England are going to lose this by more than 100 but the fear this side has generated in India is something to behold. Just under 400 ahead and they are clearly nervous.
The Dáil in Dublin is the prize for Sinn Féin, I think. Which is an incentive for them to be seen to be doing a good job in Belfast.
De facto unification is a process. Brexit forces people to make a choice. People in Northern Ireland are increasingly choosing Ireland over Britain.
But the polls say they are not. Do PBers not check data before they post?
Latest polls has 50 NO over 31 YES on a United Ireland
In 2017 it was 55 NO over 34 YES - the exact same margin
Back in 2003 it was 54 NO and 27 YES
Only one poll has ever showed a (tiny) majority for YES and that was in Sept 2019 at the peak of the Brexit shitshow
Indeed the remarkable thing is the stability of these polls. You get mad outliers on either side, of course, and there may have been a tiny shift to YES if you squint really hard - but in two decades NO has maintained a solid lead of about 15-25 points
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Would it console them to know that here in Remainia London things are not looking too bad?
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Yes. For many Brexit was really a vote for levelling up or a return to prosperity. Cummings knew that. The ERG, sadly, believed its own propaganda.
Yup. What did many of these areas in the red wall have to lose. They were hardly prosperous prior to Brexit.
If economic growth had been more evenly spread post the Brown Bust then it would have been different.
Most telling comment for me during the debate was a town hall in Newcastle. A panellist cautioned a member of the audience that a brexit vote would damage growth to which he replied “what growth”.
Anyone who thought the Tories would deliver post-Brexit prosperity to the north, especially if they lived through the 80s, needs their head examined.
What do you mean by prosperity ?
The basis of prosperity is being able to develop a skillset, get a job and afford a house.
You can do that in Yorkshire now and easier than at any earlier time.
No government can 'deliver prosperity' but what it can do is create opportunities for people to become prosperous.
Ultimately that prosperity has to be worked for and gained by people acting for themselves.
That can be difficult, especially so in a changing world.
But shutting down supermarkets and internet shopping in an attempt to make Castleford market traders happy isn't going to happen.
Easier than at any other time? Sorry mate but your typical 3 bedroom house in Rothwell (picked because it's half decent and near Leeds) say £200,000 is about 6 times average earnings being a very generous £33,333...
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Yes. For many Brexit was really a vote for levelling up or a return to prosperity. Cummings knew that. The ERG, sadly, believed its own propaganda.
Yup. What did many of these areas in the red wall have to lose. They were hardly prosperous prior to Brexit.
If economic growth had been more evenly spread post the Brown Bust then it would have been different.
Most telling comment for me during the debate was a town hall in Newcastle. A panellist cautioned a member of the audience that a brexit vote would damage growth to which he replied “what growth”.
Yes, but how do those areas feel now? Are they rolling in the Brexit benefits, or have their towns and services further declined?
How they feel in 2024 is now much more relevant than in 2016, and it ain't looking good for Sunak.
Well, as we’re doing anecdata, my experience is people are just getting on with their lives. I only ever see or hear mention of Brexit online. Life feels no different really. In the manufacturing business I work in it’s little different. Neither the dire remain forecasts nor the optimistic leave forecasts have come to pass. Yet.
Quite frankly if we rejoined tomorrow how is that going to make a major benefit to the lives of people in these towns. People keep talking about rejoining as being a panacea but if it was so great and prosperity was there for all we would never have left in the first place. I voted remain, reluctantly, but I wouldn’t bother voting if there was another referendum
Have to disagree Taz, try buying something from Europe now, food prices through the roof and shit quality on fresh vegetables to boot. Try sending or receiving a parcel , and immigration has rocketed, etc etc. It was an idiots vote to shoot themselves in the feet so some rich barstewards could make themselves even richer.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
East European Immigration in mostly manageable numbers (600K in 2016) has been replaced by immigration from everywhere outside Europe in double the numbers (1.2million in 2023). These people did not come on boats either...so Rwanda is just an embarrassing distraction.
The extra spending on the NHS is mostly account tricks and has resulted in... the continuing decline of services.
Control is a pretty nebulous concept when your household bills are up 60% in 2years
So, yeah the voters can literally see that the Tories are bullshitting over immigration, the NHS and living standards and believe they are bullshitting about everything else.
So they certainly WILL vote differently, and bid a determined good riddance to a bunch of useless, incompetent, arrogant chancers.
Yet neither are the voters in the mood to hope. They know, that, whatever the statistics say, that times are tough and think that will probably get tougher overall, and no amount of Tory Media propaganda is going to change that reality.
So SKS should pull a "Blood sweat and tears" number and say that he will "level with the British people that it will take some serious work to fix the wreckage of Tory Britain",
As we see the collapse of local government, and increasingly squalid high streets across the country, perma-crisis in the NHS, despjte all the accounting tricks, the literal collapse of hundreds of schools. utterly feeble armed forces, in the face of the clear and present Russian danger, it all adds up to a demand for major change. The voters have already decided that the "Conservatives" must go, the only question now is how big their defeat is and there is even a change that this destroys the Tories in their current form.
I don´t think many are that upset at the prospect.
NEW: Keir Starmer has ditched his promise to abolish the House of Lords in a first term as he seeks to make the Labour manifesto "bombproof" of Tory attacks
Er, "SKS is crap because he promises things we like" is hardly a winning argument, mind.
Carnyx, unless you are brain dead you know the clown is lying through his teeth and once he has your vote he will roger you till he needs it again and then it will be rinse and repeat. No difference whatsoever between these English parties, both are just grifters filling their pockets. WE have their carpetbagger regional imbeciles promising the same , yet history shows they rogered us for personal gain for almost 50 years. UK is populated in the main by cretins who get what they deserve, spineless lickspittle idiots.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
The part that demonstrates just how brutal the election will be for the Tories is “nothing works”. Not just because nothing works and the visible decay is unavoidable, but because the Tories keep insisting the opposite. We’ve “turned a corner” (from nothing working?) and besides it was worse in the past.
Remember the “eeee wasn’t Tony Blair shit” gasm on here a few weeks ago? Not saying the people posting that are Tory voters, but certainly they are fellow travellers.
Things have been getting progressively shabbier for a number of years. Austerity massively accelerated the decline. People voted Brexit being promised that all their problems would go away. Then they voted Boris! to Get Brexit Done and finally receive the Good Times promised.
They feel lied to on a massive scale. Because they were lied to. By a party and political class who decided that they could weaponise stupidity and ignorance of how things work for votes. You can’t do that then fail to deliver.
The fact that public conveniences (lack of) is climbing the agenda is another symptom (as is Dacorum council making money out of spying on people having a piddle in the country, but then pissing most of it on contractors).
Free public toilet, recycling bins and electric BBQs, all in pristine condition, widespread and frequently available in Australia. All public developments accompanied by trees, benches and solar panels.
Quite. Leon and I don't always agree but he's absolutely right in being amazed PBers aren't watching this more closely. It's a very immediate symptom of local government collapse which knees everyone in the crotch. Go to the loo? You have to spend £16 in Shitecoffee for your family of five. And so on.
The collapse of public services generally means that the public realm is the only true "public good" left. All of us, rich or poor, urban or rural, experience it every day.
And it's in a terrible condition, blatantly inferior to our European counterparts. To the extent that we go on holiday to places like Krakow just to be somewhere vaguely nice.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
On your first point, I rather suspect that most of those who voted for Brexit voted for control over immigration generally, rather than specifically control over Eastern European immigration. And that's not been done.
A fair point.
But that's been the choice of the government and for which voters have the remedy.
I'd say the mistake the government has committed all along is to allow economic migrants to paid less than the going rate - if instead they had only allowed it at 20% higher than the going rate it would have reduced numbers and encouraged investment in productivity growth.
Though immigration does vary.
And a restriction of Eastern Europeans to industrial towns together with an increase in third world immigration to cities and university towns should, in theory, satisfy most people.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
What a bizarre post. The 'excuses' of the global pandemic and the cost of living crisis as compared to the vast impact of, um, Brexit on peoples propensity to have money to spend in indoor markets? Borderline unhinged.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
What happened? I had thought that there was a bright future for this sector because of all the life science startups Britain also had. Where did it go wrong?
A mixture of reasons I think, in particular consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry meaning fewer but bigger players. Also the stress in the NHS on cheap generic drugs which are mostly imported.
Covid and Brexit have a small part to play, but mostly it is global trends.
Any activity that is as highly regulated as pharmaceuticals will gravitate to the US and the EU. Those are the primary markets. Other territories are secondary markets, including the UK now outside the EU.
The interesting development on Ireland is the rise of Sinn Fein. We may end up with Sinn Fein in government in both parts of the Island.
The obvious ploy then would be to start the alignment process for unification. A border poll would be a lot easier to win if citizens wherever they live can see similar things happening at the same time.
As for the remaining hardcore loyalist community, surely the solution is simple. Retain your British passports and citizenship. NI ceased to be indivisibly British when devolution happened. Now NI is separate from GB from a trading perspective. The mission to stay “British” has failed. They are not - and from a governance position only the English remain wholly under Westminster. I wonder when the DUP will accept what they have done?
The big downside is the morons would come to Scotland and we have enough of the 17th century dinosaurs already
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
NEW: Keir Starmer has ditched his promise to abolish the House of Lords in a first term as he seeks to make the Labour manifesto "bombproof" of Tory attacks
Er, "SKS is crap because he promises things we like" is hardly a winning argument, mind.
Carnyx, unless you are brain dead you know the clown is lying through his teeth and once he has your vote he will roger you till he needs it again and then it will be rinse and repeat. No difference whatsoever between these English parties, both are just grifters filling their pockets. WE have their carpetbagger regional imbeciles promising the same , yet history shows they rogered us for personal gain for almost 50 years. UK is populated in the main by cretins who get what they deserve, spineless lickspittle idiots.
I'm actually going to be interested to see how Slab reconcile SKS's changed promises with their current policy of promising SNP policies at by-elections. Sooner or later the penny will drop - the question is when. Might not be soon, though.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Would it console them to know that here in Remainia London things are not looking too bad?
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Yes. For many Brexit was really a vote for levelling up or a return to prosperity. Cummings knew that. The ERG, sadly, believed its own propaganda.
Yup. What did many of these areas in the red wall have to lose. They were hardly prosperous prior to Brexit.
If economic growth had been more evenly spread post the Brown Bust then it would have been different.
Most telling comment for me during the debate was a town hall in Newcastle. A panellist cautioned a member of the audience that a brexit vote would damage growth to which he replied “what growth”.
Anyone who thought the Tories would deliver post-Brexit prosperity to the north, especially if they lived through the 80s, needs their head examined.
What do you mean by prosperity ?
The basis of prosperity is being able to develop a skillset, get a job and afford a house.
You can do that in Yorkshire now and easier than at any earlier time.
No government can 'deliver prosperity' but what it can do is create opportunities for people to become prosperous.
Ultimately that prosperity has to be worked for and gained by people acting for themselves.
That can be difficult, especially so in a changing world.
But shutting down supermarkets and internet shopping in an attempt to make Castleford market traders happy isn't going to happen.
Easier than at any other time? Sorry mate but your typical 3 bedroom house in Rothwell (picked because it's half decent and near Leeds) say £200,000 is about 6 times average earnings being a very generous £33,333...
Yes. "People acting for themselves". Like getting a job and working hard. In previous times, jobs tended to pay wages that meant you could afford to live decently. A lot of poverty and deprivation still out there of course, but average jobs managed to provide for a family.
Now? People working themselves into the ground, being paid a wage and getting top-up benefits and still they are flat broke, such is the cost of living crisis.
The Tories are going to get demolished in part because they simply refuse to accept this reality. It isn't just Sunak disconnected from ordinary people's lives. Its all of them.
NEW: Keir Starmer has ditched his promise to abolish the House of Lords in a first term as he seeks to make the Labour manifesto "bombproof" of Tory attacks
Er, "SKS is crap because he promises things we like" is hardly a winning argument, mind.
Carnyx, unless you are brain dead you know the clown is lying through his teeth and once he has your vote he will roger you till he needs it again and then it will be rinse and repeat. No difference whatsoever between these English parties, both are just grifters filling their pockets. WE have their carpetbagger regional imbeciles promising the same , yet history shows they rogered us for personal gain for almost 50 years. UK is populated in the main by cretins who get what they deserve, spineless lickspittle idiots.
Carnyx , was not inferring you were brain dead, was the great unwashed intended.
The interesting development on Ireland is the rise of Sinn Fein. We may end up with Sinn Fein in government in both parts of the Island.
The obvious ploy then would be to start the alignment process for unification. A border poll would be a lot easier to win if citizens wherever they live can see similar things happening at the same time.
As for the remaining hardcore loyalist community, surely the solution is simple. Retain your British passports and citizenship. NI ceased to be indivisibly British when devolution happened. Now NI is separate from GB from a trading perspective. The mission to stay “British” has failed. They are not - and from a governance position only the English remain wholly under Westminster. I wonder when the DUP will accept what they have done?
The big downside is the morons would come to Scotland and we have enough of the 17th century dinosaurs already
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
That photo of the tory hq is as evocative as Tragedy by the Sea.
Urgh, who parked that ugly Passat outside?
Stop dissing Passats, that's basically an Audi A4, now if it was a Skoda Octavia....
The Octavia is the only decent affordable saloon left.
My pal got a new one on Thursday and we went for coffee in it yesterday. Very tidy inside, reminded me of my old A4. A little boxy on the outside but a perfectly nice car.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
She fluffs every big opportunity she gets. How much more can people rally to her when she does that?
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Would it console them to know that here in Remainia London things are not looking too bad?
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Yes. For many Brexit was really a vote for levelling up or a return to prosperity. Cummings knew that. The ERG, sadly, believed its own propaganda.
Yup. What did many of these areas in the red wall have to lose. They were hardly prosperous prior to Brexit.
If economic growth had been more evenly spread post the Brown Bust then it would have been different.
Most telling comment for me during the debate was a town hall in Newcastle. A panellist cautioned a member of the audience that a brexit vote would damage growth to which he replied “what growth”.
Anyone who thought the Tories would deliver post-Brexit prosperity to the north, especially if they lived through the 80s, needs their head examined.
None of which is relevant to my point. Go back to finding people who share your worldview and please rush back to tell us more.
The Dáil in Dublin is the prize for Sinn Féin, I think. Which is an incentive for them to be seen to be doing a good job in Belfast.
De facto unification is a process. Brexit forces people to make a choice. People in Northern Ireland are increasingly choosing Ireland over Britain.
But the polls say they are not. Do PBers not check data before they post?
Latest polls has 50 NO over 31 YES on a United Ireland
In 2017 it was 55 NO over 34 YES - the exact same margin
Back in 2003 it was 54 NO and 27 YES
Only one poll has ever showed a (tiny) majority for YES and that was in Sept 2019 at the peak of the Brexit shitshow
Indeed the remarkable thing is the stability of these polls. You get mad outliers on either side, of course, and there may have been a tiny shift to YES if you squint really hard - but in two decades NO has maintained a solid lead of about 15-25 points
I don't expect a successful Border Poll soon. It's more a case of Northern Ireland turning south rather than east. De facto. It's not as if the Union is a huge success right now. At some point they may think this link to Britain is an anachronism. That's a benign scenario for Northern Ireland, if it happens, when other less benign scenarios are possible.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Yes. For many Brexit was really a vote for levelling up or a return to prosperity. Cummings knew that. The ERG, sadly, believed its own propaganda.
Yup. What did many of these areas in the red wall have to lose. They were hardly prosperous prior to Brexit.
If economic growth had been more evenly spread post the Brown Bust then it would have been different.
Most telling comment for me during the debate was a town hall in Newcastle. A panellist cautioned a member of the audience that a brexit vote would damage growth to which he replied “what growth”.
The most telling comment to me is the opinion polls in which a large majority say that Brexit is a failure.
I don't think five years of Starmer is likely to change their mind.
Given how low expectation is of him he can only surprise on the upside.
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
SNP have been too busy enriching themselves, families and friends. They have done nothing since 2014 to further Independence. You have to assume Sturgeon was eiither not keen on Independence or a plant to ensure it went nowhere despite the amount of support. Still she is a multi millionaire so will not be too concerned.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
What happened? I had thought that there was a bright future for this sector because of all the life science startups Britain also had. Where did it go wrong?
A mixture of reasons I think, in particular consolidation in the pharmaceutical industry meaning fewer but bigger players. Also the stress in the NHS on cheap generic drugs which are mostly imported.
Covid and Brexit have a small part to play, but mostly it is global trends.
My wife was responsible for drug safety at one of the large pharmaceuticals in the UK. She wouldn't let me post at the time, but as she is now well and truly retired I guess it is ok. Prior to Brexit the Irish operation was going to be moved to the UK. Brexit stopped that. Also the labelling issue for NI was a nightmare and costly. They were screaming at the UK government to just make a decision because until the last minute NI required two contradictory instructions to be included with medicines.
On NI, it should be noted that power sharing resumption will mean shared power between Sinn Fein and the DUP, with a DUP as deputy FM not the other way around, so I don't think it's as cataclysmic to unionism as the election of SNP Governments in Scotland has been for a while.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
She fluffs every big opportunity she gets. How much more can people rally to her when she does that?
In a different timeline where right wing newspapers had not joined Team Truss to destroy Mordaunt when she was ahead in the Tory leadership contest, she might be Prime Minister now. No Liz Truss tanking the markets; no Rishi tanking the polls; the Conservatives might even be within touching distance of Labour.
England are going to lose this by more than 100 but the fear this side has generated in India is something to behold. Just under 400 ahead and they are clearly nervous.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
East European Immigration in mostly manageable numbers (600K in 2016) has been replaced by immigration from everywhere outside Europe in double the numbers (1.2million in 2023). These people did not come on boats either...so Rwanda is just an embarrassing distraction.
The extra spending on the NHS is mostly account tricks and has resulted in... the continuing decline of services.
Control is a pretty nebulous concept when your household bills are up 60% in 2years
So, yeah the voters can literally see that the Tories are bullshitting over immigration, the NHS and living standards and believe they are bullshitting about everything else.
So they certainly WILL vote differently, and bid a determined good riddance to a bunch of useless, incompetent, arrogant chancers.
Yet neither are the voters in the mood to hope. They know, that, whatever the statistics say, that times are tough and think that will probably get tougher overall, and no amount of Tory Media propaganda is going to change that reality.
So SKS should pull a "Blood sweat and tears" number and say that he will "level with the British people that it will take some serious work to fix the wreckage of Tory Britain",
As we see the collapse of local government, and increasingly squalid high streets across the country, perma-crisis in the NHS, despjte all the accounting tricks, the literal collapse of hundreds of schools. utterly feeble armed forces, in the face of the clear and present Russian danger, it all adds up to a demand for major change. The voters have already decided that the "Conservatives" must go, the only question now is how big their defeat is and there is even a change that this destroys the Tories in their current form.
I don´t think many are that upset at the prospect.
Why do you think that one sort of immigration has replaced another - its highly likely that the UK would have had Eastern European immigration alongside the other immigration.
After all there's no shortage of third world immigration to other European countries or for that matter no shortage of third world immigration to any vaguely developed country:
This type of populism appears to be the most likely explanation for February's outburst by Tunisian President Kais Saied against sub-Saharan African migrants in his country.
Mr Saied made the extraordinary remark that these people were part of a conspiracy to change the demographic composition of the North African country, which has a predominantly Arab-Muslim culture.
As history clearly demonstrates, it is a dangerous tactic that often leads to violence. And that was precisely what happened in Tunisia.
Following the comments, black African migrants felt the full force of the fallout. Some were afraid to leave their homes out of fear of random violence or verbal abuse.
Can you provide any evidence to back their claim up ?
Perhaps you're referring to RAAC, well here are the details:
The list of schools and colleges where the presence of RAAC was confirmed by 27 November has been published, here, on Gov.uk. 231 cases have now been confirmed – of these:
228 settings are providing face-to-face learning for all pupils, 3 settings have put hybrid arrangements in place, And none have had to move to remote learning fulltime.
So that would be zero schools which have literally collapsed.
Utterly feeble armed forces ?
Understrength certainly but I don't see many other European countries doing differently or other politicians supporting an increase in military spending.
The UK has problems, as it always has had and as every other countries also have.
But the 'everything is broken' whine exists only among those who spend too much time of fringe political websites.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
That photo of the tory hq is as evocative as Tragedy by the Sea.
Urgh, who parked that ugly Passat outside?
Stop dissing Passats, that's basically an Audi A4, now if it was a Skoda Octavia....
The Octavia is the only decent affordable saloon left.
My pal got a new one on Thursday and we went for coffee in it yesterday. Very tidy inside, reminded me of my old A4. A little boxy on the outside but a perfectly nice car.
Does he smoke a pipe and wear driving gloves David.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
She fluffs every big opportunity she gets. How much more can people rally to her when she does that?
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
Living standards in the UK have not improved since Brexit, but they also haven't improved since Netflix came out, England started winning test matches, Trump left office, Net Zero came in, and Alan Rickman died. All these things may or may not have a causal link to living standards falling but it needs to be proven, or at least the theory of how it has caused it established.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
You must be on something , a total fantasist, she is utterly crap. A big self important balloon. Totally talentless and lives up the Tory name of "NASTY".
It will be a very long and rocky road to Independence in Northern Ireland if it ever happens
Sunak gets lots of criticism but on his success in the WF leading to the recall of Stormont he and the NI Secretary do deserve credit
As for Labour, abandoning it's 28 billion (140 billion over the parliament) was inevitable not least if you listen to Rayner pledging increases in wages and rights across the public sector, no doubt with an eye on settling the doctor and train drivers disputes
It will be interesting, as Starmer fronts up the Blair Institute, just what reaction he encounters from the left who, as I said yesterday, may well be his very own ERG
The interesting development on Ireland is the rise of Sinn Fein. We may end up with Sinn Fein in government in both parts of the Island.
The obvious ploy then would be to start the alignment process for unification. A border poll would be a lot easier to win if citizens wherever they live can see similar things happening at the same time.
As for the remaining hardcore loyalist community, surely the solution is simple. Retain your British passports and citizenship. NI ceased to be indivisibly British when devolution happened. Now NI is separate from GB from a trading perspective. The mission to stay “British” has failed. They are not - and from a governance position only the English remain wholly under Westminster. I wonder when the DUP will accept what they have done?
The big downside is the morons would come to Scotland and we have enough of the 17th century dinosaurs already
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Exactly right. The SNP have set back the cause of independence for some time due to incompetent government. That's despite the Conservative and Unionist government in London being almost wilful in the help it's giving the cause of Scottish independence.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
Her biggest mistake was on lying over her previous positions, far better to do a Starmer and say she has changed her mind, or that circumstances have changed.
She does vacuous flag shagging better than anyone else, being much more inclusive than the Braverman "enemies within" approach to nationalism. She also scrubs up well and has some wit and charm.
However she always fluffs her chances. Like once was said of the PLO she never misses the opportunity to miss an opportunity.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
East European Immigration in mostly manageable numbers (600K in 2016) has been replaced by immigration from everywhere outside Europe in double the numbers (1.2million in 2023). These people did not come on boats either...so Rwanda is just an embarrassing distraction.
The extra spending on the NHS is mostly account tricks and has resulted in... the continuing decline of services.
Control is a pretty nebulous concept when your household bills are up 60% in 2years
So, yeah the voters can literally see that the Tories are bullshitting over immigration, the NHS and living standards and believe they are bullshitting about everything else.
So they certainly WILL vote differently, and bid a determined good riddance to a bunch of useless, incompetent, arrogant chancers.
Yet neither are the voters in the mood to hope. They know, that, whatever the statistics say, that times are tough and think that will probably get tougher overall, and no amount of Tory Media propaganda is going to change that reality.
So SKS should pull a "Blood sweat and tears" number and say that he will "level with the British people that it will take some serious work to fix the wreckage of Tory Britain",
As we see the collapse of local government, and increasingly squalid high streets across the country, perma-crisis in the NHS, despjte all the accounting tricks, the literal collapse of hundreds of schools. utterly feeble armed forces, in the face of the clear and present Russian danger, it all adds up to a demand for major change. The voters have already decided that the "Conservatives" must go, the only question now is how big their defeat is and there is even a change that this destroys the Tories in their current form.
I don´t think many are that upset at the prospect.
Absolutely. Yet just today, Labour is ditching stuff in fear that they might be attacked for wanting to change anything.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
My life has improved as has that of many people I know.
Why is that so difficult to believe ?
The lives of many people are regularly improving as has always been the case.
Why are some people always so desperate to believe that things are always getting worse.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
Living standards in the UK have not improved since Brexit, but they also haven't improved since Netflix came out, England started winning test matches, Trump left office, Net Zero came in, and Alan Rickman died. All these things may or may not have a causal link to living standards falling but it needs to be proven, or at least the theory of how it has caused it established.
That is just a pathetic response, looks like the ramblings of a lunatic. It is very obvious what has happened in recent years and there is only one economic major decision been made in that time. Posting crap like "Alan Rickman affecting cost of living" shows the paucity of your attempt to defend the indefensible. Get a grip of reality at least.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
Yes they could be but the only possible next leader who might improve Conservative prospects is Penny Mordaunt who'd never get past the headbangers anyway.
Have you gone insane, that absolute clown could not run a bath. A useless lying toerag who likes dressing up in uniforms and pretending she has medals.
Penny does human. She is the best speaker on the government benches. She's not a one note, one policy headbanger. Penny Mordaunt is the only frontbencher with even half a chance of turning the polls round.
She fluffs every big opportunity she gets. How much more can people rally to her when she does that?
In a different timeline where right wing newspapers had not joined Team Truss to destroy Mordaunt when she was ahead in the Tory leadership contest, she might be Prime Minister now. No Liz Truss tanking the markets; no Rishi tanking the polls; the Conservatives might even be within touching distance of Labour.
She wouldn't. She had just found out (as we now know) her brother had been convicted of something very nasty, and she visibly crumpled like a wet paper bag, probably understandably. She was useless in the debates despite being the best speaker, and got herself in a big mess over trans issues.
She fluffed it again by not shacking up with Boris to block Sunak after Truss crashed and burned - she could have done a Putin/Medvedev deal there and been PM with Boris on-side or very high up in a Boris cabinet. And whatever we think of Boris he was about twice as popular as the incumbent.
The paradox for Sinn Fein is: if they govern sensibly and share power with the huns wisely, then Ulster will prosper (esp with its unique position in UK/EU). Then voters will be even less keen on the wrenching agony of a border poll. Why bother?
And if Sinn Fein fuck up, then voters will punish them and their nationalist ideas
It’s a problem all secessionist parties face, in a democracy
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Yes, the road to independence was to show us how Scotland would be viable as an independent country with a tax base that could support the services we expect. Salmond got this to a degree (although it was much less of a problem when the North Sea was a much larger contributor) and Forbes seems to as well.
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
East European Immigration in mostly manageable numbers (600K in 2016) has been replaced by immigration from everywhere outside Europe in double the numbers (1.2million in 2023). These people did not come on boats either...so Rwanda is just an embarrassing distraction.
The extra spending on the NHS is mostly account tricks and has resulted in... the continuing decline of services.
Control is a pretty nebulous concept when your household bills are up 60% in 2years
So, yeah the voters can literally see that the Tories are bullshitting over immigration, the NHS and living standards and believe they are bullshitting about everything else.
So they certainly WILL vote differently, and bid a determined good riddance to a bunch of useless, incompetent, arrogant chancers.
Yet neither are the voters in the mood to hope. They know, that, whatever the statistics say, that times are tough and think that will probably get tougher overall, and no amount of Tory Media propaganda is going to change that reality.
So SKS should pull a "Blood sweat and tears" number and say that he will "level with the British people that it will take some serious work to fix the wreckage of Tory Britain",
As we see the collapse of local government, and increasingly squalid high streets across the country, perma-crisis in the NHS, despjte all the accounting tricks, the literal collapse of hundreds of schools. utterly feeble armed forces, in the face of the clear and present Russian danger, it all adds up to a demand for major change. The voters have already decided that the "Conservatives" must go, the only question now is how big their defeat is and there is even a change that this destroys the Tories in their current form.
I don´t think many are that upset at the prospect.
Absolutely. Yet just today, Labour is ditching stuff in fear that they might be attacked for wanting to change anything.
One thing I learned, the hard way, from playing football for decades is you've got to play to your individual strengths.
SKS is very good at the incremental, small target strategy. He is not very good at Blair style big idea earnestness so he's well advised not to do it.
Hopefully, he will seamlessly reposition, which is his other great strength, to a radical, hard-left agenda once he is safely ensconced as PMOTUK.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
Living standards in the UK have not improved since Brexit, but they also haven't improved since Netflix came out, England started winning test matches, Trump left office, Net Zero came in, and Alan Rickman died. All these things may or may not have a causal link to living standards falling but it needs to be proven, or at least the theory of how it has caused it established.
That is just a pathetic response, looks like the ramblings of a lunatic. It is very obvious what has happened in recent years and there is only one economic major decision been made in that time. Posting crap like "Alan Rickman affecting cost of living" shows the paucity of your attempt to defend the indefensible. Get a grip of reality at least.
If it's that obvious, establish the link. Tell us how and why leaving the EU is the primary reason for the decline in UK living standards in recent years.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
Isn't that a decline which started many years ago ?
From March 2010:
Drug firm AstraZeneca is to close a research centre in the UK with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs in a move that threatens to undermine the UK's position as a leader in pharmaceutical research and development.
The AstraZeneca site in Charnwood, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, will close next year. A smaller facility in Cambridge will also shut
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
That photo of the tory hq is as evocative as Tragedy by the Sea.
Urgh, who parked that ugly Passat outside?
Stop dissing Passats, that's basically an Audi A4, now if it was a Skoda Octavia....
The Octavia is the only decent affordable saloon left.
My pal got a new one on Thursday and we went for coffee in it yesterday. Very tidy inside, reminded me of my old A4. A little boxy on the outside but a perfectly nice car.
Does he smoke a pipe and wear driving gloves David.
Nope. Neither. But I kinda get what you are saying. Its a bit of an old man's car, especially on the outside.
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Yes, the road to independence was to show us how Scotland would be viable as an independent country with a tax base that could support the services we expect. Salmond got this to a degree (although it was much less of a problem when the North Sea was a much larger contributor) and Forbes seems to as well.
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
Quick note on this - Scotland's tax base is pretty good. Possibly the strongest outside of London, certainly outside the south-east of England.
It's the public spending which is the big differential. Some of this is natural - we have an awful lot of road, energy etc infrastructure to sustain for a small country. And much is long term problems that have persisted through governments and devolution (drugs, health generally).
Then there are the blatant bungs to the middle class - I got £36,000 for uni despite both my parents being graduates, homeowners and in management positions.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
Isn't that a decline which started many years ago ?
From March 2010:
Drug firm AstraZeneca is to close a research centre in the UK with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs in a move that threatens to undermine the UK's position as a leader in pharmaceutical research and development.
The AstraZeneca site in Charnwood, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, will close next year. A smaller facility in Cambridge will also shut
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
Isn't that a decline which started many years ago ?
From March 2010:
Drug firm AstraZeneca is to close a research centre in the UK with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs in a move that threatens to undermine the UK's position as a leader in pharmaceutical research and development.
The AstraZeneca site in Charnwood, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, will close next year. A smaller facility in Cambridge will also shut
Yes, but you must remember that many lefties have two year zeroes; 1979 and 2010. The few years before those years were nirvana, where nothing was wrong, the skies were blue and bunnies frolicked across the verdant grassland. All the problems occurred afterwards (until 1997, at least...)
The same with rail privatisation: everything was perfect under BR, and went to sh*t after privatisation. The cr@p service did not matter for reasons, and the accidents under BR did not matter either, because the deaths were nationalised...
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
My life has improved as has that of many people I know.
Why is that so difficult to believe ?
The lives of many people are regularly improving as has always been the case.
Why are some people always so desperate to believe that things are always getting worse.
There are always a few, but in general unless all news and views are lies, UK has gone backwards over the last 10 years. Great you have done well , I too have not been impacted but is almost 100% of data, opinions, statistics etc wrong. You do not go an hour without hearing how bad things are all over the UK, apart from a small minority of lucky or rich people. Try to see beyond your own nose.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
That photo of the tory hq is as evocative as Tragedy by the Sea.
Urgh, who parked that ugly Passat outside?
Stop dissing Passats, that's basically an Audi A4, now if it was a Skoda Octavia....
The Octavia is the only decent affordable saloon left.
My pal got a new one on Thursday and we went for coffee in it yesterday. Very tidy inside, reminded me of my old A4. A little boxy on the outside but a perfectly nice car.
Does he smoke a pipe and wear driving gloves David.
Nope. Neither. But I kinda get what you are saying. Its a bit of an old man's car, especially on the outside.
It was meant in jest David, but has a hint of truth as you say.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
Isn't that a decline which started many years ago ?
From March 2010:
Drug firm AstraZeneca is to close a research centre in the UK with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs in a move that threatens to undermine the UK's position as a leader in pharmaceutical research and development.
The AstraZeneca site in Charnwood, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, will close next year. A smaller facility in Cambridge will also shut
Sunder Katwala @sundersays Hard to see how Gaza could make a net difference of more than 3-5 seats in 2024 General Election. Labour holding Rochdale would show why the direct electoral impact in a GE is easily exaggerated. Its impact on longterm political socialisation & in local gvt may be bigger
Sunder Katwala @sundersays Hard to see how Gaza could make a net difference of more than 3-5 seats in 2024 General Election. Labour holding Rochdale would show why the direct electoral impact in a GE is easily exaggerated. Its impact on longterm political socialisation & in local gvt may be bigger
The Dáil in Dublin is the prize for Sinn Féin, I think. Which is an incentive for them to be seen to be doing a good job in Belfast.
De facto unification is a process. Brexit forces people to make a choice. People in Northern Ireland are increasingly choosing Ireland over Britain.
Jut have to hope they have less cowards and non Irish voting than Scotland had in 2014
Unlike Scotland, Northern Ireland will not be voting for independence. Their only choice is which other country they would like to be part of.
They will be voting whether to be Irish or a colony of England. Should be a no brainer even for the morons there.
Depending on what Ireland proposes around devolution, the choice might be rule from Belfast or Dublin. Either way, there is no clear parallel with Scotland which aims to become an independent nation once more.
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Yes, the road to independence was to show us how Scotland would be viable as an independent country with a tax base that could support the services we expect. Salmond got this to a degree (although it was much less of a problem when the North Sea was a much larger contributor) and Forbes seems to as well.
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
Quick note on this - Scotland's tax base is pretty good. Possibly the strongest outside of London, certainly outside the south-east of England.
It's the public spending which is the big differential. Some of this is natural - we have an awful lot of road, energy etc infrastructure to sustain for a small country. And much is long term problems that have persisted through governments and devolution (drugs, health generally).
Then there are the blatant bungs to the middle class - I got £36,000 for uni despite both my parents being graduates, homeowners and in management positions.
You may have saved £36k but the University didn't get anywhere near that. They got nearer £20k. The policy is affordable (just) because the Universities are squeezed to the point they favour rUK or foreign students over their domestic market and indeed need them to balance the books. I am not sure how long this will be sustainable.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
Living standards in the UK have not improved since Brexit, but they also haven't improved since Netflix came out, England started winning test matches, Trump left office, Net Zero came in, and Alan Rickman died. All these things may or may not have a causal link to living standards falling but it needs to be proven, or at least the theory of how it has caused it established.
That is just a pathetic response, looks like the ramblings of a lunatic. It is very obvious what has happened in recent years and there is only one economic major decision been made in that time. Posting crap like "Alan Rickman affecting cost of living" shows the paucity of your attempt to defend the indefensible. Get a grip of reality at least.
If it's that obvious, establish the link. Tell us how and why leaving the EU is the primary reason for the decline in UK living standards in recent years.
You can't. Controlled experiments don't exist in economics.
Insisting on proof for something like Brexit betrays your inability to refute the various indicators that suggest something is amiss.
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Yes, the road to independence was to show us how Scotland would be viable as an independent country with a tax base that could support the services we expect. Salmond got this to a degree (although it was much less of a problem when the North Sea was a much larger contributor) and Forbes seems to as well.
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
Quick note on this - Scotland's tax base is pretty good. Possibly the strongest outside of London, certainly outside the south-east of England.
It's the public spending which is the big differential. Some of this is natural - we have an awful lot of road, energy etc infrastructure to sustain for a small country. And much is long term problems that have persisted through governments and devolution (drugs, health generally).
Then there are the blatant bungs to the middle class - I got £36,000 for uni despite both my parents being graduates, homeowners and in management positions.
You may have saved £36k but the University didn't get anywhere near that. They got nearer £20k. The policy is affordable (just) because the Universities are squeezed to the point they favour rUK or foreign students over their domestic market and indeed need them to balance the books. I am not sure how long this will be sustainable.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
My life has improved as has that of many people I know.
Why is that so difficult to believe ?
The lives of many people are regularly improving as has always been the case.
Why are some people always so desperate to believe that things are always getting worse.
Because currently they are.
Are you Rishi Sunak?
It's not just food inflation, energy inflation and fuel inflation. The latter two are currently deflationary but over the grand scheme of things they still appear expensive.
But it's not only the fiscal issues. Pot holes in the road, crumbling schools, lengthening NHS lists, you can't see a GP, NHS dentists are unavailable, if you are burgled the police tell you they can't come round but they will email you a crime number a week Tuesday. We haven't got the armed forces to counter Putin and we have to queue for 40 minutes when we previously breezed through immigration from France. And "rip-off" Britain is back, fines and penalty notices for everything. NCP, Capita and Vinci Parking making hay whilst the rest of us struggle. Ooh " we've never had it so good, let's Gove another .illion pounds to the Conservative Party, and all these ex Cabinet Ministers are looking a bit pasty, let's give them a seat on the board.
The list is endless and these are just the inconveniences the moderately well-off have to suffer. If you are poor life is harder than it was 15 years ago. If you are super-wealthy on the other hand, "you've never had it so good'.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
Living standards in the UK have not improved since Brexit, but they also haven't improved since Netflix came out, England started winning test matches, Trump left office, Net Zero came in, and Alan Rickman died. All these things may or may not have a causal link to living standards falling but it needs to be proven, or at least the theory of how it has caused it established.
That is just a pathetic response, looks like the ramblings of a lunatic. It is very obvious what has happened in recent years and there is only one economic major decision been made in that time. Posting crap like "Alan Rickman affecting cost of living" shows the paucity of your attempt to defend the indefensible. Get a grip of reality at least.
If it's that obvious, establish the link. Tell us how and why leaving the EU is the primary reason for the decline in UK living standards in recent years.
We use a major new survey of UK firms, the Decision Maker Panel, to assess the impact of the June 2016 Brexit referendum. We identify three key results. First, the UK’s decision to leave the EU has generated a large, broad and long-lasting increase in uncertainty. Second, anticipation of Brexit is estimated to have gradually reduced investment by about 11% over the three years following the June 2016 vote. This fall in investment took longer to occur than predicted at the time of the referendum, suggesting that the size and persistence of this uncertainty may have delayed firms’ response to the Brexit vote. Finally, the Brexit process is estimated to have reduced UK productivity by between 2%and 5% over the three years after the referendum. Much of this drop is from negative within-firm effects, in part because firms are committing several hours per week of top-management time to Brexit planning. We also find evidence for smaller negative between-firm effects as more productive, internationally exposed, firms have been more negatively impacted than less productive domestic firms.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
East European Immigration in mostly manageable numbers (600K in 2016) has been replaced by immigration from everywhere outside Europe in double the numbers (1.2million in 2023). These people did not come on boats either...so Rwanda is just an embarrassing distraction.
The extra spending on the NHS is mostly account tricks and has resulted in... the continuing decline of services.
Control is a pretty nebulous concept when your household bills are up 60% in 2years
So, yeah the voters can literally see that the Tories are bullshitting over immigration, the NHS and living standards and believe they are bullshitting about everything else.
So they certainly WILL vote differently, and bid a determined good riddance to a bunch of useless, incompetent, arrogant chancers.
Yet neither are the voters in the mood to hope. They know, that, whatever the statistics say, that times are tough and think that will probably get tougher overall, and no amount of Tory Media propaganda is going to change that reality.
So SKS should pull a "Blood sweat and tears" number and say that he will "level with the British people that it will take some serious work to fix the wreckage of Tory Britain",
As we see the collapse of local government, and increasingly squalid high streets across the country, perma-crisis in the NHS, despjte all the accounting tricks, the literal collapse of hundreds of schools. utterly feeble armed forces, in the face of the clear and present Russian danger, it all adds up to a demand for major change. The voters have already decided that the "Conservatives" must go, the only question now is how big their defeat is and there is even a change that this destroys the Tories in their current form.
I don´t think many are that upset at the prospect.
Why do you think that one sort of immigration has replaced another - its highly likely that the UK would have had Eastern European immigration alongside the other immigration.
After all there's no shortage of third world immigration to other European countries or for that matter no shortage of third world immigration to any vaguely developed country:
This type of populism appears to be the most likely explanation for February's outburst by Tunisian President Kais Saied against sub-Saharan African migrants in his country.
Mr Saied made the extraordinary remark that these people were part of a conspiracy to change the demographic composition of the North African country, which has a predominantly Arab-Muslim culture.
As history clearly demonstrates, it is a dangerous tactic that often leads to violence. And that was precisely what happened in Tunisia.
Following the comments, black African migrants felt the full force of the fallout. Some were afraid to leave their homes out of fear of random violence or verbal abuse.
Can you provide any evidence to back their claim up ?
Perhaps you're referring to RAAC, well here are the details:
The list of schools and colleges where the presence of RAAC was confirmed by 27 November has been published, here, on Gov.uk. 231 cases have now been confirmed – of these:
228 settings are providing face-to-face learning for all pupils, 3 settings have put hybrid arrangements in place, And none have had to move to remote learning fulltime.
So that would be zero schools which have literally collapsed.
Utterly feeble armed forces ?
Understrength certainly but I don't see many other European countries doing differently or other politicians supporting an increase in military spending.
The UK has problems, as it always has had and as every other countries also have.
But the 'everything is broken' whine exists only among those who spend too much time of fringe political websites.
And a very large number of schools have virtually collapsed. Tory policies for you.
The Dáil in Dublin is the prize for Sinn Féin, I think. Which is an incentive for them to be seen to be doing a good job in Belfast.
De facto unification is a process. Brexit forces people to make a choice. People in Northern Ireland are increasingly choosing Ireland over Britain.
But the polls say they are not. Do PBers not check data before they post?
Latest polls has 50 NO over 31 YES on a United Ireland
In 2017 it was 55 NO over 34 YES - the exact same margin
Back in 2003 it was 54 NO and 27 YES
Only one poll has ever showed a (tiny) majority for YES and that was in Sept 2019 at the peak of the Brexit shitshow
Indeed the remarkable thing is the stability of these polls. You get mad outliers on either side, of course, and there may have been a tiny shift to YES if you squint really hard - but in two decades NO has maintained a solid lead of about 15-25 points
I don't expect a successful Border Poll soon. It's more a case of Northern Ireland turning south rather than east. De facto. It's not as if the Union is a huge success right now. At some point they may think this link to Britain is an anachronism. That's a benign scenario for Northern Ireland, if it happens, when other less benign scenarios are possible.
One thing that never gets mentioned is that the polling for a United Ireland reveals a split. While nearly all Unionist voters would vote no, a substantial number of Nationalist voters would also vote no.
Even in the Troubles, a non trivial percentage of *SF* voters, when polled, said they would vote no. That is, supporters of the party advocating armed violence to achieve a goal… were against that goal.
I’ve seen various suggestions for why, but do definitive answers.
Joseph R. Biden Jr 126,350 96.2% (55 delegates) Marianne Williamson 2,726 2.1% (No delegates on this earthly plane, other dimensions not yet reported) Dean Phillips 2,239 1.7% (No delegates)
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Yes, the road to independence was to show us how Scotland would be viable as an independent country with a tax base that could support the services we expect. Salmond got this to a degree (although it was much less of a problem when the North Sea was a much larger contributor) and Forbes seems to as well.
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
David, youi seem to forget that Westminster takes all the money , makes all the big decisions and takes on debt and then pretends it is Scotland's debt. It is impossible that we would be worse off than as a neglected downtrodden region of England. Agree the SNP have been crap other than filling ther own pockets since the referendum, but madness to pretend that you can do anything relevant when most powers are retained to London. More relevant is that almost every other small countr yin teh world is much better off than Scotland and most have far fewer natural resources. Most colonies improve themselves when they get out from under the yoke of their occupier.
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
My life has improved as has that of many people I know.
Why is that so difficult to believe ?
The lives of many people are regularly improving as has always been the case.
Why are some people always so desperate to believe that things are always getting worse.
There are always a few, but in general unless all news and views are lies, UK has gone backwards over the last 10 years. Great you have done well , I too have not been impacted but is almost 100% of data, opinions, statistics etc wrong. You do not go an hour without hearing how bad things are all over the UK, apart from a small minority of lucky or rich people. Try to see beyond your own nose.
We always hear about the problems but we don't hear when the problems are sorted let alone about the things going well.
And yes many millions are struggling.
But why ?
This isn't the 1980s with mass unemployment - there are jobs available and better opportunities everywhere.
Meanwhile the government taxes and borrows and spends over £1.2 trillion quid.
Yet we're told both that 'everything is broken' and also, clearly incompatible, that if a Labour government spends a few billion more then everything would be transformed for the better.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
Isn't that a decline which started many years ago ?
From March 2010:
Drug firm AstraZeneca is to close a research centre in the UK with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs in a move that threatens to undermine the UK's position as a leader in pharmaceutical research and development.
The AstraZeneca site in Charnwood, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, will close next year. A smaller facility in Cambridge will also shut
My assumption would be that the South would emotionally desire reunification - the question might be whether they would be willing to pay the largeish bill that would come with it. At the moment, Northern Ireland is something of a dead loss economically and it has rather more generous public services than in the Republic.
Of course, Sinn Féin's manifesto for Ireland includes an expansion in the south - e.g. an NHS style universal FPU healthcare system. So that may cease to matter as much if they are in power in Stormont and Dublin.
And Sinn Fein have got the key economic portfolios in the new executive, so if it lasts for any length of time they have the opportunity to try and sort out the North's economy. Whether they have the imagination and ability to do so may be a rather different question.
Polling is 66% in favour of reunification in the Republic, the other third split between don't know and no. Insofar as money will be an issue in the poll it will be an issue for Northern Ireland voters rather than those in the Republic, because the assumption will be that Dublin won't spend as freely as London.
I would expect it to take a while before we get a border poll, though it's possible the dynamic of a Sinn Fein Taoiseach and First Minister at the same time might accelerate things.
Also, if Sinn Fein win the position of First Minister again at the next Assembly election, how does Unionism react to the prospect of never having a Unionist First Minister ever again?
Northern Ireland is going to boom now it has political stability. Because it is in the perfect Brexit position, inside the EU single market and inside the UK single market. Companies will flock there - they might even relocate from the south - quite an irony
In 10 years the appetite in Ulster for reunification - with all its anguish - will be even less than it is now
One of my criticisms of the SNP is that they have failed to use being the government in Holyrood to make the practical case for independence. They've used it to make a political case, to draw political dividing lines with London, but they haven't managed to use the powers they have to make a case that goes, "with this little bit of power we've managed to improve x, just imagine what we could do with independence".
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
Yes, the road to independence was to show us how Scotland would be viable as an independent country with a tax base that could support the services we expect. Salmond got this to a degree (although it was much less of a problem when the North Sea was a much larger contributor) and Forbes seems to as well.
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
David, youi seem to forget that Westminster takes all the money , makes all the big decisions and takes on debt and then pretends it is Scotland's debt. It is impossible that we would be worse off than as a neglected downtrodden region of England. Agree the SNP have been crap other than filling ther own pockets since the referendum, but madness to pretend that you can do anything relevant when most powers are retained to London. More relevant is that almost every other small countr yin teh world is much better off than Scotland and most have far fewer natural resources. Most colonies improve themselves when they get out from under the yoke of their occupier.
Malcolm - although you are right that long term Scotland probably wouldn't have a problem I suspect the first few years of independence would be incredibly painful as the tax base and spending was sorted out...
"The Tories have clearly all but given up in this election. Tory MPs are refusing to campaign in Wellinborough for fear of being ridiculed and insulted, and because they think it would be a complete waste of their time. The party headquarters previously used by Bone was locked on Friday, showing no sign of life."
Could these byelections be the end for Sunak? Not even trying is not a good look.
This quote is pretty priceless:
When he voted Conservative in 2019 – to “get Brexit done” – Holden had hoped things would get better, that the town’s good times would return. “But I see very little that has changed,” he says. “Where are all the new hospitals? I don’t see them. Bills are up, and prices are up. And the boats are still a real problem.
There were, it seems, people who actually believed that shit from Dan Hannan.
I was with a couple of mates the other week, both proud Leavers, who were bemoaning the impossibility of getting a plumber. I was very tempted, though I restrained myself - thanks to my iron willpower - from saying maybe all those Polish plumbers we voted to banish were perhaps a good thing?
I was speaking to someone else in the boozer yesterday, a market trader, who was telling me how bad things are in Castleford indoor market, a stereotypical post-mining town in Red Wall Leaverstan. Yvette Cooper’s constituency. He took £60 yesterday. Not £60 profit. £60 all day. A trader a few stalls down took £7 all day.
Now there are lots of reasons that will be hitting Cas indoor market’s financial health, but it is clear that towns across the UK are struggling, even in places we would consider traditionally prosperous. Things are very bad. Everything’s crumbling, nothing works. A friend was 172nd in the phone queue for a doctors appointment at 8.01am one day last week.
Ok, anecdata. But people expected Brexit to sort all this. They wanted to believe the Leaver lies so they took the leap. They know now they were deceived. Revenge is coming. Hence the consistent polling. Covid and Ukraine as excuses don’t wash anymore.
Deceived about what ?
Control over Eastern European immigration ?
Its been done.
Extra spending on the NHS.
Its been done.
Taking back control.
Its been done.
Now if people aren't happy about the results then they can complain and vote differently.
But the next government will face exactly the same problems but with even more challenges and less money to spend.
They're are no magic wands for any government to wave.
If people want higher prosperity and better services the process is the same as it has always been - better skills and higher prosperity.
The lies that those things you’ve said, when enacted, would somehow improve their lives. The real-world ramifications is that those things clearly haven’t.
Still, affluent elderly right-wingers are happy, so that’s all good. Sod the rest of the country, eh?
More job opportunities for young people improves the lives of young people.
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
Fantasy that lives have improved in UK since Brexit, only a drunk or a lunatic could imagine that is the case
My life has improved as has that of many people I know.
Why is that so difficult to believe ?
The lives of many people are regularly improving as has always been the case.
Why are some people always so desperate to believe that things are always getting worse.
There are always a few, but in general unless all news and views are lies, UK has gone backwards over the last 10 years. Great you have done well , I too have not been impacted but is almost 100% of data, opinions, statistics etc wrong. You do not go an hour without hearing how bad things are all over the UK, apart from a small minority of lucky or rich people. Try to see beyond your own nose.
We always hear about the problems but we don't hear when the problems are sorted let alone about the things going well.
And yes many millions are struggling.
But why ?
This isn't the 1980s with mass unemployment - there are jobs available and better opportunities everywhere.
Meanwhile the government taxes and borrows and spends over £1.2 trillion quid.
Yet we're told both that 'everything is broken' and also, clearly incompatible, that if a Labour government spends a few billion more then everything would be transformed for the better.
Tories and their pals pocketing all the money, very simple.
Sinn Fein won't miss their shot like the SNP did. Particularly, if they are in power in the 26 and the 6 by the time the vote comes as is, at least, possible.
Tiocfaidh ar la.
Does a border poll have to be held on both sides of the border, or just in the North?
Both
Don't give England and Wales ideas
Well. This just makes sense.
Northern Ireland isn’t proposing to be independent. It’s proposing to join the Republic. Both sides need to agree.
If Scotland wanted to leave the United Kingdom AND then join Norway, Norway would have to agree to that. It’s only right.
The comedy would be if NI voted to leave but the Republic said, “Nawh”.
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
This is a remarkeable turnaround in the last decade and a bit:
"She warned that Britain’s previously thriving pharmaceutical sector was now in a trade deficit because we have to import so much more medicine than before – the latest 2022 figures show a $5bn deficit globally, compared with a surplus of $9.7bn in 2010."
Comments
Latest polls has 50 NO over 31 YES on a United Ireland
In 2017 it was 55 NO over 34 YES - the exact same margin
Back in 2003 it was 54 NO and 27 YES
Only one poll has ever showed a (tiny) majority for YES and that was in Sept 2019 at the peak of the Brexit shitshow
Indeed the remarkable thing is the stability of these polls. You get mad outliers on either side, of course, and there may have been a tiny shift to YES if you squint really hard - but in two decades NO has maintained a solid lead of about 15-25 points
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_a_United_Ireland
Higher spending on the NHS helps those who use the NHS.
So lives have been improved.
If anyone thought Brexit would immediately make everyone millionaires then they're either fools or liars.
Likewise anyone thinking a Labour government will make any noticeable improvements are either fools or liars.
If SF are in government north and south then you will see huge amounts of north/south cooperation, and if Ulster booms the clear message will be, "this is what a limited amount of north/south coordination can achieve, imagine what we could do with Irish Unity".
The extra spending on the NHS is mostly account tricks and has resulted in... the continuing decline of services.
Control is a pretty nebulous concept when your household bills are up 60% in 2years
So, yeah the voters can literally see that the Tories are bullshitting over immigration, the NHS and living standards and believe they are bullshitting about everything else.
So they certainly WILL vote differently, and bid a determined good riddance to a bunch of useless, incompetent, arrogant chancers.
Yet neither are the voters in the mood to hope. They know, that, whatever the statistics say, that times are tough and think that will probably get tougher overall, and no amount of Tory Media propaganda is going to change that reality.
So SKS should pull a "Blood sweat and tears" number and say that he will "level with the British people that it will take some serious work to fix the wreckage of Tory Britain",
As we see the collapse of local government, and increasingly squalid high streets across the country, perma-crisis in the NHS, despjte all the accounting tricks, the literal collapse of hundreds of schools. utterly feeble armed forces, in the face of the clear and present Russian danger, it all adds up to a demand for major change. The voters have already decided that the "Conservatives" must go, the only question now is how big their defeat is and there is even a change that this destroys the Tories in their current form.
I don´t think many are that upset at the prospect.
And it's in a terrible condition, blatantly inferior to our European counterparts. To the extent that we go on holiday to places like Krakow just to be somewhere vaguely nice.
But that's been the choice of the government and for which voters have the remedy.
I'd say the mistake the government has committed all along is to allow economic migrants to paid less than the going rate - if instead they had only allowed it at 20% higher than the going rate it would have reduced numbers and encouraged investment in productivity growth.
Though immigration does vary.
And a restriction of Eastern Europeans to industrial towns together with an increase in third world immigration to cities and university towns should, in theory, satisfy most people.
Now? People working themselves into the ground, being paid a wage and getting top-up benefits and still they are flat broke, such is the cost of living crisis.
The Tories are going to get demolished in part because they simply refuse to accept this reality. It isn't just Sunak disconnected from ordinary people's lives. Its all of them.
But, Fatcha, innit.
After all there's no shortage of third world immigration to other European countries or for that matter no shortage of third world immigration to any vaguely developed country:
This type of populism appears to be the most likely explanation for February's outburst by Tunisian President Kais Saied against sub-Saharan African migrants in his country.
Mr Saied made the extraordinary remark that these people were part of a conspiracy to change the demographic composition of the North African country, which has a predominantly Arab-Muslim culture.
As history clearly demonstrates, it is a dangerous tactic that often leads to violence. And that was precisely what happened in Tunisia.
Following the comments, black African migrants felt the full force of the fallout. Some were afraid to leave their homes out of fear of random violence or verbal abuse.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-64913796
NHS employment has increase from 1.714m in 2019q3 to 1.984m in 2023q3:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/publicsectorpersonnel/timeseries/c9lg/pse
Real people in the real world.
The 'literal collapse of hundreds of schools' ?
Can you provide any evidence to back their claim up ?
Perhaps you're referring to RAAC, well here are the details:
The list of schools and colleges where the presence of RAAC was confirmed by 27 November has been published, here, on Gov.uk. 231 cases have now been confirmed – of these:
228 settings are providing face-to-face learning for all pupils,
3 settings have put hybrid arrangements in place,
And none have had to move to remote learning fulltime.
https://educationhub.blog.gov.uk/2023/12/06/new-guidance-on-raac-in-education-settings/
So that would be zero schools which have literally collapsed.
Utterly feeble armed forces ?
Understrength certainly but I don't see many other European countries doing differently or other politicians supporting an increase in military spending.
The UK has problems, as it always has had and as every other countries also have.
But the 'everything is broken' whine exists only among those who spend too much time of fringe political websites.
It will be a very long and rocky road to Independence in Northern Ireland if it ever happens
Sunak gets lots of criticism but on his success in the WF leading to the recall of Stormont he and the NI Secretary do deserve credit
As for Labour, abandoning it's 28 billion (140 billion over the parliament) was inevitable not least if you listen to Rayner pledging increases in wages and rights across the public sector, no doubt with an eye on settling the doctor and train drivers disputes
It will be interesting, as Starmer fronts up the Blair Institute, just what reaction he encounters from the left who, as I said yesterday, may well be his very own ERG
Exactly right. The SNP have set back the cause of independence for some time due to incompetent government. That's despite the Conservative and Unionist government in London being almost wilful in the help it's giving the cause of Scottish independence.
She does vacuous flag shagging better than anyone else, being much more inclusive than the Braverman "enemies within" approach to nationalism. She also scrubs up well and has some wit and charm.
However she always fluffs her chances. Like once was said of the PLO she never misses the opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Why is that so difficult to believe ?
The lives of many people are regularly improving as has always been the case.
Why are some people always so desperate to believe that things are always getting worse.
Come on, pb.com, we are better than this.
6 Octavias parked up (including mine) out of 9 cars in the car park.
Someone somewhere would have been pleased with their marketing.
She fluffed it again by not shacking up with Boris to block Sunak after Truss crashed and burned - she could have done a Putin/Medvedev deal there and been PM with Boris on-side or very high up in a Boris cabinet. And whatever we think of Boris he was about twice as popular as the incumbent.
And if Sinn Fein fuck up, then voters will punish them and their nationalist ideas
It’s a problem all secessionist parties face, in a democracy
If George Galloway beaks through in Rochdale Tory MPs are going to push Rishi Sunak to hold a "Gaza Election" > Mail On Sunday >
But Sturgeon? Economics bored her and she never made any attempt to hide it. She was obsessed with social policy and gender but creating a tax base? Not for her.
The sad consequence is that Scotland has become more dependent on cross subsidy and would face an alarming deficit if they went alone, requiring serious cuts in public spending. Some of this, such as the money pumped into various charities and other SNP dominated groups would come easy, some of it would not.
The future, with Grangemouth and a number of other businesses struggling with the end of free money, does not look good. Scotland will be in recession this year, something the rest of the UK will avoid and the gap will get even wider.
Fresh blow to Rishi Sunak as top Tory MP considers running AGAINST his own party in race to be Mayor of London
SKS is very good at the incremental, small target strategy. He is not very good at Blair style big idea earnestness so he's well advised not to do it.
Hopefully, he will seamlessly reposition, which is his other great strength, to a radical, hard-left agenda once he is safely ensconced as PMOTUK.
From March 2010:
Drug firm AstraZeneca is to close a research centre in the UK with the loss of up to 1,200 jobs in a move that threatens to undermine the UK's position as a leader in pharmaceutical research and development.
The AstraZeneca site in Charnwood, near Loughborough in Leicestershire, will close next year. A smaller facility in Cambridge will also shut
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2010/mar/02/astrazeneca-close-uk-research-centre
It's the public spending which is the big differential. Some of this is natural - we have an awful lot of road, energy etc infrastructure to sustain for a small country. And much is long term problems that have persisted through governments and devolution (drugs, health generally).
Then there are the blatant bungs to the middle class - I got £36,000 for uni despite both my parents being graduates, homeowners and in management positions.
The same with rail privatisation: everything was perfect under BR, and went to sh*t after privatisation. The cr@p service did not matter for reasons, and the accidents under BR did not matter either, because the deaths were nationalised...
You do not go an hour without hearing how bad things are all over the UK, apart from a small minority of lucky or rich people. Try to see beyond your own nose.
A lot of AZ research is being outsourced to China though, so neither the UK nor Sweden are doing that well.
Sunder Katwala
@sundersays
Hard to see how Gaza could make a net difference of more than 3-5 seats in 2024 General Election. Labour holding Rochdale would show why the direct electoral impact in a GE is easily exaggerated. Its impact on longterm political socialisation & in local gvt may be bigger
https://twitter.com/sundersays/status/1754077072123691346
@robfordmancs
No I don’t. As I replied to you directly I think the number of Tory seats this plausibly saves is zero. Sunder is more generous.
Been a lot more of Mail behind the paywall in last few weeks.
Insisting on proof for something like Brexit betrays your inability to refute the various indicators that suggest something is amiss.
Are you Rishi Sunak?
It's not just food inflation, energy inflation and fuel inflation. The latter two are currently deflationary but over the grand scheme of things they still appear expensive.
But it's not only the fiscal issues. Pot holes in the road, crumbling schools, lengthening NHS lists, you can't see a GP, NHS dentists are unavailable, if you are burgled the police tell you they can't come round but they will email you a crime number a week Tuesday. We haven't got the armed forces to counter Putin and we have to queue for 40 minutes when we previously breezed through immigration from France. And "rip-off" Britain is back, fines and penalty notices for everything. NCP, Capita and Vinci Parking making hay whilst the rest of us struggle. Ooh " we've never had it so good, let's Gove another .illion pounds to the Conservative Party, and all these ex Cabinet Ministers are looking a bit pasty, let's give them a seat on the board.
The list is endless and these are just the inconveniences the moderately well-off have to suffer. If you are poor life is harder than it was 15 years ago. If you are super-wealthy on the other hand, "you've never had it so good'.
https://www.niesr.ac.uk/publications/revisiting-effect-brexit?type=global-economic-outlook-topical-feature
We use a major new survey of UK firms, the Decision Maker Panel, to assess the impact of the
June 2016 Brexit referendum. We identify three key results. First, the UK’s decision to leave the
EU has generated a large, broad and long-lasting increase in uncertainty. Second, anticipation of
Brexit is estimated to have gradually reduced investment by about 11% over the three years
following the June 2016 vote. This fall in investment took longer to occur than predicted at the
time of the referendum, suggesting that the size and persistence of this uncertainty may have
delayed firms’ response to the Brexit vote. Finally, the Brexit process is estimated to have reduced
UK productivity by between 2%and 5% over the three years after the referendum. Much of this
drop is from negative within-firm effects, in part because firms are committing several hours per
week of top-management time to Brexit planning. We also find evidence for smaller negative
between-firm effects as more productive, internationally exposed, firms have been more
negatively impacted than less productive domestic firms.
https://cepr.org/voxeu/columns/impact-brexit-uk-economy-reviewing-evidence
https://www.institute.global/insights/geopolitics-and-security/three-years-brexit-casts-long-shadow-over-uk-economy
https://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/publication/report/understanding-economhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_of_Brexitic-impact-brexit
Fck, scooped!
Even in the Troubles, a non trivial percentage of *SF* voters, when polled, said they would vote no. That is, supporters of the party advocating armed violence to achieve a goal… were against that goal.
I’ve seen various suggestions for why, but do definitive answers.
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/02/03/us/elections/results-south-carolina-democratic-primary.html
Joseph R. Biden Jr 126,350 96.2% (55 delegates)
Marianne Williamson 2,726 2.1% (No delegates on this earthly plane, other dimensions not yet reported)
Dean Phillips 2,239 1.7% (No delegates)
Agree the SNP have been crap other than filling ther own pockets since the referendum, but madness to pretend that you can do anything relevant when most powers are retained to London. More relevant is that almost every other small countr yin teh world is much better off than Scotland and most have far fewer natural resources. Most colonies improve themselves when they get out from under the yoke of their occupier.
And yes many millions are struggling.
But why ?
This isn't the 1980s with mass unemployment - there are jobs available and better opportunities everywhere.
Meanwhile the government taxes and borrows and spends over £1.2 trillion quid.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-45814459
All that money is going somewhere.
Yet we're told both that 'everything is broken' and also, clearly incompatible, that if a Labour government spends a few billion more then everything would be transformed for the better.
See, for example the 2021 decision to build a new plant in Ireland rather than the UK.
Brexit makes a difference at the margin.
Northern Ireland isn’t proposing to be independent. It’s proposing to join the Republic. Both sides need to agree.
If Scotland wanted to leave the United Kingdom AND then join Norway, Norway would have to agree to that. It’s only right.
The comedy would be if NI voted to leave but the Republic said, “Nawh”.
Yes, an A4 and an Octavia are basically the same car.
Job jobbed.
(Probably going to replace it this year; don't know what with, though...)