Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

Options

Record breaking Rishi – politicalbetting.com

2456

Comments

  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,427
    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
  • Options
    BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 31,679

    Scott_xP said:

    mwadams said:

    As a broadly Europhile ex-Tory, I have to agree with @Alanbrooke - it was Cameron who destroyed the Tories by failing to understand what it was that the eurosceptics represented, and to whom.

    Nah.

    His mistake was appeasing them.

    He should have expelled them.
    Over 60% of Conservative voters voted Leave, and almost 45% of the parliamentary party.

    Such a policy would have reduced them to a rump.
    It would have saved 10 years then.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,632

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
  • Options
    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,226

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    That's my bet, Oct. Nip in before the US, Rishi still gets his 2 years.
  • Options
    StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,461

    Scott_xP said:

    @jburnmurdoch

    As I said to someone yesterday, we’re moving towards the kind of territory where the Tories could come not second but third.

    Lib Dems would be the leader of the opposition, Tories increasingly peripheral.




    If Richi doesn't go early, the decision will be removed from him...

    The Lib Dem’s won’t come second on vote count. If the Tories collapse to third or lower it will be because Reform has supplanted them.

    I suppose that theoretically there is an outcome where the LDs come second on seat count but I wouldn’t count on it.
    We saw one this morning, with the poll in the header. The MORI shares of the vote run through Electoral Calculus, gives 25 Conservative seats, 47 Lib Dem seats.

    Something similar happened to Scottish Labour. Lots of OKish second and third places, very few wins. Same reaason that UKIP/BXP never broke through at Westminster.

    If your support is spread fairly uniformly, rather than being clustered (e.g. in leafy suburbs and cathedral cities), FPTP does things to you once your national share falls below the high twenties percent. Things that only appear in a TSE metaphor.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626

    SCOTUS rules Trump wrongly removed from the Colorado ballot.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

    But it is great to see SCOTUS can move quickly when required.

    OK, so as I understand that, they duck the question of whether Trump is disqualified, by ruling that whether he is or is not cannot be up to individual States, so attempts by States to kick him off the ballot fail. Yes?
    They've also effectively ruled (by 5/4 vote) that the 14th A is not "self-executing" (unlike other constitutional amendments); that it can only be enforced through Congressional legislation.

    They've pulled that ruling out of their backsides, but it's now the law.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    Scott_xP said:

    mwadams said:

    As a broadly Europhile ex-Tory, I have to agree with @Alanbrooke - it was Cameron who destroyed the Tories by failing to understand what it was that the eurosceptics represented, and to whom.

    Nah.

    His mistake was appeasing them.

    He should have expelled them.
    Over 60% of Conservative voters voted Leave, and almost 45% of the parliamentary party.

    Such a policy would have reduced them to a rump.
    It would have saved 10 years then.
    But it would at least have been the right rump.
  • Options
    mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,140
    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311
    edited March 4

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
  • Options
    Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 13,002
    edited March 4

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Who the fuck is going to go to CHOGM? William will be spooning porridge into a skeleton in a wedding dress by then and probably won't fancy it.
  • Options
    Casino_RoyaleCasino_Royale Posts: 55,358
    Sean_F said:

    file:///C:/Users/Sean/Downloads/Deltapoll-240304_trackers.pdf

    Slightly better news for the Conservatives with Deltapoll

    Labour 41%,
    Con 27%
    Lib Dem 9%
    Reform 12%.

    Lab lead by 42% to 31% on forced choice.

    The forced choice is perhaps the most interesting.

    I can't work out what's going on, other than Reform seem to fairly consistently underperform their polling in real elections.

    There are all sorts of adjustments made my polling companies on weighted turnout and presumed turnout. One will be wrong, but I don't know which.

    My gut tells me that due to the high numbers DKs and general lack of enthusiasm all round - other than a desire to eject the Tories - the campaign will be important in making the difference between a defeat and a total rout.
  • Options
    algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,541
    edited March 4
    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626

    SCOTUS rules Trump wrongly removed from the Colorado ballot.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

    But it is great to see SCOTUS can move quickly when required.

    OK, so as I understand that, they duck the question of whether Trump is disqualified, by ruling that whether he is or is not cannot be up to individual States, so attempts by States to kick him off the ballot fail. Yes?
    Yes but unless I’ve misread it the majority have also said that section 3 is not self executing i.e Congress is the one that needs to decide if someone is eligible or not first. So essentially the chances of Trump being held ineligible are pretty much zero.
    That's not quite correct.
    What the ruling means is that the 14A can only take effect through Congress - but that includes via Congressional legislation.
    See my comment above.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    ROFL

    the old insult the voters patter. Maybe if you had tried to get them on board you would have won.

    Just think Nigel Farage is smarter than you.
  • Options
    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,869
    Jeremy Corbyn
    @jeremycorbyn
    ·
    50m
    I have asked my lawyers to take the first steps in commencing legal proceedings against Nigel Farage, following a highly defamatory statement about me.

    We are a movement for peace — and we cannot stand by and let these disgusting and malicious lies go unchallenged.
  • Options
    TimSTimS Posts: 9,632
    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
  • Options
    mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,140
    Dura_Ace said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Who the fuck is going to go to CHOGM? William will be spooning porridge into a skeleton in a wedding dress by then and probably won't fancy it.
    I guess they'll send that widely loved and well respected figure, The Grand Old Duke of York.
  • Options
    numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,463
    edited March 4
    Nigelb said:

    SCOTUS rules Trump wrongly removed from the Colorado ballot.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

    But it is great to see SCOTUS can move quickly when required.

    OK, so as I understand that, they duck the question of whether Trump is disqualified, by ruling that whether he is or is not cannot be up to individual States, so attempts by States to kick him off the ballot fail. Yes?
    Yes but unless I’ve misread it the majority have also said that section 3 is not self executing i.e Congress is the one that needs to decide if someone is eligible or not first. So essentially the chances of Trump being held ineligible are pretty much zero.
    That's not quite correct.
    What the ruling means is that the 14A can only take effect through Congress - but that includes via Congressional legislation.
    See my comment above.
    So there is, in theory, law on the books which could be used to disqualify him?
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311
    edited March 4

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    ROFL

    the old insult the voters patter. Maybe if you had tried to get them on board you would have won.

    Just think Nigel Farage is smarter than you.
    No. Nigel Farage is a brilliant politician who realises that stupid people believe what they want to believe, regardless of the truth.

    "That" poster, for example, was deliberately stirring up anti-immigrant hatred and it worked. Does that make him smart? Smart is telling the truth.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,635
    Nigelb said:

    SCOTUS rules Trump wrongly removed from the Colorado ballot.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

    But it is great to see SCOTUS can move quickly when required.

    OK, so as I understand that, they duck the question of whether Trump is disqualified, by ruling that whether he is or is not cannot be up to individual States, so attempts by States to kick him off the ballot fail. Yes?
    They've also effectively ruled (by 5/4 vote) that the 14th A is not "self-executing" (unlike other constitutional amendments); that it can only be enforced through Congressional legislation.

    They've pulled that ruling out of their backsides, but it's now the law.
    Thanks, Nigelb and numbertwelve.
  • Options
    bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 7,635
    So, if Congress passed a law banning insurrectionists from standing as President, that would be a constitutionally valid thing for them to do and wouldn't get kicked out by the Supreme Court... but they haven't and seem unlikely to any time soon.
  • Options
    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,869
    Deltapoll
    @DeltapollUK
    ·
    2h
    🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
    Labour lead narrows to fourteen points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
    Con 27% (+4)
    Lab 41% (-3)
    Lib Dem 9% (-2)
    Other 24% (+3)
    Fieldwork: 1st - 4th March 2024
    Sample: 1,500 GB adults
    (Changes from 23rd - 26th February 2024)

    SKS Fans please explain
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    ROFL

    the old insult the voters patter. Maybe if you had tried to get them on board you would have won.

    Just think Nigel Farage is smarter than you.
    No. Nigel Farage is a brilliant politician who realises that stupid people believe what they want to believe, regardless of the truth.

    "That" poster, for example, was deliberately stirring up anti-immigrant hatred and it worked. Does that make him smart? Smart is telling the truth.
    And what was truth ? If a majority of voters said they're not getting anything out of being in the EU then thats their truth, Your truth was different you evidently did. But if the rewards arent being evenly spread it shouldn't surprise you that those missing out see nothing in it for them.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626
    Nigelb said:

    Nigelb said:

    ,

    Sean_F said:

    SCOTUS rules Trump wrongly removed from the Colorado ballot.

    https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-719_19m2.pdf

    But it is great to see SCOTUS can move quickly when required.

    9-0 as well.
    Dissents from Sotamayor, Kagan, and Jackson on quite a few parts.
    And ACB.
    There is one interesting part of the judgment (though given the limited amount of time before the election, it's probably moot anyway).

    ...That law made engaging in insurrection or rebellion, among other acts, a federal crime punishable by disqualification from holding office under the United States. See §§2, 3, 12 Stat. 590. A successor to those provisions remains on the books today. See 18 U. S. C. §2383...

    Probably not an invitation to charge Trump under 18 U.S. Code § 2383 - Rebellion or insurrection, but it could be read as that.
    https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/18/2383#
    Note that the SC ruling doesn't even mention Trump's "double jeopardy" argument, so the ruling therefore upholds the federal court's finding that there’s no double jeopardy problem with indicting and trying someone for an offence Congress failed to convict them for on impeachment.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626
    edited March 4

    So, if Congress passed a law banning insurrectionists from standing as President, that would be a constitutionally valid thing for them to do and wouldn't get kicked out by the Supreme Court... but they haven't and seem unlikely to any time soon.

    There is one still on the books - as the SC today affirmed.
    But it's rather too late now to have much effect before November.
  • Options
    StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,461
    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
  • Options
    Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,850

    Scott_xP said:

    mwadams said:

    As a broadly Europhile ex-Tory, I have to agree with @Alanbrooke - it was Cameron who destroyed the Tories by failing to understand what it was that the eurosceptics represented, and to whom.

    Nah.

    His mistake was appeasing them.

    He should have expelled them.
    Over 60% of Conservative voters voted Leave, and almost 45% of the parliamentary party.

    Such a policy would have reduced them to a rump.
    Such a policy would have seen the Conservatives replaced by UKIP on the right.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    ROFL

    the old insult the voters patter. Maybe if you had tried to get them on board you would have won.

    Just think Nigel Farage is smarter than you.
    No. Nigel Farage is a brilliant politician who realises that stupid people believe what they want to believe, regardless of the truth.

    "That" poster, for example, was deliberately stirring up anti-immigrant hatred and it worked. Does that make him smart? Smart is telling the truth.
    And what was truth ? If a majority of voters said they're not getting anything out of being in the EU then thats their truth, Your truth was different you evidently did. But if the rewards arent being evenly spread it shouldn't surprise you that those missing out see nothing in it for them.
    Yeah sure whatever.

    You hitched your wagon to this. Own it.


  • Options
    mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,140
    TimS said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
    The fabled Shy Tories who appear to exist sometimes (1992, 2015) but not always. I would not be the first to observe that both of those occasions are up against a Labour leader widely derided by centre-right voters.

    1997 is interesting. I feel the polling discrepancy there was mildly overstating Labour rather than under-recording Tories.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    ROFL

    the old insult the voters patter. Maybe if you had tried to get them on board you would have won.

    Just think Nigel Farage is smarter than you.
    No. Nigel Farage is a brilliant politician who realises that stupid people believe what they want to believe, regardless of the truth.

    "That" poster, for example, was deliberately stirring up anti-immigrant hatred and it worked. Does that make him smart? Smart is telling the truth.
    And what was truth ? If a majority of voters said they're not getting anything out of being in the EU then thats their truth, Your truth was different you evidently did. But if the rewards arent being evenly spread it shouldn't surprise you that those missing out see nothing in it for them.
    Yeah sure whatever.

    You hitched your wagon to this. Own it.


    Couldnt we have a picture of the bus ? I can never understand why it hasnt got a seat in Parliament,
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626
    Three more points on the Supreme Court ruling.

    1) They can act very fast in keeping Trump on the ballot; not so much when it comes to deciding on immunity.
    2) The decision that the 14thA is not self-executing is the very opposite of the originalism which the majority regularly professes.
    3) So much for "states' rights". :smiley:
  • Options
    numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,463

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    I suppose they could schedule it for after the US election. In some ways it’s the ultimate known unknown, which could in theory change the political narrative here.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311
    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    mwadams said:

    As a broadly Europhile ex-Tory, I have to agree with @Alanbrooke - it was Cameron who destroyed the Tories by failing to understand what it was that the eurosceptics represented, and to whom.

    Nah.

    His mistake was appeasing them.

    He should have expelled them.
    Over 60% of Conservative voters voted Leave, and almost 45% of the parliamentary party.

    Such a policy would have reduced them to a rump.
    Such a policy would have seen the Conservatives replaced by UKIP on the right.
    Maybe. It is an interesting counter-factual. But look at the Cons now. Embracing, then appeasing, then being destroyed by the right. It's difficult to see how it could have been too much worse. A Cons party setting itself against the right might have seen extra people drawn to the party.
  • Options
    bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 21,869
    edited March 4

    Jeremy Corbyn
    @jeremycorbyn
    ·
    50m
    I have asked my lawyers to take the first steps in commencing legal proceedings against Nigel Farage, following a highly defamatory statement about me.

    We are a movement for peace — and we cannot stand by and let these disgusting and malicious lies go unchallenged.

    Not before time.

    It is believed that the action follows a statement made by Farage, while presenting on the GB News channel, in which he linked Corbyn to antisemitic conspiracy theories.

    Note SKS was very careful in his motion to stop Jezza being a Lab Candidate at GE 2024. No mention at all of Antisemitism
  • Options
    numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 5,463
    edited March 4
    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
    The fabled Shy Tories who appear to exist sometimes (1992, 2015) but not always. I would not be the first to observe that both of those occasions are up against a Labour leader widely derided by centre-right voters.

    1997 is interesting. I feel the polling discrepancy there was mildly overstating Labour rather than under-recording Tories.
    It would be interesting to know if any research has been done on the effect on polling of someone wanting to be seen to back the likely winner. In a case where the winner of a GE becomes inevitable (in this case, Labour), is there something in it that more people are likely to say they’ll vote that way, but might not in the privacy of the polling booth?
  • Options
    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,427
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
  • Options
    TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 114,472

    Jeremy Corbyn
    @jeremycorbyn
    ·
    50m
    I have asked my lawyers to take the first steps in commencing legal proceedings against Nigel Farage, following a highly defamatory statement about me.

    We are a movement for peace — and we cannot stand by and let these disgusting and malicious lies go unchallenged.

    Not before time.

    It is believed that the action follows a statement made by Farage, while presenting on the GB News channel, in which he linked Corbyn to antisemitic conspiracy theories.

    Note SKS was very careful in his motion to stop Jezza being a Lab Candidate at GE 2024. No mention at all of Antisemitism
    This is a case that is only going to make the lawyers rich.

    Hurrah.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2018/mar/23/corbyn-criticised-after-backing-artist-behind-antisemitic-mural
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    Amazing

    Hunt claiming he wants a low tax economy.

    Err you put the taxes up mate.
  • Options
    noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,761
    Sean_F said:

    Scott_xP said:

    mwadams said:

    As a broadly Europhile ex-Tory, I have to agree with @Alanbrooke - it was Cameron who destroyed the Tories by failing to understand what it was that the eurosceptics represented, and to whom.

    Nah.

    His mistake was appeasing them.

    He should have expelled them.
    Over 60% of Conservative voters voted Leave, and almost 45% of the parliamentary party.

    Such a policy would have reduced them to a rump.
    Such a policy would have seen the Conservatives replaced by UKIP on the right.
    Better than being taken over by Bluekip.
  • Options
    kamskikamski Posts: 4,255
    Leon said:

    kamski said:

    Leon said:

    TOPPING said:

    Leon said:

    Fpt for @JosiasJessop

    “The idea of jetting halfway across the world to stay for a few days in an 'eco' lodge is hilariously ridiculous.”

    Why? I’m having a lovely time. It’s beautiful



    Come and join me in by the waterfall for a cup of excellent Malbec. When it gets too hot you can swim in the river. Its idyllic

    What’s wrong with that??

    Red wine in the tropics is all wrong. You should stick to the local beer. And spirits if you must.
    Dude, I’m about to take one of the strongest hallucinogens known to man with one of its most famous exponents, surrounded by a team of world class scientists (and a film crew) investigating its extraordinary, possibly paradigm-changing entheogenic qualities, I don’t need a lecture on my choice of more minor intoxicants. But thanks anyway
    You're disrespecting the medicine. No good will come of this.
    I have taken advice from Kunaq the ayahuasquero himself. I’m doing a short dieta

    He said a cup of calming red wine is not a problem. No beer or spirits on the day tho. No red meat. No sex (I wish: there’s a beautiful English costume designer here, who keeps swimming in the waterfall, sigh).

    Oh god she’s swimming again. I may have to pretend to read my simon bolivar biography
    Well I'll bow to the greater authority. But have you considered the possibility that you might get more from it if instead of posting on here, you spent a little while considering what's happening in your life that makes you feel the need for such a strong, even extreme, remedy?
  • Options
    algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,541

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    Yes. Meeks basically says that if Labour do very badly from here their majority will only be about 110, and Ipsos says the Tories will get about 40 seats on their current polling. Christmas says January is out, Trump says October onwards is out, summer hols says August and September are out, being well beaten on 2nd May means June and July are out, and 2nd May is out because they are going to be beaten on 2nd May come what may.

    Maybe Rishi should stick to chess, and its many opportunities for zugswang.
  • Options
    TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 114,472

    Amazing

    Hunt claiming he wants a low tax economy.

    Err you put the taxes up mate.

    So do all good Tories when the public finances are up shit creek, see Thatcher & Howe and Dave & George.

    Sound money has gone out of fashion.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755

    Amazing

    Hunt claiming he wants a low tax economy.

    Err you put the taxes up mate.

    So do all good Tories when the public finances are up shit creek, see Thatcher & Howe and Dave & George.

    Sound money has gone out of fashion.
    Fashions change.
  • Options
    RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 27,241

    Jeremy Corbyn
    @jeremycorbyn
    ·
    50m
    I have asked my lawyers to take the first steps in commencing legal proceedings against Nigel Farage, following a highly defamatory statement about me.

    We are a movement for peace — and we cannot stand by and let these disgusting and malicious lies go unchallenged.

    "We"? Would love to see Corbyn do as Galloway suggests and lead the crank left, but until he does there is only he, not we.
  • Options
    theenglishborntheenglishborn Posts: 162
    Not numbers to boast about certainly
  • Options
    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,226
    Nigelb said:

    Three more points on the Supreme Court ruling.

    1) They can act very fast in keeping Trump on the ballot; not so much when it comes to deciding on immunity.
    2) The decision that the 14thA is not self-executing is the very opposite of the originalism which the majority regularly professes.
    3) So much for "states' rights". :smiley:

    I think "States' Rights" means to do Republican things like banning abortion.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311
    edited March 4

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755

    Jeremy Corbyn
    @jeremycorbyn
    ·
    50m
    I have asked my lawyers to take the first steps in commencing legal proceedings against Nigel Farage, following a highly defamatory statement about me.

    We are a movement for peace — and we cannot stand by and let these disgusting and malicious lies go unchallenged.

    "We"? Would love to see Corbyn do as Galloway suggests and lead the crank left, but until he does there is only he, not we.
    I can think of very few things on which I would agree with Galloway. But it is a refreshing change to see a politician with principles.
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,794

    Nigelb said:

    Perhaps MarqueeMark, Casino Royale, and HYUFD would like to explain why they felt so strongly that this useless article was the key to restoring the party's electoral fortunes.

    Perhaps everyone attacking the Tory membership 'loonies' and their role in leadership elections should apologise, given that clearly they realised that he was a completely empty suit in the hustings and voted as wisely as possible given the choice that they were presented with by MPs.

    I would just say Truss was worse, much worse, and handed labour the biggest gift on fiscal probity that could have had on their wildest dreams, far far worse than ' there is no money'

    And of course in the last week she has been making an utter fool of herself in the USv
    But yet at her polling nadir, she polled better than Sunak is now, and it's almost impossible to conceive of a situation whereby the passage of time would not have improved her polling still further.
    You have a limited imagination, then.
    Her fiscal plans have been shown by hindsight to have been entirely affordable. Had her platform been implemented, we'd have had no CT rise, and a raft of policies aimed at tackling inflation at its root cause by increasing domestic supply of energy and food. I think it very unlikely we'd have dipped into recession, and that would have improved the public finances, which are massively skewed by growth or lack of it.
    Who by? Can you post a link? Thanks!
    I cannot speak to hindsight, but opinion at the time is that it was stupid. That's not me summarising, that's a quote. Specifically this quote:

    “Are they stupid?!” – Liz Truss economics explained", Gary Stevenson interview, The New Statesman, 17 Oct 2022, see https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcLw8cT5Lgs
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,011
    The only reason Sunak has the lowest rating from Ipsos is is did not poll at the end of the Truss premiership when other pollsters had the Tories below 20%.

    There is little evidence Cameron would win back enough voters from Labour to make up for further leakage to Reform
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856
    edited March 4
    Cameron and Hague/Hammond - who were FSs during 2010-2016 - simply failed to make the Conservative case for EU membership.

    Essay crisis Cameron tried to do in the run up to the actual referendum, but by then it was too late.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Three more points on the Supreme Court ruling.

    1) They can act very fast in keeping Trump on the ballot; not so much when it comes to deciding on immunity.
    2) The decision that the 14thA is not self-executing is the very opposite of the originalism which the majority regularly professes.
    3) So much for "states' rights". :smiley:

    I think "States' Rights" means to do Republican things like banning abortion.
    It was always a crock of shit slogan, rather any kind of principle.
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth..
    That's an Almighty assumption.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311
    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth..
    That's an Almighty assumption.
    I mean I am not the site's expert on The Above but that is certainly my understanding.
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,658

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
    The fabled Shy Tories who appear to exist sometimes (1992, 2015) but not always. I would not be the first to observe that both of those occasions are up against a Labour leader widely derided by centre-right voters.

    1997 is interesting. I feel the polling discrepancy there was mildly overstating Labour rather than under-recording Tories.
    It would be interesting to know if any research has been done on the effect on polling of someone wanting to be seen to back the likely winner. In a case where the winner of a GE becomes inevitable (in this case, Labour), is there something in it that more people are likely to say they’ll vote that way, but might not in the privacy of the polling booth?

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
    The fabled Shy Tories who appear to exist sometimes (1992, 2015) but not always. I would not be the first to observe that both of those occasions are up against a Labour leader widely derided by centre-right voters.

    1997 is interesting. I feel the polling discrepancy there was mildly overstating Labour rather than under-recording Tories.
    It would be interesting to know if any research has been done on the effect on polling of someone wanting to be seen to back the likely winner. In a case where the winner of a GE becomes inevitable (in this case, Labour), is there something in it that more people are likely to say they’ll vote that way, but might not in the privacy of the polling booth?
    Notably IPSOS/Mori is a telephone rather than online poll, so perhaps open to that bias.

    On the other hand there was a time when we thought telephone polls more accurate. I think they are the only one left now persisting with the format.
  • Options
    HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 117,011
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Three more points on the Supreme Court ruling.

    1) They can act very fast in keeping Trump on the ballot; not so much when it comes to deciding on immunity.
    2) The decision that the 14thA is not self-executing is the very opposite of the originalism which the majority regularly professes.
    3) So much for "states' rights". :smiley:

    I think "States' Rights" means to do Republican things like banning abortion.
    To be fair the SC ruled states can ban candidates from state offices just as they can ban abortion in their state. However only Congress can ban candidates for Federal office as only Congress and the President could ban abortion US wide by amendment.

    Probably fair Trump was kept on the ballot anyway, in any case the only states trying to ban him were blue states like Colorado and Illinois so it makes little practical difference. We will see tomorrow if Haley can add more states to her DC win, if the Republican primaries were limited to graduates earning over two hundred thousand dollars a year she might even beat Trump!

    Then we have Trump's first criminal trial at the end of the month
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856
    As far as I know “State’s Rights” began and largely maintains as an argument for States to ignore progressive federal legislation, especially around race.

    That’s not to say there’s no merit in it though.
    Brits tend to underestimate the tenacious belief of many Americans in liberty. I find the notion admirable, if many of the effects baleful.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    1 and 2 are essentially uncorrelated with EU membership. For 3, Britain has its own budget clusterfuck which is more materially important to people than the current EU one (which will be resolved). I’ve not idea what 4 refers to really.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
  • Options
    viewcodeviewcode Posts: 18,794
    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth..
    That's an Almighty assumption.
    I mean I am not the site's expert on The Above but that is certainly my understanding.
    Well give it a couple of hours and you can ask @Leon :smile:
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856
    edited March 4
    I have long said that Brexit only makes sense as an exercise in improving democracy.

    But then it turned out that the Brexiters had no actual interest in improving democracy.
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,625
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    The Remain campaign warned us that Leave would mean wages going up. Some of us were prepared to take that risk.
  • Options
    AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,999

    Deltapoll
    @DeltapollUK
    ·
    2h
    🚨🚨New Voting Intention🚨🚨
    Labour lead narrows to fourteen points in the latest results from Deltapoll.
    Con 27% (+4)
    Lab 41% (-3)
    Lib Dem 9% (-2)
    Other 24% (+3)
    Fieldwork: 1st - 4th March 2024
    Sample: 1,500 GB adults
    (Changes from 23rd - 26th February 2024)

    SKS Fans please explain

    Erm, that you are cherry-picking polls again?

    Presumably you saw the Mori survey?
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    As far as I know “State’s Rights” began and largely maintains as an argument for States to ignore progressive federal legislation, especially around race.

    That’s not to say there’s no merit in it though.
    Brits tend to underestimate the tenacious belief of many Americans in liberty. I find the notion admirable, if many of the effects baleful.

    Yes it was the clarion call for slavery over (the refusal to accept) abolition.
  • Options
    SirNorfolkPassmoreSirNorfolkPassmore Posts: 6,259
    edited March 4
    kinabalu said:

    Nigelb said:

    Three more points on the Supreme Court ruling.

    1) They can act very fast in keeping Trump on the ballot; not so much when it comes to deciding on immunity.
    2) The decision that the 14thA is not self-executing is the very opposite of the originalism which the majority regularly professes.
    3) So much for "states' rights". :smiley:

    I think "States' Rights" means to do Republican things like banning abortion.
    Whilst I disagree with the Supreme Court's position on abortion, the distinction between that and invoking the insurrectionist clause is perfectly clear.

    It is entirely possible for abortion access to be much more restricted in Alabama than in Colorado based on different democratic decisions in those states. But it is simply not possible for someone to be President of the United States in Alabama but not Colorado. That is the point I have made from the very start of the discussion on this issue, and not just the conservative but also the liberal justices agreed on that.

    It doesn't make "states' rights" meaningless at all. A federal system doesn't involve all decisions being devolved to states - indeed it can't, or it simply isn't a federation but 50 independent territories. There can still be wide disagreement between conservative and liberal justices over how narrowly you interpret powers given to the federal government and how widely those to state governments, without either taking an absolutist position.
  • Options
    TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,710

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    The increase from a campaign period from 17 to 25 working days has really drawn out the campaign period.

    Ted Heath was able to call an election in early February to hold it by the end of the same month. That's now impossible, and the likelihood of bank holidays and weekends can easily mean 25 days isn't 5 weeks, but is 5 weeks and so many extra days.
    (The latest date on Wikipedia for 28th January, which I think is correct - is because dissolution occurs on Tuesday 17th December, 5 weeks later is Wednesday 22nd January but because there are so many bloomin' bank holidays (25th, 26th December, 1st and 2nd January are all bank holidays in all or part of the UK) that the election could be as late as Tuesday 28th January).

    But the point you make is very valid. Campaign periods now span at least 5 weeks, and no date is a good date anymore as something will be disrupted by campaigning.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    The Remain campaign warned us that Leave would mean wages going up. Some of us were prepared to take that risk.
    The Remain campaign warned of the opposite, at least in its formal/official guise. You obviously weren’t paying much attention.
  • Options
    AlsoLeiAlsoLei Posts: 609
    Foxy said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
    The fabled Shy Tories who appear to exist sometimes (1992, 2015) but not always. I would not be the first to observe that both of those occasions are up against a Labour leader widely derided by centre-right voters.

    1997 is interesting. I feel the polling discrepancy there was mildly overstating Labour rather than under-recording Tories.
    It would be interesting to know if any research has been done on the effect on polling of someone wanting to be seen to back the likely winner. In a case where the winner of a GE becomes inevitable (in this case, Labour), is there something in it that more people are likely to say they’ll vote that way, but might not in the privacy of the polling booth?

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    mwadams said:

    TimS said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    October surely not out of the question now as it’s highly questionable KCIII will be undertaking international travel for the foreseeable, successful treatment or no.
    Thing is on the Deltapoll numbers it's all to play for with a juicy 12% Reform vote to squeeze (and it will be squeezed).
    Except the forced choice question does not suggest a huge amount of squeezing is possible.
    I'd wager there are plenty of people who will tell pollsters they'll never vote Tory in a thousand years even if it's them or Labour, who will amble down the booth on polling day and cast their vote for the conservatives. Twas ever thus.
    The fabled Shy Tories who appear to exist sometimes (1992, 2015) but not always. I would not be the first to observe that both of those occasions are up against a Labour leader widely derided by centre-right voters.

    1997 is interesting. I feel the polling discrepancy there was mildly overstating Labour rather than under-recording Tories.
    It would be interesting to know if any research has been done on the effect on polling of someone wanting to be seen to back the likely winner. In a case where the winner of a GE becomes inevitable (in this case, Labour), is there something in it that more people are likely to say they’ll vote that way, but might not in the privacy of the polling booth?
    Notably IPSOS/Mori is a telephone rather than online poll, so perhaps open to that bias.

    On the other hand there was a time when we thought telephone polls more accurate. I think they are the only one left now persisting with the format.
    Though back then the alternative was face-to-face, which you'd expect to have been even more vulnerable to the spiral of silence.

    I'm astonished that anyone's still doing phone polling, tbh. Do they contact people by email first to arrange a convenient time? Or is it actual cold calling? I can't imagine that the proportion of people who'd answer an unknown number is very high these days...
  • Options
    NigelbNigelb Posts: 62,626

    As far as I know “State’s Rights” began and largely maintains as an argument for States to ignore progressive federal legislation, especially around race.

    That’s not to say there’s no merit in it though.
    Brits tend to underestimate the tenacious belief of many Americans in liberty. I find the notion admirable, if many of the effects baleful.

    It might be admirable, if it were ever applied as a principle rather than a political tactic. to be discarded at will.
    US conservatives have rarely shown any interest at all in states' rights when they wish to implement illiberal federal legislation.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856
    Nigelb said:

    As far as I know “State’s Rights” began and largely maintains as an argument for States to ignore progressive federal legislation, especially around race.

    That’s not to say there’s no merit in it though.
    Brits tend to underestimate the tenacious belief of many Americans in liberty. I find the notion admirable, if many of the effects baleful.

    It might be admirable, if it were ever applied as a principle rather than a political tactic. to be discarded at will.
    US conservatives have rarely shown any interest at all in states' rights when they wish to implement illiberal federal legislation.
    Echoes my point about Brexit, above.
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,272

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    The increase from a campaign period from 17 to 25 working days has really drawn out the campaign period.

    Ted Heath was able to call an election in early February to hold it by the end of the same month. That's now impossible, and the likelihood of bank holidays and weekends can easily mean 25 days isn't 5 weeks, but is 5 weeks and so many extra days.
    (The latest date on Wikipedia for 28th January, which I think is correct - is because dissolution occurs on Tuesday 17th December, 5 weeks later is Wednesday 22nd January but because there are so many bloomin' bank holidays (25th, 26th December, 1st and 2nd January are all bank holidays in all or part of the UK) that the election could be as late as Tuesday 28th January).

    But the point you make is very valid. Campaign periods now span at least 5 weeks, and no date is a good date anymore as something will be disrupted by campaigning.
    In terms of the impact on summer holidays, relatively few Tory voters will have school-age children. It might even work to the Tories advantage to hold an election at the end of August, with most of the campaign period over the school summer holidays.
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,956

    Scott_xP said:

    mwadams said:

    As a broadly Europhile ex-Tory, I have to agree with @Alanbrooke - it was Cameron who destroyed the Tories by failing to understand what it was that the eurosceptics represented, and to whom.

    Nah.

    His mistake was appeasing them.

    He should have expelled them.
    Over 60% of Conservative voters voted Leave, and almost 45% of the parliamentary party.

    Such a policy would have reduced them to a rump.
    They are about to be a rump.

    They could have done so with dignity, instead they fked everything up and got to the same place in the end
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
  • Options
    FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,658
    viewcode said:

    TOPPING said:

    Nigelb said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth..
    That's an Almighty assumption.
    I mean I am not the site's expert on The Above but that is certainly my understanding.
    Well give it a couple of hours and you can ask @Leon :smile:
    If the Godhead can only be accessed by getting stoned in the jungle with a bunch of new age nerds then we are truly beyond salvation.
  • Options
    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,625

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    The Remain campaign warned us that Leave would mean wages going up. Some of us were prepared to take that risk.
    The Remain campaign warned of the opposite, at least in its formal/official guise. You obviously weren’t paying much attention.
    So Sir Stuart Rose was not an official spokesperson for the Remain campaign?

    Well he was, until he put his foot in it, then he was never seen from again.

    See here...

    https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-10/it-was-project-fear-and-it-didnt-work-head-of-remain-campaign-says-economic-dangers-of-brexit-were-exaggerated


    "Stuart Rose was head of Britain Stronger in Europe until the polling day on 23 June but he says he was “withdrawn from the front line” in March after being “slightly off message once or twice"."
  • Options
    mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,140

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    The increase from a campaign period from 17 to 25 working days has really drawn out the campaign period.

    Ted Heath was able to call an election in early February to hold it by the end of the same month. That's now impossible, and the likelihood of bank holidays and weekends can easily mean 25 days isn't 5 weeks, but is 5 weeks and so many extra days.
    (The latest date on Wikipedia for 28th January, which I think is correct - is because dissolution occurs on Tuesday 17th December, 5 weeks later is Wednesday 22nd January but because there are so many bloomin' bank holidays (25th, 26th December, 1st and 2nd January are all bank holidays in all or part of the UK) that the election could be as late as Tuesday 28th January).

    But the point you make is very valid. Campaign periods now span at least 5 weeks, and no date is a good date anymore as something will be disrupted by campaigning.
    In terms of the impact on summer holidays, relatively few Tory voters will have school-age children. It might even work to the Tories advantage to hold an election at the end of August, with most of the campaign period over the school summer holidays.
    That might increase the number of postal votes which decreases the impact of a campaign. Whether that's a good thing for Sunak depends on whether you subscribe to a view that the campaign will help or hinder the Tories.
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    The Remain campaign warned us that Leave would mean wages going up. Some of us were prepared to take that risk.
    The Remain campaign warned of the opposite, at least in its formal/official guise. You obviously weren’t paying much attention.
    So Sir Stuart Rose was not an official spokesperson for the Remain campaign?

    Well he was, until he put his foot in it, then he was never seen from again.

    See here...

    https://www.itv.com/news/2021-06-10/it-was-project-fear-and-it-didnt-work-head-of-remain-campaign-says-economic-dangers-of-brexit-were-exaggerated


    "Stuart Rose was head of Britain Stronger in Europe until the polling day on 23 June but he says he was “withdrawn from the front line” in March after being “slightly off message once or twice"."
    As you note, off message.
    And also entirely wrong, as we can see from actual wage performance.
  • Options
    TazTaz Posts: 11,182
    Tony Green, darting royalty, is no longer with us.

    https://x.com/dartsbehindthe/status/1764690485367460344?s=61
  • Options
    kinabalukinabalu Posts: 39,226

    I have long said that Brexit only makes sense as an exercise in improving democracy.

    But then it turned out that the Brexiters had no actual interest in improving democracy.

    In practical terms to make sense of leaving the EU we need to do some serious beneficial popular things we could not have done as a member. However there doesn't seem to be any. All the things we can now do that we previously couldn't are either trivial, harmful or unpopular.
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
    In a nutshell. We only have ourselves to blame. Although for some reason people chose/choose to blame the EU. It's absurd. Ukraine, Covid, all the rest we could have done what we did while a member. But as you say, we have had this strange relationship with the EU and now we've left. If people had any reasonable reason to leave I would be less irritated but they don't so I am.

    That said, I am not going to spend a moment longer discussing it as we have done this enough on here.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
    In a nutshell. We only have ourselves to blame. Although for some reason people chose/choose to blame the EU. It's absurd. Ukraine, Covid, all the rest we could have done what we did while a member. But as you say, we have had this strange relationship with the EU and now we've left. If people had any reasonable reason to leave I would be less irritated but they don't so I am.

    That said, I am not going to spend a moment longer discussing it as we have done this enough on here.
    I admire your optimism.
    It only takes one post to set the whole thing off again. :smiley:
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856
    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
    In a nutshell. We only have ourselves to blame. Although for some reason people chose/choose to blame the EU. It's absurd. Ukraine, Covid, all the rest we could have done what we did while a member. But as you say, we have had this strange relationship with the EU and now we've left. If people had any reasonable reason to leave I would be less irritated but they don't so I am.

    That said, I am not going to spend a moment longer discussing it as we have done this enough on here.
    We have done it to death.
    But there is progress of sorts with Alanbrooke basically conceding the whole premise for Brexit was bollocks.
  • Options
    TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,710
    TOPPING said:



    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.

    It's correct, but its better to say that a non-trivial proportion of VOTERS (leave and remain) have no idea why they are voting, nor the implications. Most people don't even bother thinking about politics until a week before the general election. Most people... yes A MAJORITY of voters, don't even think about it on the day itself. They dutifully rock up and vote Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem, or dutifully can't be bothered getting off the sofa.

    7th May 2015 - in the car with a friend of my wife's (I'm in Bootle remember):
    "So who you voting for?" I asked.
    "Well, the country isn't doing so well. I blame the immigrants, and those people who claim benefits who don't deserve it...." this rant continues for several minutes whilst she basically manages to trot out the entire UKIP manifesto without actually having read it.

    .... "So UKIP then?" I eventually venture.

    "UKIP??? I'm voting LABOUR! I always vote Labour!"

    You'd think this is unusual. I assure you it's not. More than half the people in this country will vote what they did last time/what their parents told them to do/because their great grandfather was a founding member of the Bootle Labour party.......

    People don't think about their vote. They never do.

    We're the nutters. Us. On this board. No one thinks about their vote except on the day itself, and even then its simply to go, "Oh I know Peter Dowd has personally been round to my house and stolen all my money, but you know, he's a good sort really. It's Bootle. I'll vote Labour."
  • Options
    TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 41,311

    TOPPING said:



    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.

    It's correct, but its better to say that a non-trivial proportion of VOTERS (leave and remain) have no idea why they are voting, nor the implications. Most people don't even bother thinking about politics until a week before the general election. Most people... yes A MAJORITY of voters, don't even think about it on the day itself. They dutifully rock up and vote Labour/Conservative/Lib Dem, or dutifully can't be bothered getting off the sofa.

    7th May 2015 - in the car with a friend of my wife's (I'm in Bootle remember):
    "So who you voting for?" I asked.
    "Well, the country isn't doing so well. I blame the immigrants, and those people who claim benefits who don't deserve it...." this rant continues for several minutes whilst she basically manages to trot out the entire UKIP manifesto without actually having read it.

    .... "So UKIP then?" I eventually venture.

    "UKIP??? I'm voting LABOUR! I always vote Labour!"

    You'd think this is unusual. I assure you it's not. More than half the people in this country will vote what they did last time/what their parents told them to do/because their great grandfather was a founding member of the Bootle Labour party.......

    People don't think about their vote. They never do.

    We're the nutters. Us. On this board. No one thinks about their vote except on the day itself, and even then its simply to go, "Oh I know Peter Dowd has personally been round to my house and stolen all my money, but you know, he's a good sort really. It's Bootle. I'll vote Labour."
    That is true. We are the outliers here.
  • Options
    TheValiantTheValiant Posts: 1,710

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    The increase from a campaign period from 17 to 25 working days has really drawn out the campaign period.

    Ted Heath was able to call an election in early February to hold it by the end of the same month. That's now impossible, and the likelihood of bank holidays and weekends can easily mean 25 days isn't 5 weeks, but is 5 weeks and so many extra days.
    (The latest date on Wikipedia for 28th January, which I think is correct - is because dissolution occurs on Tuesday 17th December, 5 weeks later is Wednesday 22nd January but because there are so many bloomin' bank holidays (25th, 26th December, 1st and 2nd January are all bank holidays in all or part of the UK) that the election could be as late as Tuesday 28th January).

    But the point you make is very valid. Campaign periods now span at least 5 weeks, and no date is a good date anymore as something will be disrupted by campaigning.
    In terms of the impact on summer holidays, relatively few Tory voters will have school-age children. It might even work to the Tories advantage to hold an election at the end of August, with most of the campaign period over the school summer holidays.
    Very true, but a lot of journalists do have school age children.
    Try and run a late August election and I think even the Daily Mail would run a 'don't vote Conservative people. I've had my holiday cancelled' story.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
    In a nutshell. We only have ourselves to blame. Although for some reason people chose/choose to blame the EU. It's absurd. Ukraine, Covid, all the rest we could have done what we did while a member. But as you say, we have had this strange relationship with the EU and now we've left. If people had any reasonable reason to leave I would be less irritated but they don't so I am.

    That said, I am not going to spend a moment longer discussing it as we have done this enough on here.
    We have done it to death.
    But there is progress of sorts with Alanbrooke basically conceding the whole premise for Brexit was bollocks.
    LOL I hadn't realise I had, Put the vote before me tomorrow and Ill still vote Leave,
  • Options
    GardenwalkerGardenwalker Posts: 20,856

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
    In a nutshell. We only have ourselves to blame. Although for some reason people chose/choose to blame the EU. It's absurd. Ukraine, Covid, all the rest we could have done what we did while a member. But as you say, we have had this strange relationship with the EU and now we've left. If people had any reasonable reason to leave I would be less irritated but they don't so I am.

    That said, I am not going to spend a moment longer discussing it as we have done this enough on here.
    We have done it to death.
    But there is progress of sorts with Alanbrooke basically conceding the whole premise for Brexit was bollocks.
    LOL I hadn't realise I had, Put the vote before me tomorrow and Ill still vote Leave,
    Sure. But for essentially nihilistic, chaotic, and avowedly absurd reasons. You’re no longer pretending your own incoherence means anything for the rest of us.
  • Options
    rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,249

    Philip Cowley
    @philipjcowley
    I have long thought the election will be late 24 or even early 25. But I can see two things might work towards it being earlier

    https://twitter.com/philipjcowley/status/1764613431917720000
  • Options
    PJHPJH Posts: 485
    algarkirk said:

    algarkirk said:

    Dura_Ace said:

    Looks like May 2nd is out the window on those numbers.

    It'll have to be January. Tumour King is wowing the Antipodeans in October with his unique brand of testy incoherence and then we are into Season 2 of The Trump Show and then it's Christmas.

    The dissolution by operation of law (as opposed to Rishi's earlier choice) in mid December means that any January election has to run the campaign over Christmas. This will not happen.

    An election avoiding the Trump taint has to be by early October, preferably earlier. July or September are the options.
    If Rishi wants to avoid the school holidays, July means early July, which means calling the election in mid May... just after being tonked in the local elections. September means calling the election in August, which is going to intefere badly with everyone's summer holiday.

    Basically, there are no good dates after May 2nd. But the polls imply that that's also terrible.

    The chess term is zugzwang.
    Yes. Meeks basically says that if Labour do very badly from here their majority will only be about 110, and Ipsos says the Tories will get about 40 seats on their current polling. Christmas says January is out, Trump says October onwards is out, summer hols says August and September are out, being well beaten on 2nd May means June and July are out, and 2nd May is out because they are going to be beaten on 2nd May come what may.

    Maybe Rishi should stick to chess, and its many opportunities for zugswang.
    I feel the least bad option for the Conservative Party is May. After that things just get worse, not least the impression of staying long after they are welcome.

    On the other hand, the best option for Sunak personally is to hang on. 2 years in post. Something might turn up.

    And as always, deciding not to decide is the easiest decision.

    January it is then. Bur surely not, honestly?
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,822
    edited March 4

    Sean_F said:

    file:///C:/Users/Sean/Downloads/Deltapoll-240304_trackers.pdf

    Slightly better news for the Conservatives with Deltapoll

    Labour 41%,
    Con 27%
    Lib Dem 9%
    Reform 12%.

    Lab lead by 42% to 31% on forced choice.

    The forced choice is perhaps the most interesting.

    I can't work out what's going on, other than Reform seem to fairly consistently underperform their polling in real elections.

    There are all sorts of adjustments made my polling companies on weighted turnout and presumed turnout. One will be wrong, but I don't know which.

    My gut tells me that due to the high numbers DKs and general lack of enthusiasm all round - other than a desire to eject the Tories - the campaign will be important in making the difference between a defeat and a total rout.
    We know that historically the pollsters have often overestimated Labour, especially when the Tories are unpopular.

    I think the polls that put Con in the upper twenties and Lab in the low forties are probably closer to the reality but time will tell.
  • Options
    AlanbrookeAlanbrooke Posts: 23,755

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    And yet what about those poor Remain voters beaten in to submission by project Fear ? Poor confused folk frightened in to voting for something they didnt understand and in many cases against their own interests.

    Oh they understood it perfectly. Pointless, negative, self-defeating, for no particular gain, and expensive. That was Brexit.

    Can you now please for example list three things that are better off because we Brexited.
    Sure

    1. defending Ukraine
    2. Covid vaccines
    3. We are not in a budget clusterfuck as the EU is at present
    4. and just for the record we are not being forced to slaughter the national cow herd because some bloke in Brussels thinks its a good idea.
    All of which we could have done while still in the EU.

    You really have nothing. Or wait. Do you actually believe that the nasty EU who appear, as you see it, to be incompetent and useless, are able to stop the mighty Brittannia from doing whatever the hell we want to do. I mean they couldn't even stop us leaving.

    Dear god I'm not sure which is worse.

    If you really live your day to day life thinking that being in the EU prevented us doing 99.5% of what we wanted to do (zero-rating VAT on home energy supplies I'll give you) no wonder people believe the UK is in the state it's in today.
    No.

    the EU took ages to get its shit together.
    the Covid vaccine grab is well documented,
    the budget clusterfuck I agree but its not a positive.
    and you may have noticed the farmers anger

    Personally I have no great fear of the EU, even when we were in it I sort of put up with it. I think you do the usual thing
    of rush to an extreme and tar the opposition with your worst nightmares. A lot of things we blamed the EU for lay within our own politicians ability to do, but they were spineless and took the easy way our. The french and germans by contrast fought their corners so we have only ourselves to blame,
    In a nutshell. We only have ourselves to blame. Although for some reason people chose/choose to blame the EU. It's absurd. Ukraine, Covid, all the rest we could have done what we did while a member. But as you say, we have had this strange relationship with the EU and now we've left. If people had any reasonable reason to leave I would be less irritated but they don't so I am.

    That said, I am not going to spend a moment longer discussing it as we have done this enough on here.
    We have done it to death.
    But there is progress of sorts with Alanbrooke basically conceding the whole premise for Brexit was bollocks.
    LOL I hadn't realise I had, Put the vote before me tomorrow and Ill still vote Leave,
    Sure. But for essentially nihilistic, chaotic, and avowedly absurd reasons. You’re no longer pretending your own incoherence means anything for the rest of us.
    Hmmm

    youre still stinging from a lost vote 8 years ago.

    The vote simply said the voters thought leaving the country in the hands of people like yourself wasnt a great idea.

    As for incoherence youre a Kiwi living in America fretting about a country you dont like.

  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,956
    PJH said:

    On the other hand, the best option for Sunak personally is to hang on. 2 years in post. Something might turn up.

    If Richi tries to hang on, what will turn up is the men in grey suits with the Whisky and the pearl-handled revolver...
  • Options
    GIN1138GIN1138 Posts: 20,822
    edited March 4
    Taz said:

    Tony Green, darting royalty, is no longer with us.

    https://x.com/dartsbehindthe/status/1764690485367460344?s=61

    Innnnnnnnnnn One!

    RIP!
  • Options
    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 32,956
    @RedfieldWilton
    Labour leads by 20%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (3 Mar):

    Labour 43% (–)
    Conservative 23% (–)
    Reform UK 13% (+1)
    Liberal Democrat 10% (–)
    Green 6% (-2)
    Scottish National Party 3% (–)
    Other 2% (–)

    Changes +/- 25 Feb
  • Options
    FF43FF43 Posts: 15,722
    edited March 4

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    TOPPING said:

    Oh god we're not here again, are we? As it stood there were around 4m people (12% of the electorate) who wanted a Brexit referendum and used their democratic welly to bring it about. Exactly as it should be. Had Dave not agreed to the referendum there is every chance that the Cons wouldn't have won the GE. Dave did it for this reason. It's simple (and effective) politics.

    And he thought the answer, in a delivery was to have the referendum and win.

    Doesn’t take many butterflies in 52% vs 48%

    For example, at the start of the coalition, the Lib Dems blocked such a referendum which would have been a 60% vs 40% for Remain, minimum, then.
    Well his big error was in thinking that a large enough proportion of the people were vaguely intelligent. There was no provision for the idiots, who, it turns out, won it for Leave.
    Insulting the voters you don’t like, even harder, would have won it?

    Luigi Cadorna would have approved this message.
    Look we are where we are. A non-trivial proportion of Leave voters had no idea why they were voting for Leave nor the implications of having done so, and are likely the first to complain about the increased red tape and inconvenience as a result of having voted that way.

    That is just the plain god's honest truth. I mean you can call it an insult but it is the case. Of course you have the sincere but misguided folk, plenty on here, who shouted about unelected this or that, and about sovereignty, all rubbish but there was a coherence to it, if it did ignore the way the modern world operates, but I digress.

    I'm not insulting anyone by pointing out the truth.
    The Remain campaign warned us that Leave would mean wages going up. Some of us were prepared to take that risk.
    Thank goodness for you that risk didn't transpire

    "Real wages lower than 18 years ago and have fared much worse than any peer nation"


  • Options
    AverageNinjaAverageNinja Posts: 1,169
    Scott_xP said:

    @RedfieldWilton
    Labour leads by 20%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (3 Mar):

    Labour 43% (–)
    Conservative 23% (–)
    Reform UK 13% (+1)
    Liberal Democrat 10% (–)
    Green 6% (-2)
    Scottish National Party 3% (–)
    Other 2% (–)

    Changes +/- 25 Feb

    @bigjohnowls pease explain
  • Options
    StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 14,461
    SCENE: Two bowler hatted gentlemen and an old oak desk

    Mr Wilton: So, Mr Redfield, did you notice any swing in the polls this week?

    Mr Redfield: No, Mr Wilton.

    Labour leads by 20%.

    Westminster Voting Intention (3 Mar):

    Labour 43% (–)
    Conservative 23% (–)
    Reform UK 13% (+1)
    Liberal Democrat 10% (–)
    Green 6% (-2)
    Scottish National Party 3% (–)
    Other 2% (–)

    Changes +/- 25 Feb


    https://x.com/RedfieldWilton/status/1764697317276553613?s=20
This discussion has been closed.