lancashire. They had glutted India, Australia, and America, had in fact so completely outrun consumption that they were in possession directly or indirectly of a surplus stock of 300,000,000 pounds' weight of manufactured goods." (emphasis all mine to assist you)
But it's "woke" so it can't be true. Go learn to read.
There was considerable import substitution during the Civil War, with India accounting for nearly two thirds of raw cotton imports at the peak. But Indian cotton was shorter staple and of lesser quality.
Egypt also didn't provide a real alternative: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cotton ...The main European purchasers, Britain and France, began to turn to Egyptian cotton. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and returned to cheap American exports,[54] sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's occupation by the British Empire in 1882...
Rejoin won't be on offer at the next GE in England, though at least LD are planning to join the SM.
Parties cannot ignore the electorate forever, and polls increasingly show growing support so I think it likely to be on offer in 2028/9.
Pretty much. And then the question becomes whether the UK is happy to align with SM with, at best, indirect say on what happens. It's one thing accepting that if you're a small country who knows what they've carved out, such as Norway or Switzerland. The prospect sent the British right potty in 2016-20, and I don't see that changing.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
There have always been some grim areas of Malvern, especially the area around Malvern Link. I used to work in Dyson Perrins school many years ago and it was easy to spot the social problems.
I suspect the difference there is wealthy people are no longer coming in to pump up the money as spa towns are no longer fashionable.
Some are and some wont be.
Many of the rural areas which are fashionable have the problems of housing being bought by retirees / second homers / holiday leters.
With the locals, especially the young, being forced to leave for work and housing opportunities.
Its something that Sunak should be well aware of:
The Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire may be as picturesque as they come, but it also has one of the most rapidly declining populations in the UK, according to the latest government census.
Ironic that such areas voted Brexit because "immigration" yet have declining populations. Indeed that was true of many of the most Brexity places.
It's almost as if a lack of economic opportunity or reason for young people to stay in the area were driving it. Ironic too that it is the metropolitan areas of Remania that are doing best under Brexit, while Leaverstan continues its decline.
Our more strident leavers seem to get a bad case of sand in the vag whenever brexit is mentioned these days. Generally, not an indication of a signal success.
I’d vote Leave again
You wouldn't and everybody knows it.
I believe standard operating practice for journalists is to write two essays on the eve of the vote, then publish the one you believe will benefit your career the most.
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Well, quite. I was basically 50/50. Heart v head. Money v democracy. I could see very plausible arguments for both sides (the Remain side were inferior at making those plausible arguments). Also arguments against both sides
In the end I titled, personally, 52/48 towards Leave, so I voted Leave. Now I’m probably about 55/45. I’ve got slightly LeaviER
The campaign, the vote and the aftermath indicate clearly two things: There was no real majority for either being in or out of the EU; and there was and is no democratic 'losers consent' for either being in or out of the EU.
Simply this is because the UK government, as the project developed, allowed it to develop with exactly that divide, by allowing the uniting of state/political union with close trade relationships.
To Germany and France these two may be obviously the same thing, but to us, just as the Swiss and Norway, they are obviously not.
And all avoidable - as we have often discussed - if the arrogant europhiles had allowed us an EARLIER referendum. On Maastricht or the Constitution or Lisbon. But no, in their wisdom they kept ignoring the people, or blatantly lying to us, leading to the fatal rupture at the end
It really is the greatest lesson in the merits of democracy. You need the people on board, or eventually they will rebel in an explosive way
But yet again we are rehashing old arguments and I do find it quite dull and I have an entire Ukraine to explore. And cricket to watch. Later
There’s a fine line between arrogant and nervous, I think. Sure there were always arrogant we know best types on both sides of the argument, but this sort of Europhilic arrogance always felt more of a French and Belgian/Lux thing. I think British politicians dared not hold referendums because they (probably rightly) feared them becoming protest votes.
British engagement with the EU has always been timid. We never seemed to embrace the all-in European vision, or more cynically focused on maximising what we could get out of our membership. It was always about hiding from the Eurosceptic press by slipping in integration as quietly as possible while loudly focusing on protecting the UK from bad things.
The EU membership equivalent of an Atherton led England batting for a draw in the Ashes.
IIRC for a short time in about 1998 the polls showed a majority of British voters in favour of joining the Euro, and there was talk around that time of holding a referendum on the subject. It goes without saying that voters would have been very heavily in favour of staying in the EU at that time if they were even close to being in favour of joining the single currency. That would have been a good time to hold a referendum on staying in the EU, because it probably would have meant not needing to hold another one in around 2016.
"Lib Dem councillor suggests he’d gas anti-Ulez campaigners Michael Tarling says he would ‘happily fill the room with carbon monoxide’ in response to post about meeting against new zone"
Yep, you have to be a bit cautious with the anti-ULEZ folk. There is someone in Edinburgh going around with an angle-grinder and cutting down cameras, and some of the cycle campaigners have had physical/death threats.
I ran along the Notts tram route from Clifton into the city centre yesterday. Near the river, three people were walking along the path; two side-by-side, one in front, in the same direction as me. A pepperami in lycra came zooming from ahead, and had to slow down to pass the two people. He stopped and argued with them.
I reckon he had been doing over 20 MPH as he approached (this is a WAG, but it was fast). There was plenty of space to pass if he had been going at a slower speed.
Yes, there are a problem with cars and car drivers. But there is a serious attitude problem amongst parts of the cycling lobby as well.
Really shabby over so far. Got better but England are really struggling for penetration here. This is not going to be easy. Pitch is good. Maybe the rain will spice things up a bit.
A bit of spin now. Shame it resulted in four byes.
Starmer is doing just fine. Oppositions don't win elections, remember?, governments lose them and this one is doing it in spades, imo already has. Labour have a large and solid poll lead. They can withstand some swingback and still achieve a decisive majority.
The continual negative comparison to Tony Blair is becoming a bit of a trope. Was the 97 landslide really delivered by a country fired up by enthusiasm for him and his policies rather wanting rid of the Tories? I don't think so. I bet if you polled floating voters and Con/Lab switchers back then on whether they were driven by a liking for Labour or being sick to the bones of the Conservatives you'd find it was the latter. Bit of both, obviously, but mainly the latter. Just like now.
The most important thing Blair did was make Labour a safe (in their eyes) repository for those votes. This, plus tactical voting, secured his big win. Keir Starmer is doing exactly the same and with just as much success. On the key metrics he IS Tony Blair and he's on track for a similarly dramatic election victory.
Difference was Blair did not sound like a wet blanket with skelfs in his arse from sitting on fences.
Comments
I'll buy mate.
Slightly more plausible by the Corbynistas.
I literally just said that upthread.
The non unicorn future is quite painful and this is not complicated. Think: Tax, debt, deficit, Brexit, climate change, inflation, war, getting poorer, strikes, productivity, Trumpism in USA, the revolt of the professionals, refugees, housing.
The next election is gearing up thus: Tories will campaign on a narrow Trump-lite selfish self interest basis, and, incredible but true, will try to blame Labour. Reflect upon the last week or two.
Lab (and LD to an extent) will campaign on: Time for change and greater competence and sotto voce tactical voting. Don't go into details. All detail is open to attack.
NOM the more likely outcome.
If the Tory tactic were to succeed (Tories 317 approx seats +) then I think we would be in a fearful state. They would not govern with 'losers consent' - which would be 60% of the population. A further step to the Americanisation of politics.
But you're right on one point. We're going to have learn to live with the crap.
But they do care how much is spent on the NHS when it comes from the taxes they have to pay.
There's 300k more NHS employees than there was four years ago.
So how many more would it need to be 'the envy of the world' ? Another 300k ? 600k ? An extra million ? Or two ?
Whatever the number, and for the NHS idolaters its infinite, its more than the country is willing to pay.
More reactionary shite from Rishi Rich.
https://www.newsshopper.co.uk/news/23615444.bromley-mums-window-smashed-making-ulez-post-online/
Maybe I've got you badly wrong and you're actually just a bit thick.
https://twitter.com/alexwickham/status/1685198570004066304
A lot of voters are simple souls and won't spot this.
Frequent cancellations, and all too often a complete collapse of the service.
Certainly I hadn't heard it before
The problem being that money is already being pumped in and that there are fundamental problems - aging population, covid aftereffects, NHS productivity, doctors pay demands - which aren't going away.
So unless there is a huge new source of NHS funding - and the only realistic possibility looks to be property taxation - then dissatisfaction will continue.
Of course increasing taxation brings its own problems.
*startled*
But being vegetarian helps get to the 30p target, so what's he complaining about?
I suspect as with other parts of the NHS the actual quality of the service you get will depend on incredibly local factors..
Starmer is doing just fine. Oppositions don't win elections, remember?, governments lose them and this one is doing it in spades, imo already has. Labour have a large and solid poll lead. They can withstand some swingback and still achieve a decisive majority.
The continual negative comparison to Tony Blair is becoming a bit of a trope. Was the 97 landslide really delivered by a country fired up by enthusiasm for him and his policies rather wanting rid of the Tories? I don't think so. I bet if you polled floating voters and Con/Lab switchers back then on whether they were driven by a liking for Labour or being sick to the bones of the Conservatives you'd find it was the latter. Bit of both, obviously, but mainly the latter. Just like now.
The most important thing Blair did was make Labour a safe (in their eyes) repository for those votes. This, plus tactical voting, secured his big win. Keir Starmer is doing exactly the same and with just as much success. On the key metrics he IS Tony Blair and he's on track for a similarly dramatic election victory.
Have fun folks.
Once again, we're back to the difference between policy and politics - policy is what you'll do when you're elected, politics is what you do to get elected.
Starmer is in the "politics" phase - he is building his coalition (all successful forays from Opposition to Government need a coalition of voters, an integral part of which is or are disillusioned supporters of the Government).
The "policy" phase will have to begin in the autumn - that means laying out if not a detailed five-year plan at least a sense of what an incoming Labour Government will prioritise and how it will be different to the current administration. It's somewhat less beguiling than Salome's Dance of the Seven Veils and many will feel over-dressed but it will at least provide some insight.
Trying to watch the Conservatives frantically seeking to re-launch for the fifth or sixth time (apparently, we've not really had the opportunity, despite two majorities, to have a proper "Conservative" Government) will be good entertainment but the problem for Sunak is the very words "Conservative Party" have become by-words for venality, incompetence, ineptitude, broken promises and failure.
People look at what has happened and want to give someone a kicking - kicking the local Conservative Councillor isn't enough, the local MP has to take his or her "punishment". Once that's done, the Conservatives can start agsain with a clear slate but the longer they dodge and weave and seek to delay the reckoning, the worse it will be.
Starmer isn't Blair any more than Sunak is Thatcher. Oddly enough, trying to be Blair would be a mistake - nobody expects the tribute act to be as good as the original. Starmer, for me, is nearer to Wilson in terms of party management. Most of Labour (just as in the 90s) has decided it's boring to keep losing and winning might be more fun.
Thus we have the sense that competence will replace incompetence but that's about all - radical policies may have to wait for the second term (I think Starmer is also working on the assumption he won't have much room for manoeuvre in terms of a majority). For now, it's about making the tent as big as possible and bringing people in - Sunak is probably Starmer's biggest ally in this. Once the votes are counted, I agree Starmer's problems will begin but he is astutely downwardly managing expectations so perhaps, pace Wilson, he can go to the country after a reasonable 18 months and win a proper mandate.
Brexit is irritating because it’s BORING. It’s done. We’re never going back in. Once you sit down and think of the political practicalities of re-entry - rather than venting about UKIPpy Tories - it becomes obvious. There are so many insurmountable obstacles - not least, as @Peter_the_Punter points out: they wouldn’t want us. Or they would want such a price we would never pay it
Move on. It’ll be better for your hypertension
But there are buts. One is that no-one believes it can or will in truth be implemented; and the second is that everyone knows it is without meaning or effect without global implementation.
The Blair Institute's solution (!) to all this is the Step One is Global Implementation. This outfit has enormous income and bright staff. It is taken seriously. It is seriously saying that The Solution is the very thing which is in fact The Problem. Ie, Global Implementation.
This is our health board
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-64788234
A sound thrashing is the best chance Conservatives have to reclaim their party
Blair received a golden economic legacy in a world with few problems.
On Friday I went to the Game Fair at Ragley Hall. So on Thursday we stayed at Avoncote near Henley in Arden. My wife wanted an early evening visit to John Lewis, so we ventured into Solihull. A tail of two towns really. On the Touchwood shopping centre, where John Lewis is sited you could buy yourself high end Miele consumer electronics or a Polestar electric car from their own exclusive retail spaces. Old Solihull was a little bit tired. Not helped by House of Fraser closing, nonetheless one could smell the money. On the way back to the Hotel we stopped at the Boot in Lapworth, the car park was like the Geneva Motor show and the place was buzzing. All the little towns and villages around Henley looked like they were doing very, very well. I thought to myself, there is no way the Conservatives are going to lose the next GE.
The game fair also oozed conspicuous consumption. If this is England, what's not to like? I had a table booked in Ross-on-Wye for the evening, so had a few hours to kill. We decided to stop at Evesham, which during my childhood was a day out by the river and an idyllic place. Not any more. There was real and obvious poverty, obesity and in broad daylight low level drug dealing from the passenger seat of an old Seat Leon. It wasn't much better in Upton upon Severn and Great Malvern. All solid Tory areas where decay is prevalent. If the Conservatives win this election which to my mind seems likely, with more of the same, they will surely lose the next.
Like many on the 'never Tory' side, I just don't see anything much to vote for on the Labour side apart from a vague possibility of competence (which given the current shambles, will be enough for most people). If anything it looks like little more than a potentially more competent conservative government in waiting.
I remember that in 1995-6 Labour was so scared of losing that it too promised very little and was exceptionally timid once in government. Given Blair now seems to be influential behind the scenes this seems to be the playbook again. I get that they can't really make any spending commitments because there's no money to pay for anything, but where's the vision? As someone who should vote Labour if they are to have an outside chance of winning here, I think I will vote Green or LD just so they don't just assume huge support for their policy of not doing very much.
But maybe you're right about the large number of people who don't pay much attention to politics rather than people like us here, and setting a low bar for expectations and then just about delivering on it may be a successful strategy.
"The cotton famine may be said to have commenced in October, 1861, with the development of the American contest from an angry party struggle into the greatest of civil ware. The price of cotton then first began leaping upwards with a rapidity only checked by one circumstance independent of the war. The trade had for two years previously been overstocking the markets of the world with a profuseness which, but for the famine, would have made 1862 one of the worst masters' years ever known in Lancashire. They had glutted India, Australia, and America, had in fact so completely outrun consumption that they were in possession directly or indirectly of a surplus stock of 300,000,000 pounds' weight of manufactured goods."
(emphasis all mine to assist you)
But it's "woke" so it can't be true. Go learn to read.
Harry Potter studio tour is a huge international tourist draw for Britain. This is the second family I know who’ve based an entire holiday to the UK around taking the kids there.
One of a select few examples of a single visitor attraction forming the basis for a whole trip to a foreign country - along with Disneyworld, Santiago de Compostela, Rovaniemi, El Bulli, Memphis and of course Mecca.
Sir K is not going to convert socialists to vote Tory. He approach is correct.
I suspect the difference there is wealthy people are no longer coming in to pump up the money as spa towns are no longer fashionable.
Some areas/demographics are improving and some areas/demographics are declining.
One group which have been struggling for decades are the rural working class.
Not only in this country either.
Railways are a self-contained infrastructure. If you want trains, you need a railway line, and that is a complex and costly thing. In contrast, busses are (relatively) cheap to buy and operate, and mostly use existing infrastructure. When they do not ad new infrastructure is needed - say, the MisGuided Bus here in Cambridge, or the proposed Cambridge to Cambourne busway, they can become very 'hot' topics, with lots of NIMBYs and BANANAs.
Railways are also much more heavily unionised than busses, and hence are of more interest to those on the left as well
Joking aside, the highly polarised positions everyone has taken post vote seems to forget just how deeply conflicted a lot of people felt before casting their vote, with many people thinking both options on the table were a bit of a curate's egg.
Moreover, why would I lie? I’m not the easily-embarrassed type. As may be obvious. I’ve made some damn fool judgements in my time - supporting the Iraq War was probably the worst. Shamefully stupid
But Brexit is not one of those misjudgments. I occasionally think about this, because Brexit has been in many ways a shitshow (partly because the EU has done its level best - more than anyone expected - to make it a shitshow)
I ask myself: How would I vote now. And I get the exact same mix of feelings I had in 2016. I am torn. Part of me wants an easy life. Freedom of movement is a deep loss, which I regret. So: Rejoin?
But then - as in 2016 - I look at the fundamentals of democracy - or non democracy - in the EU - which is actually getting worse as legislation pours out of Brussels - and I sadly think No. Stay out.
Ergo: I would vote Leave again. You can choose whether to believe me or not, I do not repine
£35 to get in the gate
£9 for a sausage-in-a-bun
One of the exhibitors sold a second-hand Land Rover Defender to a customer for £50,000
Champagne flowing on the expensive clothing stands to pretty young things who all aspire to look and dress identically.
It's a fun day out though...
Evesham is a prime example of the death of the high street. 15 years ago there were many and various options for shopping.
Now it's charity shops, bookies and mobile phones.
It was heavily Leave because - I am told - it had a lot of Eastern European immigration
https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news/14578709.brexit-how-the-eu-referendum-unfolded-in-wychavon-and-the-malvern-hills/
Combined age 78.
Combined Test caps 350.
Combined wickets 1292.
None of those figures are likely to be achieved again!
Many of the rural areas which are fashionable have the problems of housing being bought by retirees / second homers / holiday leters.
With the locals, especially the young, being forced to leave for work and housing opportunities.
Its something that Sunak should be well aware of:
The Richmondshire district of North Yorkshire may be as picturesque as they come, but it also has one of the most rapidly declining populations in the UK, according to the latest government census.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-york-north-yorkshire-61981623
Not like that SeanT bloke who dithered and swithered right up to putting his mark in the leave box then.
In the end I titled, personally, 52/48 towards Leave, so I voted Leave. Now I’m probably about 55/45. I’ve got slightly LeaviER
I was indeed divided about the vote, like that SeanT dude, right up to the day
Now it's charity shops, bookies and mobile phones and Polish supermarkets.
That could have tilted it. In the end it was all Project Fear and Negativity. Tut
They lied.
At times since, I have felt my vote was correct. At others - say, during the Covid vaccination nonsense - I felt that the EU were being stupid and we were better off out.
I'm currently on the leaving-was-a-mistake side, as the Brexiteers appear to be the same sh*ts they always were, and continue to do harm to the country. See JRM et al.
Hence Brexit has been a massive mistake. As me in a year's time, and I will hopefully feel differently.
Simply this is because the UK government, as the project developed, allowed it to develop with exactly that divide, by allowing the uniting of state/political union with close trade relationships.
To Germany and France these two may be obviously the same thing, but to us, just as the Swiss and Norway, they are obviously not.
Edit - no, it bounced.
The two MPs representing constituencies within the District Council's boundaries both have about 20,000 to spare over the LDs but with a Conservative vote collapse and a bit of tactical voting, who knows? Certainly, the 29% swing seen in Somerton & Frome would sweep both Conservative MPs aside.
Their current Cabinet Member for Highways is Mike Rouse, who as a youngster got his start as the tech side of Iain Dale's 18 Doughty Street political TV station back in 2008.
He's pro active travel, and said so on ConHome last autumn, which brought out the motohoons in the comments - but also quite a few pros. It's not a black-and-white issue, even though Mark Harper is trying to make it one. *
Worcestershire have been developing a network of cycleways in Worcester, but are even now putting anti-access chicane barriers on all them, which increases inconvenience to an extent that forces people riding bikes back onto the roads.
* https://conservativehome.com/2022/11/15/mike-rouse-worried-about-the-cost-of-living-get-on-your-bikes/
It really is the greatest lesson in the merits of democracy. You need the people on board, or eventually they will rebel in an explosive way
But yet again we are rehashing old arguments and I do find it quite dull and I have an entire Ukraine to explore. And cricket to watch. Later
Australia 4.3
Draw 8
https://www.betfair.com/exchange/plus/en/cricket/test-matches/england-v-australia-betting-32503518
Colombia 1
62 mins
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/football/66183110
Parties cannot ignore the electorate forever, and polls increasingly show growing support so I think it likely to be on offer in 2028/9.
British engagement with the EU has always been timid. We never seemed to embrace the all-in European vision, or more cynically focused on maximising what we could get out of our membership. It was always about hiding from the Eurosceptic press by slipping in integration as quietly as possible while loudly focusing on protecting the UK from bad things.
The EU membership equivalent of an Atherton led England batting for a draw in the Ashes.
Got better but England are really struggling for penetration here. This is not going to be easy. Pitch is good. Maybe the rain will spice things up a bit.
Egypt also didn't provide a real alternative:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_cotton
...The main European purchasers, Britain and France, began to turn to Egyptian cotton. After the American Civil War ended in 1865, British and French traders abandoned Egyptian cotton and returned to cheap American exports,[54] sending Egypt into a deficit spiral that led to the country declaring bankruptcy in 1876, a key factor behind Egypt's occupation by the British Empire in 1882...
I'll pass over Casino's woke crusade.
It's almost as if a lack of economic opportunity or reason for young people to stay in the area were driving it. Ironic too that it is the metropolitan areas of Remania that are doing best under Brexit, while Leaverstan continues its decline.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/live/cricket/64959415
I reckon he had been doing over 20 MPH as he approached (this is a WAG, but it was fast). There was plenty of space to pass if he had been going at a slower speed.
Yes, there are a problem with cars and car drivers. But there is a serious attitude problem amongst parts of the cycling lobby as well.