The SNP’s lead in Scotland down to just 7% – politicalbetting.com
The SNP’s lead in Scotland down to just 7% – politicalbetting.com
The above maps show what happened in Scotland at the last general election. As can be seen the SNP was totally dominant with LAB reduced to just single seat.
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ETA: And Starner is some senior SNP bod who reacted to the falling poll lead news with 'God!' ?
ETA2: Oh, and first like, um, the SNP?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UowNDaxRqU
Perhaps everyone has already seen it? I had not until now. I think that is the single greatest off-the-cuff quip I have ever seen by a politician, especially in the context - Reagan himself being the victim of a REAL shooting years before
This also gives the lie to the idea he was seriously demented during the presidency. This is Reagan in 1987, deep into his second term. The contrast with Biden or Trump is painful
Can he run the kind of campaign it would take to win in 2024?
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/oct/25/joe-biden-presidential-campaign-decision-jill-biden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwVJTHtqs9Y
It's not a defence of Biden, but does focus on what Trump can offer in the cognitive department.
https://youtu.be/vgjS_7eNoOg?si=q71mDDJqOAIEPgk-
The other thing is that Yousaf's personal ratings are crashing. The very protracted resignation of Michael Mathieson and the ill advised support given to him by Yousaf (describing the thieving so and so as "a man of integrity") is not going to help.
FWIW I am pretty confident that Labour will beat the SNP in the Westminster election in terms of share of the vote. Whether that will result in them getting more seats than the SNP is harder to judge. It may be that the SNP vote remains more efficient, especially if the Tories take a backward step.
Trouble is, like Cameron (who isn't as funny) Osborne has - or had - an air of the Flashman. The posh bully laughing at the prole - you can sense it in that clip
Reagan never did that. Generous and dignified
Wives are omnipotent. Mrs Al has informed me in no uncertain terms that I'm too old to succeed Starmer, so I have gracefully withdrawn, and will spend my remaining days perusing PB instead.
If you take an average of the latest Scotland only polls done by 6 different pollsters since Rutherglen, including this one, Labour lead by around 0.2 points, so effectively neck and neck.
All the usual caveats apply.
"The West Wing staff of the White House ALL know (and say privately) the only reason Joe Biden is running in 2024 with his clearly diminished mental capacity, is Jill Biden likes being 1st lady and doesn’t want to give it up!"
https://x.com/RobSchneider/status/1755844465967931612?s=20
It's a rightwing account so it could be deliberate nonsense. Caveat emptor
Either way, Yousaf's cunning plan of using the election results for Westminster as some form of second referendum on independence looks deader than a dead thing.
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/08/politics/analysis-trump-2024-special-counsel-nevada-supreme-court/index.html
► The former president was handed a political gift. An independent special counsel poured kerosene on concerns about Joe Biden’s age with pointed language about the president’s poor memory after concluding Biden had willfully mishandled classified documents – and that his failing memory makes him impossible to convict. Biden was on defense at a hastily called White House news conference. “My memory is fine,” Biden said.
► He is on a glide path to the Republican nomination. Trump romped in the Nevada and US Virgin Island caucuses Thursday night, continuing his unbeaten streak and making Nikki Haley’s campaign feel futile.
► He appears poised for a win at the Supreme Court. Justices expressed deep skepticism that Colorado could declare him an insurrectionist and bar him from their election ballots.
It’s a one-two-three combo that should have Trump feeling solid about his political future, at least for a moment.
I think, at the end of the day, Biden thinks he's the only one who can beat Trump and the DNC didn't want a big ideological battle primary if it could prevent it. And, if I'm totally honest, the DNC made more money when Trump was in office. They may be betting that he'll be ineffective at passing anything, that they'll win back the Senate and the House in midterms, and that Trump is the best recruitment and fundraising tool they have. Considering that the entire border negotiations boiled down to the Dems saying "we gave the GOP everything they wanted and they still refused to pass it", I don't think the Dems care if Trump wins and does a lot of awful stuff as long as it isn't aimed at them (which is of course where their foresight fails them, because of course Trump will aim it at them).
If Bootle can find five candidates in 2019, five in 2017, SIX in 2015 and 2010, then it can hardly be said you're short of choice.
What people really mean is that you feel you only have a choice of two because of the power of Labour and the Conservatives.
"The Lib Dems/Greens/Reform can't win here! A vote for them lets the evil baby eating Labour/Tory candidate in, and you can't risk that."
Imagine if people voted for their favourite party rather than the lesser of two evils...........
sycophant meets psychopath
It would be much better if neither stood for re- election. Nonetheless only one has attempted a couple d'etat.
But the released details on Biden will certainly sting. And we've still got 9 months to go until polling day - I cannot seem Biden improving in that time (whereas Trump does sometimes put on a good performance, even if he is still clearly a clown).
Also, it really can't be much fun, as a wife, watching your husband get regularly humiliated (as in that awful press conference) and then lose his temper and get humilated some more
Plus, if she loves him (I presume she does) I imagine she wants him to stick around. He looks so frail now, there must be a risk the stress will kill him, and being POTUS is not exactly unstressful
Fighting a general election with no funds available is going to be a major challenge and a big change from 2019. Labour see the chance of 20-25 easy seats which may well give them an overall majority. Funding is unlikely to be an issue for them.
Vladimir Putin has claimed Boris Johnson is to blame for the continuation of the war in Ukraine.
The Russian President said he was ready to end the war 18 months ago, but that the former Prime Minister put pressure on Ukraine's leaders to back out of the peace deal. Johnson has dismissed the claims as ‘propaganda’.
https://x.com/gmb/status/1755841716576206872?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Incredibly damning, and there is no way round it. The details in the report are excruciating
Also, dementia worsens. It is "progressive". Biden is not going to improve, or even stay where he is, he will get even worse, week after week
Untenable, surely
The context is that it is the first Ipsos Scottish poll where the SNP's lead has been reduced to single figures, the other Ipsos polls having been in double figures being since Yousaf took over in March 2023, a period when but for one exception every other poll from every other polling company had the SNP down to single digit leads and indeed disappearing altogether in several polls lately.
So given that there appears to be a pronounced Ipsos house effect this latest poll seems consistent with what might have been expected from Ipsos and with the trend in other Scottish polling.
What the poll doesn't settle is which house effect best reflects true voting intention.
https://redfieldandwiltonstrategies.com/scottish-independence-referendum-westminster-voting-intention-3-4-february-2024/
This poll is the only the second time Labour has led in our Scottish Westminster Voting Intention tracker poll. The Scottish National Party, meanwhile, last held a lead over Labour in our Westminster Voting Intention poll in early October.
For context, the SNP came first in Scotland in the 2019 General Election, taking 45% of the vote and 48 seats, with the Conservatives in second, winning 25% of the vote and six seats. Labour came third at 19% and won only a single Scottish seat.
Altogether the results (with changes from 9-11 January in parentheses) are as follows:
Labour 34% (-1)
Scottish National Party 33% (-2)
Conservative 18% (+1)
Liberal Democrat 8% (-1)
Reform UK 4% (+2)
Green 2% (–)
Alba Party 1% (NEW)
Other 0% (-)
No. For the rest of us Biden's primary task is to stop Trump. He managed that successfully in 2020 when others maybe wouldn't have. Will he manage it again in 2024? If not, we need someone else.
2017 United Kingdom general election in Scotland
- Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2017_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_Scotland
- SNP/Lab/Con/LD (vote%): 36.9%/27.1%/28.6%/06.8%
- SNP/Lab/Con/LD (seats): 35/07/13/04
- SNP lead: 8.3% (SNPvsCon), 22 (SNPvsCon), 11 (SNPvsLabConLD)
2019 United Kingdom general election in Scotland- Website: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_United_Kingdom_general_election_in_Scotland
- SNP/Lab/Con/LD (vote%): 45.0%/18.6%/25.1%/09.5%
- SNP/Lab/Con/LD (seats): 48/01/06/04
- SNP lead: 19.9% (SNPvsCon), 42 (SNPvsCon), 37 (SNPvsLabConLD)
2024 United Kingdom general election in Scotland (estimate based on header poll)The problem is, Putin *lies*.
"“We listened to them, and we realized that these are not people sent for talks but for our capitulation,” a senior Ukrainian negotiator recalled, the Wall Street Journal reported."
https://www.thebureau.news/p/no-the-west-did-not-sabotage-an-early
With the shit swirling around both of them I’m of the view that the ‘nailed on’ Trump Biden rematch is no more than a 50/50 shot to happen. I have it laid at 1.4 and I’m happy with that. But if it does happen I’ll be rooting 1000% for Joe. If he wins and then has to stand down at some point due to health reasons, so what. It will be managed. The risks of Trump2 are on a different scale.
So in a nutshell what I say is, “Go Joe please”, but if you don’t “Go Joe!”
Ipsos might be right, and the rest wrong, but local by-elections and Rutherglen suggest otherwise.
Nonetheless in this instance I am 100% behind Johnson. Johnson may be a lying grifter, but compared to Putin he is Mother Theresa.
Why anyone takes any of his nonsense at face value is beyond me.
If not, count yourself lucky, it is deeply painful to watch - possibly worse for the witnesses than it is for the demented
My mum was diagnosed with it last year, it distresses me greatly. I've also watched my older daughter's great granmother and now grandmother go down with it. I was quite close to the latter. And I've seen it in aunts, the parents of friends, etc. It is one of the great curses of modern times. we can keep people alive so long, but we can't save their minds
Biden looks exactly like these people, the dodderiness. the vagueness, the wandering, the truly spectacular memory losses, the confusion of identities, the decay of syntax in the speech, the inability to string sentences together; indeed, he looks like quite an advanced case. So bad, as the legal report says, that he cannot be prosecuted. He is too senile to stand trial - that is their judgement. Let that sink in
Biden is right there in front of us, exhibiting all this. It is not some kind of pro-Trump propaganda to point this out
And, if you really want Trump beaten, it is better that this is accepted and Biden is persuaded to retire, and they find someone younger
I still quite like my idea of Kamala, with Barack Obama as veep (if that is legal). I reckon that would beat Trump soundly
All Putin wants is peace. In this case, a piece of another country.
(It works better in an audio medium)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8AHPsyNG_k
We can only hope. I do not see how Biden beats Trump. There is no way someone as frail as he clearly is fights a sustained election campaign.
A lot of the attacks she gets are along the lines of “imagine her being president, how awful, just think how bad she’d be.” The only real way that can be neutralised is to allow voters to see her in the role.
The next few polls on the POTUS elex will be crucial. Has this affected Biden's polling? It's hard to see how it can't be negative, BUT maybe his dodderiness is already priced in for many voters?
The look on Tucker's face when Putin says "You are" in response to who cut Nordstream. ("You will leave for the Siberian work camp following this interview. Ha! Only joking")
A coup for Carlson to get Putin but I have a feeling it didn't turn out exactly as he hoped. Putin isn't one of them. He's a highly focused spy chief and dictator while MAGA is self indulgence.
Tactically I would imagine this makes overall seat predictions very difficult. The unionist tactical vote is surely going to unwind almost completely in seats where the Tories are the incumbents or main challengers, so that might be good for the SNP even if they fall back in vote share, unless Labour really surge. But in areas where Labour or Lib Dems are the strongest unionist party presumably there is no such unwind - erstwhile Tories will vote for them. And then there's the unknowable effect of relative salience of the independence issue with the backdrop of which party is likely to be in power in Westminster.
@BillKristol
·
3h
“Democrats will surely spend the weekend asking themselves whether the country really must face a choice between a 77-year-old sociopath and an 81-year-old ‘elderly man with a poor memory.’ Choosing between them is easy, but heaven help us.”
Kompromat through a two-way mirror like the orange one?
That both Comey and Hur strayed well beyond their remit into the political realm might be seen as regrettable, or outrageous, depending on your politics, but the effect on both cases is similar.
The difference is that the Democrats now have nine months, rather than eleven days, to deal with the consequences.
On the dementia, I'm sorry to hear this about your mum, and snap. Mine got an AD diagnosis a year ago, sadly. And boy is it sad. Worse for my dad, probably, at the moment. He's become a fulltime carer at 90.
But I entirely agree on the England/Scotland tradeoff. It depends where the marginal gains are - in England, most likely, due to the much larger number of seats. It would be smart to give Sarwar a much higher profile on the campaign literature to help dispel the effect though.
While personally deeply disappointed, I think the line of the green stuff is fine from an electoral POV - gives him an opportunity to jump in on Tory mismanagement of the public finances over and over again and closes off an obvious attack.
But an undeniably effective one.
So just like the Trump trials I doubt it moves many votes at all from one camp to the other, but it will impact turnout.
I also wonder if one of the Republican states now take up the invitation to try and disqualify Biden, just for the press coverage it will generate. I suspect so.
Biden has classified documents in his garage: "It's a political hit job."
@FrankLuntz
·
8h
76% of Americans say that Biden does not have the mental and physical health to be POTUS for a second term.
Had he behaved as Biden did, there would never have been an indictment, as you well know.
The political hit job is the extended disquisition on the state of Biden's health. That goes way beyond Hur's remit.
If you want to draw more daft comparisons, tell me that a President Trump would allow his Attorney General to appoint a Democrat as a special investigator to investigate him (or indeed his son).
There are so many dynamics:
Labour -> SNP idealogical swaps
Tartan Tories
Unionist tacticals
The Greens?
Lib Dems for historical reasons in the north
I suspect the Sankey diagram for the Scottish vote in the 2010, 2015, 2017,2019 and 2024(?) GEs will look completely incoherent.
Could not happen to a better lot and perhaps a new cleansed SNP will rise from the ashes. Unfortunately they will cling on at Holyrood till the bitter end.
If Biden runs and loses to Trump, it will be their fault for letting him run when he was clearly too old, but if they force him to step aside and then lose, it will be their fault for replacing Biden with an untested candidate.
The only saving grace for my Mum is that her partner also has dementia and is losing the plot at about the same pace, and they are in nice sheltered housing. So they are kind of sinking together, half aware of things
To be sane and lucid, like your father, and forced to care for a demented spouse, God that's tough
One reason I am sure Biden has dementia is his way of interweaving real stories (eg about his dead son Beau) with clear confabulations (Beau did not die in Fallujah), constructing a new reality impromptu, for no obvious reason. My mum does this constantly
I think it is the brain replacing missing memories, in a kind of panic, to create any old narrative, even if obviously bogus. Very sad
MIL is at the stage of fighting with any carers, whoever they are. There's nobody at home really (although she does manage to say 'I want to be dead' on occasion) but what can you do? Care homes have not proved to be very good during the odd attempt at respite.
My Aunt refused treatment for cancer. Perhaps she had a point.
Edit: I wouldn't like to say whether Biden is also a sufferer as you need to see people day to day to understand how they really are. But he should clearly not be standing for President.
He's a top class communicator with last night's QT as just one example.
That's not a political hit job, that's a legal judgement
He might well have had something to rant about but I'd prefer to hear positive ideas than complaints about how sh*t things are.
This was happening in April, 2022, after Putin had attempted a full invasion of Ukraine and been partially repelled. They'd managed to get the Russians away from Kiev, and discovered the horrific war crimes at Bucha. Previously there had been multiple deals with Russia that Russia had broken, and after they invaded Crimea they'd said they had no intention of invading the rest of Ukraine. Initially (before the Ukrainians inflicted a partial defeat on them) they'd been making much more extensive demands, for example that the elected leaders of Ukraine be handed over and put on trial. So obviously if Ukraine disarmed it wouldn't be long before Putin came back for the rest of the country and tried again to do what he'd just failed to do.
It seems to be true that when Boris Johnson visited Kiev he told them that they'd be absolutely barking mad to do a deal with Russia on those terms. But not having cornflakes for brains, the Ukrainians already knew this.
My mother had about a decade of it with my father.
Liike @Flatlander's MIL, my Mum will occasionally have apparently lucid moments when she says things like "I wish I was dead", or "just put me in a home so I can die"
WTF are you meant to do with that? She does have other lucid moments when she seems reasonably happy. I cling on to those
A bitter irony is that many years ago she said to me (about some batty old relative) "if I ever get like that, please smother me with a cushion"
To them it’s West Russian, with False Consciousness among the Right People. The Wrong People will be deleted when normality is restored with the return of Ukraine to Mother Russia. And the Right People de-brainwashed.
So Ukraine must be a puppet of other, Real Countries.