Do we think the efficiency of tactical voting is being sufficiently accounted for?
Feels like people will be much more aware of it this time round and it might help Labour / the LDs greatly
Good point.
Calculations based on UNS are notoriously unsound precisely because they fail to take account of things like Swingback and Tactical Voting. You would expect these two factors to cancel out to a large extent this time....except I'm not that sure about Swingback, especially now we have some pollsters adjusting to take it into account.
TV on the other hand ought to be a real factor.
Sorry, but this is not good news for Rishi.
The forecast pollsters were using swingback but it's worth noting that JLP's swingback seems to have disappeared this week and it's forecast was closer to the Nowcasters than previous weeks.
I think that confirms my theory that there won't be much swingback for the Tories in this election unless something really changes.
There has been many a Swingback debate on this Site over the years, mostly inconclusive.
My own view is that it is a thing, but not an iron law. My guess is that in this election it is unlikely to apply, but it is only a guess.
*I haven't even found evidence for the 9% on the doorsteps. Not close.
Whereabouts in the country have you been doorstepping?
Mark is down in Devon, and I can tell you from long experience that he has a sound reputation for accurate and honest reporting from the doorstep.
Devon is one of the least likely places to find reform voters, surely?
Its going to be red wallers and brexiteers in the cities and eastern England
The SW was pretty kippery when they were a thing.
I don’t believe this is Brexit related at all. This is all about the Tories and their failures (esp immigration and tax) and Farage just being a very good opportunist and populist
On my travels in the last election, previous UKIP VI was a pretty good map onto Brexit Party. I don’t think Farage is suddenly fishing in a different pond, an that pond has a limit lower than 20%
Maybe. But this is a very different election to any that has gone before
The Tories really might go extinct. It is an active possibility. What’s more as it becomes evermore possible so that drives more attention to Farage and reform so it feeds off itself. A bandwagon effect
It is at least very funny, as I’m sure you will agree
They won't go extinct. Even the Canadian Tories got 16% in 1993 even if just 2 MPs under FPTP.
However all that meant was the Canadian Tories and Reform on 18% divided the right in Canada for a decade enabling the Liberals to win 3 general elections comfortably in 1993, 1997 and 2000 until the Tories and Reform eventually merged in 2003 to form today's Conservative Party of Canada. Finally after 13 years in opposition the Canadian right then returned to power under the Conservative government of Harper in 2006.
You can afford centre right and populist right parties splitting the right under PR as they can join together again after the election to form a government, as is the case in Italy, Spain, Austria, Sweden, New Zealand, Israel etc for example.
Under FPTP however it is suicide and just puts left woke liberals of the type you hate in power with big majorities for a decade or more
That's Canada, Hyufd. This is the UK.
What your Party needs to do is go off and have a good think about how it became the most successful political party ever in the history of Western Democracy, and what it needs to do recover to the point where the story continues. Stuff Canada. it has no relevance here.
Good luck.
We both use FPTP so the end result is near identical.
It doesn't matter if you were the most successful party in the entire universe if another party on the right takes half your votes, the fact the Conservatives have largely had the right to themselves is what has made them so successful under FPTP.
If that no longer applies the Tories may as well even back PR
Except it probably isn't.
Reform-Canada were able to nab a decent block of seats (and seats is what matters) because their vote was geographically concentrated.
If Reform-UK and the Conservatives fight themselves to a standstill, the first thing that happens is that Labour ease past them in lots of places and end up with an absurd number of seats, while both right parties end up with a handful each.
Reform never got more than 25% of Canadian seats either.
Only once the Canadian Tories and Canadian Alliance (Reform's successor) merged in 2003 did the right in Canada get even a third of Canadian seats in 2004 and finally most seats in 2006 for the new Conservative Party of Canada. Though it took until 2011 for the Conservatives to get over 50% of seats again and a majority
I see Gething has decided to behave as if the VONC just didn’t happen. Completely outrageous of course, whatever you think of the merits of a decision I think you have to accept and abide by it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
24 hours is a long time in politics Yesterday the Tories had their best Savanta poll for months, 'won' the debate on the first poll out and gained a council seat in Wales. One poll from YouGov and they're in pieces again. Breaking strain of a Mars bar.
Biggest winner / loser of the campaign so far....The tart independent business woman with the OF account for both categories.
I suspect she will end up significantly better off (from extra subscribers) with a minor criminal record that most people will ignore because it was Nigel Farage...
I see Gething has decided to behave as if the VONC just didn’t happen. Completely outrageous of course, whatever you think of the merits of a decision I think you have to accept and abide by it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
With the minister he sacked off sick ever since and unlikely to vote the other parties could now choose to collapse the government if they wanted to.
Biggest winner / loser of the campaign so far....The tart independent business woman with the OF account for both categories.
Did you see one of the pitch invaders at Wembley last Saturday did it because some bloke online said he'd give a load of money to anyone who got on the pitch with a shirt advertising the guy's website or something?
Biggest winner / loser of the campaign so far....The tart independent business woman with the OF account for both categories.
Did you see one of the pitch invaders at Wembley last Saturday did it because some bloke online said he'd give a load of money to anyone who got on the pitch with a shirt advertising the guy's website or something?
Yes. Was it actually a legit offer, or has somebody got themselves a football banning order for nought?
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
There's your housing crisis right there, together with your infrastructure investment crisis and your selling England by the pound crisis.
What do you think they're doing with the assets? Renting them out! It has no net effect on housing capacity & will almost certainly be better landlords than the people they're buying them from. The issue is we're millions of homes short, not the distribution of ownership.
What they are doing is taking the rent money (often paid by HMG) out of this country and into America. That's the problem. It makes us poorer, and America richer.
But that's a problem we can fix.
Increase supply and those houses could be empty and no money going out.
In a healthy economy typically 10% of homes are empty, for good reasons, which means run down dumps are empty and renters have a choice.
That we're running over 99% capacity is a failure caused by our planning system meaning every landlord is pretty much guaranteed a tenant regardless how expensive they are or how slummy their home is.
It's not our planning system so much as lack of social housing and new towns.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
Arrived in Paris in the rush hour. Heaving with cars, pedestrians and bikes. But the big change from last year (and I think others including @Leon have said the same) is the increase in the number of bikes and they are mad, really mad. I have done some dangerous things in my life, and I have cycled across Paris many times, but the cycle ride from the Gare du Nord to the Latin QTR this time is one of the scariest things I've ever done.
Nice to know I wasn't talking nonsense on this subject. I've been going on about it for a few months.
I'm unsure what the issue is in Paris, but perhaps my cynicism about cyclists (and I did a 15-mile fun ride earlier) is based on my experience in Cambridge. When I worked in the city many moons ago, I noticed a pattern. For much of the year, cyclists were sane. Then the summer language schools came in, and cyclists would be all over the place; often literally. Then the new students arrived in September, and it got worse. Then, over the course of the year, cycling standards improved, only to worsen again in early September. I always wondered if the really bad cyclists were just improving their cycling skills, or were Darwin Award participants...
Based on very little other than personal experience but I have a genuine conviction that the British are the best drivers in the world (and also the best cyclists)
Not universally so, of course. But our driving test is pretty stringent for a non-Arctic nation and there is just a general level of courtesy that I think we actually just take for granted.
I see Gething has decided to behave as if the VONC just didn’t happen. Completely outrageous of course, whatever you think of the merits of a decision I think you have to accept and abide by it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
I think it's the kind of issue which procedure should be designed to avoid, so you are not reliant on someone's goodwill or compliance in such a situation. If the rules don't require remove him in such a situation, that is the real problem not that he did not feel bound by it.
What is curious is if everyone had been there and he had still lost, would he still tough it out?
Are we ruling out that this is simply the relentless march of social liberalism? Perhaps a lot of Republicans have thought very carefully about prisoner rehabilitation in recent weeks, read the research and arguments, and changed their minds.
*I haven't even found evidence for the 9% on the doorsteps. Not close.
Whereabouts in the country have you been doorstepping?
Mark is down in Devon, and I can tell you from long experience that he has a sound reputation for accurate and honest reporting from the doorstep.
Devon is one of the least likely places to find reform voters, surely?
Its going to be red wallers and brexiteers in the cities and eastern England
The SW was pretty kippery when they were a thing.
I don’t believe this is Brexit related at all. This is all about the Tories and their failures (esp immigration and tax) and Farage just being a very good opportunist and populist
On my travels in the last election, previous UKIP VI was a pretty good map onto Brexit Party. I don’t think Farage is suddenly fishing in a different pond, an that pond has a limit lower than 20%
Maybe. But this is a very different election to any that has gone before
The Tories really might go extinct. It is an active possibility. What’s more as it becomes evermore possible so that drives more attention to Farage and reform so it feeds off itself. A bandwagon effect
It is at least very funny, as I’m sure you will agree
They won't go extinct. Even the Canadian Tories got 16% in 1993 even if just 2 MPs under FPTP.
However all that meant was the Canadian Tories and Reform on 18% divided the right in Canada for a decade enabling the Liberals to win 3 general elections comfortably in 1993, 1997 and 2000 until the Tories and Reform eventually merged in 2003 to form today's Conservative Party of Canada. Finally after 13 years in opposition the Canadian right then returned to power under the Conservative government of Harper in 2006.
You can afford centre right and populist right parties splitting the right under PR as they can join together again after the election to form a government, as is the case in Italy, Spain, Austria, Sweden, New Zealand, Israel etc for example.
Under FPTP however it is suicide and just puts left woke liberals of the type you hate in power with big majorities for a decade or more
That's Canada, Hyufd. This is the UK.
What your Party needs to do is go off and have a good think about how it became the most successful political party ever in the history of Western Democracy, and what it needs to do recover to the point where the story continues. Stuff Canada. it has no relevance here.
Good luck.
We both use FPTP so the end result is near identical.
It doesn't matter if you were the most successful party in the entire universe if another party on the right takes half your votes, the fact the Conservatives have largely had the right to themselves is what has made them so successful under FPTP.
If that no longer applies the Tories may as well even back PR
Except it probably isn't.
Reform-Canada were able to nab a decent block of seats (and seats is what matters) because their vote was geographically concentrated.
If Reform-UK and the Conservatives fight themselves to a standstill, the first thing that happens is that Labour ease past them in lots of places and end up with an absurd number of seats, while both right parties end up with a handful each.
Well, exactly. For its entire existence Reform (and its successor CA) won a grand total of 3 seats east of the prairies - where the large majority of Canadians live. That's a lot more efficient than the RefUK vote seems to be. Incidentally, I do not think the common name was chosen in ignorance of the Canadian precedent.
I would add that people may not know that the Canadian federal and provincial parties are somewhat separate. In theory that would make it easier for a new federal party to recruit ambitious local politicians. However, this did not really matter for Reform as their MPs often lacked elected political experience and instead came from local, community or activism backgrounds.
Are we ruling out that this is simply the relentless march of social liberalism? Perhaps a lot of Republicans have thought very carefully about prisoner rehabilitation in recent weeks, read the research and arguments, and changed their minds.
They misread the earlier question as ‘parent of a convicted felon’
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
They need seats this time to do that. Otherwise once GE rules are done the media can just ignore them the way they do Galloway, Alba, Reclaim when they had Bridgen etc. They need to win 10 or more seats I think to have any chance of a proper breakthrough the next time
I apologise in advance for the inherent boringness of what is effectively me giving a lecture in an article but I do have my reasons. Let me explain...
This article was written because of the European Parliament elections, due to start tomorrow. Ladbrokes priced it up using the political groups of the European Parliament, which is stupid because they often change their name after the election. I think they should have used the political parties at the European level instead.
That spark of irritation coincided with the YouTube discussion in the header and the discussion on PB about Mussolini's beginning, in which he used a list, and - bang - the article appeared.
I want political betting to expand beyond its Anglosphere/European limits, but to do that we must familiarise ourselves with things like the party list and the one-party state. Hence this lecture.
Sorry for being an arse, I'm sure there are multiple mistakes and I look forard to you pointing them out...
Forard?
FORARD?
I am absolutely disgusted at this spelling in your post. This entire thread, excellent as it is, should be taken down and consigned to a dustbin because of this below-the-line hideousness. Apologies, sir!
Tut. Viewcode is being metaphorical, using hunting or nautical terminology. Perfectly acceptable.
I feel compelled to state that I was joking with my post. I thought it was so obvious I was joking (because it was over-the-top) I did not even bother with a smiley...
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Which does make the Reform wannabee Tories practically bending over for them a bit sad. Maybe they should be sent that clip from Darkest Hour about not reasoning with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
But it will be fun if the Tories become supportive of PR whilst Labour, who are more divided on the matter anyway, decide its too much trouble to change the voting system.
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
They need seats this time to do that. Otherwise once GE rules are done the media can just ignore them the way they do Galloway, Alba, Reclaim when they had Bridgen etc. They need to win 10 or more seats I think to have any chance of a proper breakthrough the next time
What if Reform get more votes? Honest question - I’m not sure how the media would react
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THE SOUND OF DIESEL GENERATORS IN ODESSA IS MADDENING
I see Gething has decided to behave as if the VONC just didn’t happen. Completely outrageous of course, whatever you think of the merits of a decision I think you have to accept and abide by it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
What are the provisions (if any) in the Welsh constitution or enabling act or whatever, or Senedd rules?
At Westminister, the rules governing VONCs are rather fluid (I think) really conventions subject to interpretation by PM & Co. . . . depending on the numbers.
In current situation, reckon the crucial question is, will Paid Cymru want to vote against Gething & his govt. a second time? Third? Etc. etc.?
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Biggest winner / loser of the campaign so far....The tart independent business woman with the OF account for both categories.
I suspect she will end up significantly better off (from extra subscribers) with a minor criminal record that most people will ignore because it was Nigel Farage...
I can think of far worse trade offs...
To be honest, I presume once you have done OF, it might be rather hard to transition into many careers where criminal record checks are a prerequiste of employment.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Ask Boris. This was from before the referendum;
In our desperation to meet our hopeless so-called targets, we push away brilliant students from Commonwealth countries, who want to pay to come to our universities; we find ourselves hard pressed to recruit people who might work in our NHS, as opposed to make use of its services – because we have absolutely no power to control the numbers who are coming with no job offers and no qualifications from the 28 EU countries. I am in favour of immigration; but I am also in favour of control, and of politicians taking responsibility for what is happening; and I think it bewilders people to be told that this most basic power of a state – to decide who has the right to live and work in your country – has been taken away and now resides in Brussels.
24 hours is a long time in politics Yesterday the Tories had their best Savanta poll for months, 'won' the debate on the first poll out and gained a council seat in Wales. One poll from YouGov and they're in pieces again. Breaking strain of a Mars bar.
If Labour come off worse in the post-debate controversy, we'll presumably see some polls with Reform ahead of the Tories in vote share.
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Which does make the Reform wannabee Tories practically bending over for them a bit sad. Maybe they should be sent that clip from Darkest Hour about not reasoning with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
But it will be fun if the Tories become supportive of PR whilst Labour, who are more divided on the matter anyway, decide its too much trouble to change the voting system.
Political parties are not nations. They are just vehicles to achieve a particular political outcome.
Maybe we are too sentimental about them here and should be more like the French.
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
They need seats this time to do that. Otherwise once GE rules are done the media can just ignore them the way they do Galloway, Alba, Reclaim when they had Bridgen etc. They need to win 10 or more seats I think to have any chance of a proper breakthrough the next time
What if Reform get more votes? Honest question - I’m not sure how the media would react
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THE SOUND OF DIESEL GENERATORS IN ODESSA IS MADDENING
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments don't really have a choice in the short-term, and simply cannot fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Its obvious isn't it.
Nigerian nurses have replaced all the German nurses and Indian students have replaces all the Italian students.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
What I find crazy is that immigration really should be THE issue of this election, adjacent to the cost of living crisis. But so much of the cost of living - housing etc - is directly caused by unsustainable immigration. Plus not being able to see a doctor, etc.
Five more years of this and things will be infinitely worse. Five more years of this and we need to find spaces for 3.75m more people, if net immigration remains at 750kish a year. That's a town the size of Leeds, with all the amenities, schools, hospitals, roads, transport infrastructure etc, will need to be built every year, if things carry on as they are.
And yet Labour aren't talking about it, and Rishi is wittering on about the small boat people who account for maybe 30k a year tops.
And those are just the structural problems. The roads and the rooms that have to be built. Culturally, how does it all work? Adding an extra 3.75m people, how does that change the culture of the UK? What are the beliefs of the people we are bringing in? Are they liberal and tolerant of others? And so on. Where's the debate? Where's the accountability?
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Which does make the Reform wannabee Tories practically bending over for them a bit sad. Maybe they should be sent that clip from Darkest Hour about not reasoning with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
But it will be fun if the Tories become supportive of PR whilst Labour, who are more divided on the matter anyway, decide its too much trouble to change the voting system.
Political parties are not nations. They are just vehicles to achieve a particular political outcome.
Maybe we are too sentimental about them here and should be more like the French.
Maybe we’re too sentimental about the monarchy too.
Biggest winner / loser of the campaign so far....The tart independent business woman with the OF account for both categories.
I suspect she will end up significantly better off (from extra subscribers) with a minor criminal record that most people will ignore because it was Nigel Farage...
I can think of far worse trade offs...
To be honest, I presume once you have done OF, it might be rather hard to transition into many careers where criminal record checks are a prerequiste of employment.
You don’t need to, you marry a footballer and start popping out kids.
24 hours is a long time in politics Yesterday the Tories had their best Savanta poll for months, 'won' the debate on the first poll out and gained a council seat in Wales. One poll from YouGov and they're in pieces again. Breaking strain of a Mars bar.
If Labour come off worse in the post-debate controversy, we'll presumably see some polls with Reform ahead of the Tories in vote share.
Who knows? Another minus 6 in the next YG and Labour can get in line for some ritual humiliation
Biggest winner / loser of the campaign so far....The tart independent business woman with the OF account for both categories.
I suspect she will end up significantly better off (from extra subscribers) with a minor criminal record that most people will ignore because it was Nigel Farage...
I can think of far worse trade offs...
To be honest, I presume once you have done OF, it might be rather hard to transition into many careers where criminal record checks are a prerequiste of employment.
You don’t need to, you marry a footballer and start popping out kids.
Its rather a competitive market. Always good to have a backup plan. Also, its seems like the OF ones are the girls they cheat with, not the ones they marry. And now due to the way the law is / paper industry dying, no money in kiss and tells in the Sunday tabloids.
I see Gething has decided to behave as if the VONC just didn’t happen. Completely outrageous of course, whatever you think of the merits of a decision I think you have to accept and abide by it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
I think it's the kind of issue which procedure should be designed to avoid, so you are not reliant on someone's goodwill or compliance in such a situation. If the rules don't require remove him in such a situation, that is the real problem not that he did not feel bound by it.
What is curious is if everyone had been there and he had still lost, would he still tough it out?
If he doesn't have confidence he won't pass a budget.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Its obvious isn't it.
Nigerian nurses have replaced all the German nurses and Indian students have replaces all the Italian students.
Or perhaps not.
The former yes, the latter nope - because none EU students were always way more profitable than EU students to UK universities..
EU students paid UK student prices, none EU ones paid £20k + per year (so EU students really weren't wanted while none EU ones have always been desired)...
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Ask Boris. This was from before the referendum;
In our desperation to meet our hopeless so-called targets, we push away brilliant students from Commonwealth countries, who want to pay to come to our universities; we find ourselves hard pressed to recruit people who might work in our NHS, as opposed to make use of its services – because we have absolutely no power to control the numbers who are coming with no job offers and no qualifications from the 28 EU countries. I am in favour of immigration; but I am also in favour of control, and of politicians taking responsibility for what is happening; and I think it bewilders people to be told that this most basic power of a state – to decide who has the right to live and work in your country – has been taken away and now resides in Brussels.
Replacing Europeans by people from further afield was always going to lead to stickier immigration.
Several of my colleagues from the subcontinent voted Brexit so that their family and friends could move here as easily as EU citizens. It seems they got their wish.
Also Brexit was marketed to Asians to help get chef's etc from Bangladesh.
It was all part of the plan, unless people were being lied to...
I see Gething has decided to behave as if the VONC just didn’t happen. Completely outrageous of course, whatever you think of the merits of a decision I think you have to accept and abide by it. I think it sets a very dangerous precedent.
Welsh Labour can generally be relied on to make Scottish Nationalists and English Conservatives look good in comparison.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Its obvious isn't it.
Nigerian nurses have replaced all the German nurses and Indian students have replaces all the Italian students.
Or perhaps not.
In some areas, particularly such as the NHS and care sector, this is actually roughly what's happened. Obviously, there will be slightly different profiles in other areas.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
What I find crazy is that immigration really should be THE issue of this election, adjacent to the cost of living crisis. But so much of the cost of living - housing etc - is directly caused by unsustainable immigration. Plus not being able to see a doctor, etc.
Five more years of this and things will be infinitely worse. Five more years of this and we need to find spaces for 3.75m more people, if net immigration remains at 750kish a year. That's a town the size of Leeds, with all the amenities, schools, hospitals, roads, transport infrastructure etc, will need to be built every year, if things carry on as they are.
And yet Labour aren't talking about it, and Rishi is wittering on about the small boat people who account for maybe 30k a year tops.
And those are just the structural problems. The roads and the rooms that have to be built. Culturally, how does it all work? Adding an extra 3.75m people, how does that change the culture of the UK? What are the beliefs of the people we are bringing in? Are they liberal and tolerant of others? And so on. Where's the debate? Where's the accountability?
Yes exactly. It is surely the most important issue because of its massive impacts on everything else. No wonder our infra is crumbling if we import 750,000 people a year. And many of them are a net drain on the treasury
This is why the return of Farage is so useful. Like him or loathe him he has got the election and the voters focused on this. As it should be
If the British people choose endless mass migration fair enough it’s their democratic choice. But they need to make that choice with all the facts in hand. Farage is giving those
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You do have to fill social care jobs, you rapidly get to the point that you don't have a business if you don't have the appropriate staff numbers 24/7
Imagine the scenes inside Number 10 right now. Remember Sunak absolutely didn’t have to call this vote, and he totally didn’t have to call it a week before the horrendous migration stats came out. But he did
Migration was down on those stats and he won last night's debate with Yougov which no main voteshare poll has yet caught
It was down from seventy twelve billion to just ninety thousand gazillion
Thing is, somehow the Tories had gotten away with their tremendous betrayal on migration. The issue was only slowing rising up the polls - but that was because, as the polls showed, people had no idea of the stats. They underestimated them by a factor of ten
Then along comes big nigel and says “2.4 million in 3 years” and everyone goes wtf that cannot be true, yet it is true. Kaboom
It was drowned out by all the hysteria about Tory fascism from centrist Remainers. Rory Stewart tweeted yesterday about the immigration figures as if he was completely unaware of them until now.
I'm quite taken aback by Rory's tone here, which appears to be one of surprise. How can he be surprised? You can see it all around you. My daughter's primary school in my unremarkable halfway out suburb of Manchester has gone from roughly 1 per class born outside the UK to roughly 8 per class in the space of ten years. What sort of bubble is Rory living in?
I apologise in advance for the inherent boringness of what is effectively me giving a lecture in an article but I do have my reasons. Let me explain...
This article was written because of the European Parliament elections, due to start tomorrow. Ladbrokes priced it up using the political groups of the European Parliament, which is stupid because they often change their name after the election. I think they should have used the political parties at the European level instead.
That spark of irritation coincided with the YouTube discussion in the header and the discussion on PB about Mussolini's beginning, in which he used a list, and - bang - the article appeared.
I want political betting to expand beyond its Anglosphere/European limits, but to do that we must familiarise ourselves with things like the party list and the one-party state. Hence this lecture.
Sorry for being an arse, I'm sure there are multiple mistakes and I look forard to you pointing them out...
Forard?
FORARD?
I am absolutely disgusted at this spelling in your post. This entire thread, excellent as it is, should be taken down and consigned to a dustbin because of this below-the-line hideousness. Apologies, sir!
Tut. Viewcode is being metaphorical, using hunting or nautical terminology. Perfectly acceptable.
I feel compelled to state that I was joking with my post. I thought it was so obvious I was joking (because it was over-the-top) I did not even bother with a smiley...
Imagine the scenes inside Number 10 right now. Remember Sunak absolutely didn’t have to call this vote, and he totally didn’t have to call it a week before the horrendous migration stats came out. But he did
Migration was down on those stats and he won last night's debate with Yougov which no main voteshare poll has yet caught
It was down from seventy twelve billion to just ninety thousand gazillion
Thing is, somehow the Tories had gotten away with their tremendous betrayal on migration. The issue was only slowing rising up the polls - but that was because, as the polls showed, people had no idea of the stats. They underestimated them by a factor of ten
Then along comes big nigel and says “2.4 million in 3 years” and everyone goes wtf that cannot be true, yet it is true. Kaboom
It was drowned out by all the hysteria about Tory fascism from centrist Remainers. Rory Stewart tweeted yesterday about the immigration figures as if he was completely unaware of them until now.
I'm quite taken aback by Rory's tone here, which appears to be one of surprise. How can he be surprised? You can see it all around you. My daughter's primary school in my unremarkable halfway out suburb of Manchester has gone from roughly 1 per class born outside the UK to roughly 8 per class in the space of ten years. What sort of bubble is Rory living in?
He’s either lying or a twat. I suspect he is a lying twat
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Its obvious isn't it.
Nigerian nurses have replaced all the German nurses and Indian students have replaces all the Italian students.
Or perhaps not.
The former yes, the latter nope - because none EU students were always way more profitable than EU students to UK universities..
EU students paid UK student prices, none EU ones paid £20k + per year...
A similar but opposite situation:
Migrant workers from the third world are preferred because they can be paid less.
Students from the third world are preferred because they can be charged more.
In many ways it would be profitable for the rich if they could get rid of 90% of British people and replace them with a continually revolving set of third world replacements.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You don't have to fill vacancies in the UK, the jobs can just be done overseas and shift UK workers to non-tradable work like social care/NHS. But not sure this would also be great for productivity.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You do have to fill social care jobs, you rapidly get to the point that you don't have a business if you don't have the appropriate staff numbers 24/7
Well then you offer your staff highet wages. I think it's universally recognised that cate staff do a job many of us would not want to for a lower wage than many of us would accept. The answer to this isn't to import more people from the third world to keep wages low.
Imagine the scenes inside Number 10 right now. Remember Sunak absolutely didn’t have to call this vote, and he totally didn’t have to call it a week before the horrendous migration stats came out. But he did
Migration was down on those stats and he won last night's debate with Yougov which no main voteshare poll has yet caught
It was down from seventy twelve billion to just ninety thousand gazillion
Thing is, somehow the Tories had gotten away with their tremendous betrayal on migration. The issue was only slowing rising up the polls - but that was because, as the polls showed, people had no idea of the stats. They underestimated them by a factor of ten
Then along comes big nigel and says “2.4 million in 3 years” and everyone goes wtf that cannot be true, yet it is true. Kaboom
It was drowned out by all the hysteria about Tory fascism from centrist Remainers. Rory Stewart tweeted yesterday about the immigration figures as if he was completely unaware of them until now.
I'm quite taken aback by Rory's tone here, which appears to be one of surprise. How can he be surprised? You can see it all around you. My daughter's primary school in my unremarkable halfway out suburb of Manchester has gone from roughly 1 per class born outside the UK to roughly 8 per class in the space of ten years. What sort of bubble is Rory living in?
+1 - it's remarkable how many Indian families I see wandering round town - 10 years ago I could tell you were every single one of them because there was so few they were either TCS working in 1 office block or Doctors at the hospital..
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You don't have to fill vacancies in the UK, the jobs can just be done overseas and shift UK workers to non-tradable work like social care/NHS. But not sure this would also be great for productivity.
Or relocate the old and sick overseas to cheaper countries.
I've long suggested we outsource our prisons to the third world.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You do have to fill social care jobs, you rapidly get to the point that you don't have a business if you don't have the appropriate staff numbers 24/7
Well then you offer your staff highet wages. I think it's universally recognised that cate staff do a job many of us would not want to for a lower wage than many of us would accept. The answer to this isn't to import more people from the third world to keep wages low.
That doesn't work because councils pay fixed rates - and the maths quickly doesn't work. Which is why social care has an exemption to the wages criteria...
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You don't have to fill vacancies in the UK, the jobs can just be done overseas and shift UK workers to non-tradable work like social care/NHS. But not sure this would also be great for productivity.
Or relocate the old and sick overseas to cheaper countries.
I've long suggested we outsource our prisons to the third world.
Didn't the government do some deals to pay places like Albania to take criminals currently in UK jails and have them spend their sentences back in home country?
We are about to see how ruthless Nigel Farage is willing to be. The fall-out from that debate gives him a chance to pose as the defender of ordinary British folk from the lying political classes. Mr Sunak has exposed his back to the knife thrust of ambition. Mussolini and Orban would not have hesitated. Does our Nigel have it in him?
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
They need seats this time to do that. Otherwise once GE rules are done the media can just ignore them the way they do Galloway, Alba, Reclaim when they had Bridgen etc. They need to win 10 or more seats I think to have any chance of a proper breakthrough the next time
They would probably need a national vote share of at least 20% to win 10 seats, and even then they need the right sort of break between the other parties.
The Farage rise in this election does indeed indicate the shirt-term and goldfish-like memory of much of the media. The single man probably most responsible for the huge rise in immigration from other parts of the world, presenting himself as the only man "brave" and "shocking" enough to talk about it pubicly, and against the eite. What a radical and insurgent !
The media have yet to pick up or comment on this in any way.
That is unsurprising really. You have to be extremely idealogical to say no they are dying but I believe in the absolute power of the state to provide this treatment. It is why that answer from Starmer stuck out for me, he is pitching himself as a moderate left of centre politician, but he was either lying or is more idealogical than he would like to let on.
The private school VAT is another. As a tax raising policy it makes no real sense.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You do have to fill social care jobs, you rapidly get to the point that you don't have a business if you don't have the appropriate staff numbers 24/7
Well then you offer your staff highet wages. I think it's universally recognised that cate staff do a job many of us would not want to for a lower wage than many of us would accept. The answer to this isn't to import more people from the third world to keep wages low.
That doesn't work because councils pay fixed rates - and the maths quickly doesn't work. Which is why social care has an exemption to the wages criteria...
... to which there is an obvious solution. Why is the state trying to drive down the wages of already underpaid workers?
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Under FPTP the only result of Reform overtaking the Tories is likely 10-20 years of continued Labour majority government under FPTP shifting us ever more Woke in direction.
Unless Reform not only replace but merge with the Tories that is the end result of FPTP of a divided right. It is only viable to have separate Reform and Tory Parties both getting 15-25% of the vote with PR
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Which does make the Reform wannabee Tories practically bending over for them a bit sad. Maybe they should be sent that clip from Darkest Hour about not reasoning with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
But it will be fun if the Tories become supportive of PR whilst Labour, who are more divided on the matter anyway, decide its too much trouble to change the voting system.
Political parties are not nations. They are just vehicles to achieve a particular political outcome.
Maybe we are too sentimental about them here and should be more like the French.
Maybe we’re too sentimental about the monarchy too.
Tory central office must be in disarray. I don’t really know where they go from here. Their election campaign tactics are unraveling before their eyes. But the difficulty is really all of their own making. If they track right people don’t believe promises on immigration and tax because they have heard them all before, they would prefer to believe Farage. They cannot track left because they bump straight into the Lib Dem’s and then Labour whose supporters they have been abusing for a decade. They are experiencing the classic squeeze they have employed so successfully on smaller parties for a century. Maybe this is the election where they get to see that FPTP can be really brutal.
If that happens I suspect a few might be highly amused.
Arrived in Paris in the rush hour. Heaving with cars, pedestrians and bikes. But the big change from last year (and I think others including @Leon have said the same) is the increase in the number of bikes and they are mad, really mad. I have done some dangerous things in my life, and I have cycled across Paris many times, but the cycle ride from the Gare du Nord to the Latin QTR this time is one of the scariest things I've ever done.
Nice to know I wasn't talking nonsense on this subject. I've been going on about it for a few months.
I'm unsure what the issue is in Paris, but perhaps my cynicism about cyclists (and I did a 15-mile fun ride earlier) is based on my experience in Cambridge. When I worked in the city many moons ago, I noticed a pattern. For much of the year, cyclists were sane. Then the summer language schools came in, and cyclists would be all over the place; often literally. Then the new students arrived in September, and it got worse. Then, over the course of the year, cycling standards improved, only to worsen again in early September. I always wondered if the really bad cyclists were just improving their cycling skills, or were Darwin Award participants...
Paris is Paris, run by the French.
They are trying to roll things out helter-skelter with little planning.
It will carry some of the culture and practice of French driving, albeit at lower speeds and perhaps less danger.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You do have to fill social care jobs, you rapidly get to the point that you don't have a business if you don't have the appropriate staff numbers 24/7
Well then you offer your staff highet wages. I think it's universally recognised that cate staff do a job many of us would not want to for a lower wage than many of us would accept. The answer to this isn't to import more people from the third world to keep wages low.
That doesn't work because councils pay fixed rates - and the maths quickly doesn't work. Which is why social care has an exemption to the wages criteria...
... to which there is an obvious solution. Why is the state trying to drive down the wages of already underpaid workers?
Because based on that debate, and the TMay uproar in the 2017 election, Brits would rather solve this problem cheaply.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Its obvious isn't it.
Nigerian nurses have replaced all the German nurses and Indian students have replaces all the Italian students.
Or perhaps not.
The former yes, the latter nope - because none EU students were always way more profitable than EU students to UK universities..
EU students paid UK student prices, none EU ones paid £20k + per year...
A similar but opposite situation:
Migrant workers from the third world are preferred because they can be paid less.
Students from the third world are preferred because they can be charged more.
In many ways it would be profitable for the rich if they could get rid of 90% of British people and replace them with a continually revolving set of third world replacements.
That indeed appears to be the aim, based on recent policy positions.
A lot of people thinking “Reform *surely* can’t get around 20%” are ignoring 3 things for me.
1) A few weeks of Farage on the TV, and more potential polls showing the Tories very far behind Labour, might make a lot of voters think “Sod it, I’m voting Reform”. Farage’s stated strategy is to reverse takeover the Tory Party - on Friday he might explicitly say “Rishi Sunak won’t be PM, but in a few years, I could be”
2) The 2019 European elections are of course not the same type or election nor political climate as now, but we saw 30% of votes go to the BXP in that. Another election where people thought “Well, the Tories can’t win anyway, and what’s the point”.
3) A lot of current Tory voters may warm to the LDs once Ed Davey gets a chance to be on TV a bit more in the campaign, and if the Tories look more defeated. This could swing a lot of Tory/LD marginals.
This is not to say it *will* happen but it certainly *can*.
I think Farage is extremely Marmite. Brexit is now very unpopular, so I really can't see what is driving this supposed surge for Reform. It feels off, but let's see what the next week brings.
I think you're conflating brexit with immigration, there.
Brexit was winnable because it was a broad coalition - ranging from Bennite lefties who think the EU is a neoliberal plot to drive down the wages of the working class (Corbyn was arguably one of them, which is why he stayed so silent) to Singapore-on-Thames style deregulatory hyper-capitalists, to people worried about democratic accountability (Lisbon treaty etc), and yes, a substantial chunk whose main concern was freedom of movement, or simply, immigration. That got Brexit to the famous 52%.
Immigration alone probably gets ReFUK to 20%. As a socially conservative leaning anti-immigration party, you're not going to vote Labour - and given the Tories have presided over the largest immigration figures in recent history, despite Brexit, you're not going to vote for them either. So where do you turn? Good old Nige, and good old UKIP, err, ReFUK.
If immigration is your #1 issue, which it clearly is for a lot of voters - Nige is your man. I could believe crossover at some point, if only for a poll or two.
The Tories have presided over the largest numbers of immigrants in ALL history, not “recent history”
Indeed the influx is so huge it is hard to find a precedent in the modern world in peacetime, tho Trudeau is having a bash in Canada
..which was ofcourse predicted by large numbers of people on the centre-left when so many European workers left over five years.
Brexit is part of the *cause* of this big increase, just as predicted, but mainly of non-European migrants that Brexit voters like even less ; so, very comvincingly, one could say that Brexit is a key part of that betrayal of one particular group of voters, itself.
How is Brexit related to figures like this?
Well, it can be seen from this graph. An accelerating and exponential, and often desperate governmental response after 2020, when the legal break with the EU occurred, to many, many areas of reduced expertise following Brexit.
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Correlation isn't causation. Unless you are arguing that Brexit facilitated an extremely liberal government to come to power in the form of Boris Johnson, but that's the opposite of the case that is usually made against him.
Well, AFAIK the new visa schemes for certain categories of worker started under Johnson, and accelerated under Sunak.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments can not fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
You don't *have* to fill those vacancies. Force different potential employers to compete with each other for labour and put workers in a stronger bargaining position. If we'd had a tighter labour market, our levels of productivity probably wouldn't be so bad.
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
You do have to fill social care jobs, you rapidly get to the point that you don't have a business if you don't have the appropriate staff numbers 24/7
Well then you offer your staff highet wages. I think it's universally recognised that cate staff do a job many of us would not want to for a lower wage than many of us would accept. The answer to this isn't to import more people from the third world to keep wages low.
That doesn't work because councils pay fixed rates - and the maths quickly doesn't work. Which is why social care has an exemption to the wages criteria...
... to which there is an obvious solution. Why is the state trying to drive down the wages of already underpaid workers?
Because the rest of us don't want to pay enough tax to fund decent wages.
That YouGov poll is fascinating. Basically Reform have recaptured the votes they were leaking to Lab and have taken a few more from the Cons. Assuming it holds up.
A while ago I said the biggest threat to Lab was a third party shaking things up. 17% for Reform won't do it especially while the Cons are barely beating that. We could see Lab return a 300-seat majority on only 40% (or even less) or we could see this development take us to interesting and unpredictable places.
*I haven't even found evidence for the 9% on the doorsteps. Not close.
Whereabouts in the country have you been doorstepping?
Mark is down in Devon, and I can tell you from long experience that he has a sound reputation for accurate and honest reporting from the doorstep.
Devon is one of the least likely places to find reform voters, surely?
Its going to be red wallers and brexiteers in the cities and eastern England
The SW was pretty kippery when they were a thing.
I don’t believe this is Brexit related at all. This is all about the Tories and their failures (esp immigration and tax) and Farage just being a very good opportunist and populist
On my travels in the last election, previous UKIP VI was a pretty good map onto Brexit Party. I don’t think Farage is suddenly fishing in a different pond, an that pond has a limit lower than 20%
Maybe. But this is a very different election to any that has gone before
The Tories really might go extinct. It is an active possibility. What’s more as it becomes evermore possible so that drives more attention to Farage and reform so it feeds off itself. A bandwagon effect
It is at least very funny, as I’m sure you will agree
They won't go extinct. Even the Canadian Tories got 16% in 1993 even if just 2 MPs under FPTP.
However all that meant was the Canadian Tories and Reform on 18% divided the right in Canada for a decade enabling the Liberals to win 3 general elections comfortably in 1993, 1997 and 2000 until the Tories and Reform eventually merged in 2003 to form today's Conservative Party of Canada. Finally after 13 years in opposition the Canadian right then returned to power under the Conservative government of Harper in 2006.
You can afford centre right and populist right parties splitting the right under PR as they can join together again after the election to form a government, as is the case in Italy, Spain, Austria, Sweden, New Zealand, Israel etc for example.
Under FPTP however it is suicide and just puts left woke liberals of the type you hate in power with big majorities for a decade or more
That's Canada, Hyufd. This is the UK.
What your Party needs to do is go off and have a good think about how it became the most successful political party ever in the history of Western Democracy, and what it needs to do recover to the point where the story continues. Stuff Canada. it has no relevance here.
Good luck.
We both use FPTP so the end result is near identical.
It doesn't matter if you were the most successful party in the entire universe if another party on the right takes half your votes, the fact the Conservatives have largely had the right to themselves is what has made them so successful under FPTP.
If that no longer applies the Tories may as well even back PR
Except it probably isn't.
Reform-Canada were able to nab a decent block of seats (and seats is what matters) because their vote was geographically concentrated.
If Reform-UK and the Conservatives fight themselves to a standstill, the first thing that happens is that Labour ease past them in lots of places and end up with an absurd number of seats, while both right parties end up with a handful each.
Well, exactly. For its entire existence Reform (and its successor CA) won a grand total of 3 seats east of the prairies - where the large majority of Canadians live. That's a lot more efficient than the RefUK vote seems to be. Incidentally, I do not think the common name was chosen in ignorance of the Canadian precedent.
I would add that people may not know that the Canadian federal and provincial parties are somewhat separate. In theory that would make it easier for a new federal party to recruit ambitious local politicians. However, this did not really matter for Reform as their MPs often lacked elected political experience and instead came from local, community or activism backgrounds.
Yes Reform won landslides in Alberta and much of the West and rural Canada but it never won even most seats in a Federal Canadian election let alone a majority and the Liberals easily beat Reform in Ontario, the largest province,
Reform needed the votes and seats of Tories on the Eastern coasts of Canada to ever get into power and that only occurred after the 2 merged in 2003
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Under FPTP the only result of Reform overtaking the Tories is likely 10-20 years of continued Labour majority government under FPTP shifting us ever more Woke in direction.
Unless Reform not only replace but merge with the Tories that is the end result of FPTP of a divided right. It is only viable to have separate Reform and Tory Parties both getting 15-25% of the vote with PR
If Reform overtake the Tories there’s no way they stay distinct entities. They’ll swallow each other, and the dissatisfied centrists will go over to Labour or the LDs.
Maybe this is the election where they get to see that FPTP can be really brutal.
If that happens I suspect a few might be highly amused.
All my bets are based on FPTP biting the Tory party hard - and I'm already Green as I've cashed out one of my initial bets so it's all profit from now on..
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Under FPTP the only result of Reform overtaking the Tories is likely 10-20 years of continued Labour majority government under FPTP shifting us ever more Woke in direction.
You make it sound as if an unwilling public is being dragged kicking and screaming against its will.
See, this is the thing. You just don’t get it do you? You don’t understand that we don’t want your tired, tawdry, politics any more including your psychotic obsessive culture wars.
As someone else wrote, you (pl) need to rethink.
If you remain in the wilderness for 20 years it won’t be because of that nasty unfair voting system, which you never complained about before, but because we have moved on from you. The country is leaving you behind.
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Which does make the Reform wannabee Tories practically bending over for them a bit sad. Maybe they should be sent that clip from Darkest Hour about not reasoning with a tiger when your head is in its mouth.
But it will be fun if the Tories become supportive of PR whilst Labour, who are more divided on the matter anyway, decide its too much trouble to change the voting system.
Political parties are not nations. They are just vehicles to achieve a particular political outcome.
Maybe we are too sentimental about them here and should be more like the French.
Maybe we’re too sentimental about the monarchy too.
That is unsurprising really. You have to be extremely idealogical to say no they are dying but I believe in the absolute power of the state to provide this treatment. It is why that answer from Starmer stuck out for me, he is pitching himself as a moderate left of centre politician, but he was either lying or is more idealogical than he would like to let on.
The private school VAT is another. As a tax raising policy it makes no real sense.
Starmer on his mother: ""She just held my hand and said: 'You won't let your dad go private, will you?""
You are actually using that analysis to defend the lie 🤷♀️
Seriously 🤷♀️
I mean, you watched that and came to the conclusion “there you are, Sunak hasn’t been caught out telling one of the biggest general election whoppers of all time.”
If you Baxter the YouGov poll based on their previous methodology, this is the result:
Party - Share - Seats CON - 18.0% - 19 LAB - 45.0% - 546 LIB - 8.0% - 47 Reform - 18.0% - 0 Green - 6.0% - 2 SNP - 3.1% - 14 PlaidC - 0.7% - 4
So 36% of the UK voters vote for a right of centre party but they get just 2% of the MPs?
As I said, dividing the right under FPTP is suicide, unless Reform and the Tories merge they may as well both back PR
No, Reform can replace the Tories. That is the aim
Under FPTP the only result of Reform overtaking the Tories is likely 10-20 years of continued Labour majority government under FPTP shifting us ever more Woke in direction.
Unless Reform not only replace but merge with the Tories that is the end result of FPTP of a divided right. It is only viable to have separate Reform and Tory Parties both getting 15-25% of the vote with PR
If Reform overtake the Tories there’s no way they stay distinct entities. They’ll swallow each other, and the dissatisfied centrists will go over to Labour or the LDs.
The Canadian Tories stayed a separate entity from Reform there for 10 years after Reform overtook them on votes and seats in 1993. Indeed in 1997 the Canadian Tories actually gained 18 seats on 1993 and increased their voteshare to 18.8%, just behind Reform on 19.3%, under Jean Charest before falling back again in 2000.
Of course their combined coalition which forms today's Conservative Party of Canada is now 40%+ in the latest Canadian polls and heading for a majority under Leader Poilievre over PM Trudeau's Liberals, so united they can win centrist swing voters too (even if the wettest Canadian Tories went Liberal after the Canadian Tory merger with Reform's successor the Alliance in 2003), divided they can't
That is unsurprising really. You have to be extremely idealogical to say no they are dying but I believe in the absolute power of the state to provide this treatment. It is why that answer from Starmer stuck out for me, he is pitching himself as a moderate left of centre politician, but he was either lying or is more idealogical than he would like to let on.
The private school VAT is another. As a tax raising policy it makes no real sense.
Starmer on his mother: ""She just held my hand and said: 'You won't let your dad go private, will you?""
That is unsurprising really. You have to be extremely idealogical to say no they are dying but I believe in the absolute power of the state to provide this treatment. It is why that answer from Starmer stuck out for me, he is pitching himself as a moderate left of centre politician, but he was either lying or is more idealogical than he would like to let on.
The private school VAT is another. As a tax raising policy it makes no real sense.
Starmer on his mother: ""She just held my hand and said: 'You won't let your dad go private, will you?""
Comments
tartindependent business woman with the OF account for both categories.My own view is that it is a thing, but not an iron law. My guess is that in this election it is unlikely to apply, but it is only a guess.
Only once the Canadian Tories and Canadian Alliance (Reform's successor) merged in 2003 did the right in Canada get even a third of Canadian seats in 2004 and finally most seats in 2006 for the new Conservative Party of Canada. Though it took until 2011 for the Conservatives to get over 50% of seats again and a majority
Yesterday the Tories had their best Savanta poll for months, 'won' the debate on the first poll out and gained a council seat in Wales. One poll from YouGov and they're in pieces again.
Breaking strain of a Mars bar.
Who(m) is the very early 3rd-millennium modern-dress version of Stanley Baldwin, aka 1st Earl Baldwin of Bewdley.
My nomination is, and has been for years, David Cameron. Socially, politically, primeministerially.
I can think of far worse trade offs...
There's litttle controversy between many people charting the rise, that Brexit was a key part of it.
Not universally so, of course. But our driving test is pretty stringent for a non-Arctic nation and there is just a general level of courtesy that I think we actually just take for granted.
What is curious is if everyone had been there and he had still lost, would he still tough it out?
I would add that people may not know that the Canadian federal and provincial parties are somewhat separate. In theory that would make it easier for a new federal party to recruit ambitious local politicians. However, this did not really matter for Reform as their MPs often lacked elected political experience and instead came from local, community or activism backgrounds.
But it will be fun if the Tories become supportive of PR whilst Labour, who are more divided on the matter anyway, decide its too much trouble to change the voting system.
JESUS FUCKING CHRIST THE SOUND OF DIESEL GENERATORS IN ODESSA IS MADDENING
At Westminister, the rules governing VONCs are rather fluid (I think) really conventions subject to interpretation by PM & Co. . . . depending on the numbers.
In current situation, reckon the crucial question is, will Paid Cymru want to vote against Gething & his govt. a second time? Third? Etc. etc.?
Does anyone here know?
In our desperation to meet our hopeless so-called targets, we push away brilliant students from Commonwealth countries, who want to pay to come to our universities; we find ourselves hard pressed to recruit people who might work in our NHS, as opposed to make use of its services – because we have absolutely no power to control the numbers who are coming with no job offers and no qualifications from the 28 EU countries. I am in favour of immigration; but I am also in favour of control, and of politicians taking responsibility for what is happening; and I think it bewilders people to be told that this most basic power of a state – to decide who has the right to live and work in your country – has been taken away and now resides in Brussels.
https://conservativehome.com/2016/05/09/boris-johnsons-speech-on-the-eu-referendum-full-text/
Replacing Europeans by people from further afield was always going to lead to stickier immigration.
Maybe we are too sentimental about them here and should be more like the French.
You have fill those vacancies somehow, and lost european immigration is inevitably a key, if not the key cause, if you accept that governments don't really have a choice in the short-term, and simply cannot fill lost expertise with training British-born people overnight, as the Tories always knew, but pretended not to.
Nigerian nurses have replaced all the German nurses and Indian students have replaces all the Italian students.
Or perhaps not.
Five more years of this and things will be infinitely worse. Five more years of this and we need to find spaces for 3.75m more people, if net immigration remains at 750kish a year. That's a town the size of Leeds, with all the amenities, schools, hospitals, roads, transport infrastructure etc, will need to be built every year, if things carry on as they are.
And yet Labour aren't talking about it, and Rishi is wittering on about the small boat people who account for maybe 30k a year tops.
And those are just the structural problems. The roads and the rooms that have to be built. Culturally, how does it all work? Adding an extra 3.75m people, how does that change the culture of the UK? What are the beliefs of the people we are bringing in? Are they liberal and tolerant of others? And so on. Where's the debate? Where's the accountability?
EU students paid UK student prices, none EU ones paid £20k + per year (so EU students really weren't wanted while none EU ones have always been desired)...
Also Brexit was marketed to Asians to help get chef's etc from Bangladesh.
It was all part of the plan, unless people were being lied to...
Your attitude is symptomatic of a country run in the interests of pensioners and owners of capital.
Very happy with my 8/1 with Sky Bet on SKS to get less than the 12.9m Jezza got in 2017.
With turnout down that should be odds on.
Obviously, there will be slightly different profiles in other areas.
This is why the return of Farage is so useful. Like him or loathe him he has got the election and the voters focused on this. As it should be
If the British people choose endless mass migration fair enough it’s their democratic choice. But they need to make that choice with all the facts in hand. Farage is giving those
Radiohead face boycott threats after guitarist accused of ‘artwashing Gaza genocide’
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/06/05/radiohead-boycott-guitarist-accused-artwashing-israel-gaza/
Migrant workers from the third world are preferred because they can be paid less.
Students from the third world are preferred because they can be charged more.
In many ways it would be profitable for the rich if they could get rid of 90% of British people and replace them with a continually revolving set of third world replacements.
Put these numbers into electoral calculus and labour get 490 seats. Cons: 56, lib dem 63, reform 3, greens 2.
Expresserati: labour are in trouble now.....🤦♂️
I think it's universally recognised that cate staff do a job many of us would not want to for a lower wage than many of us would accept. The answer to this isn't to import more people from the third world to keep wages low.
I've long suggested we outsource our prisons to the third world.
Sir Ed Davey was fined £72 for the speeding offence at a private court hearing
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/crime/sir-ed-davey-lib-dem-speeding-court-conviction-b1162206.html
Lock him up! Lock him up!
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1798415050580910317?t=e1fqVSoYW4ZZcdijSZQ9Sw&s=19
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1798415054523806083?t=i5yg15ZJjJXL9nz_wb_1FQ&s=19
Mussolini and Orban would not have hesitated. Does our Nigel have it in him?
FPTP is iniquitous.
The media have yet to pick up or comment on this in any way.
Currently around 6.0 and yet a lot of MRPs are suggesting that the Lib Dems will indeed come 2nd in seats.
Ed Davey’s personal story seems to be doing well on socials and his first appearance on TV on Friday should be amply timed to capture wavering Tories.
The private school VAT is another. As a tax raising policy it makes no real sense.
Unless Reform not only replace but merge with the Tories that is the end result of FPTP of a divided right. It is only viable to have separate Reform and Tory Parties both getting 15-25% of the vote with PR
If that happens I suspect a few might be highly amused.
They are trying to roll things out helter-skelter with little planning.
It will carry some of the culture and practice of French driving, albeit at lower speeds and perhaps less danger.
I prefer the more careful London approach.
Remember "Driven by Italians" from 1982 or so?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNPTlT8HXjk
And all the parties are making it.
A while ago I said the biggest threat to Lab was a third party shaking things up. 17% for Reform won't do it especially while the Cons are barely beating that. We could see Lab return a 300-seat majority on only 40% (or even less) or we could see this development take us to interesting and unpredictable places.
How brave are we punters feeling?
Reform needed the votes and seats of Tories on the Eastern coasts of Canada to ever get into power and that only occurred after the 2 merged in 2003
It's going to be much more than that.
See, this is the thing. You just don’t get it do you? You don’t understand that we don’t want your tired, tawdry, politics any more including your psychotic obsessive culture wars.
As someone else wrote, you (pl) need to rethink.
If you remain in the wilderness for 20 years it won’t be because of that nasty unfair voting system, which you never complained about before, but because we have moved on from you. The country is leaving you behind.
He should have made it clear that the only European countries not in the ECHR are Russia and Belarus and do people want the UK sharing that company.
He needs to do better in the final leaders debate .
The reality is that tax increases are required but I equally don't see the money available to pay for them - this country is completely screwed...
Source: https://x.com/BBCPolitics/status/1464253544593346568
https://www.itv.com/news/2024-06-04/labour-and-tories-clash-over-2000-tax-claim-so-who-is-right
You are actually using that analysis to defend the lie 🤷♀️
Seriously 🤷♀️
I mean, you watched that and came to the conclusion “there you are, Sunak hasn’t been caught out telling one of the biggest general election whoppers of all time.”
Of course their combined coalition which forms today's Conservative Party of Canada is now 40%+ in the latest Canadian polls and heading for a majority under Leader Poilievre over PM Trudeau's Liberals, so united they can win centrist swing voters too (even if the wettest Canadian Tories went Liberal after the Canadian Tory merger with Reform's successor the Alliance in 2003), divided they can't