I am beginning to wonder if we will see conservative discipline implode totally and the tory campaign just collapse altogether.... We are certainly looking at a total rewriting of the electoral landscape..... The majority of boomers shuffle off to reform to live out the rest of their lives there as their control over the centre wanes. The younger conservative centrists (wets) go to lib dems and a newly centrist labour.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
Except that almost every single country in the western world is showing surging support for the hard right, or far right, in the young. Other than that, good point
I think there's a considerable amount of cherry-picking going in this narrative, and it serves both those who like the far right to ramp their performance and those who are anxious about it to exaggerate the threat (for clicks or for votes).
I don't share the view that there is something epochal happening here. This is just a coalition of people getting a little overexcited for different reasons.
Part of this can be seen in the identity of the cherry picking. The narrative has moved on from Sweden, who have been the darling/bête noire in recent years, because, well, nothing really changed there this time. See also Hungary. Now people are talking about France and Germany and projecting forwards from the far right's gains as if it's inexorable. But the recent evidence from other countries is that it's not inexorable. Elsewhere, the tide is going back out, which is why the aggregate result aren't dramatic.
If you can't see a populist rightwing shift around the western world then....... there is little hope for you. But that's no change, so we can all relax, there was never any hope for you
You see, the big difference between you and me is this: you weave tales and I check facts. And the reason we don't get on is that we're both immune. Your stories don't touch me, and you're immune to the truth.
You always react in the same way when I present you with inconvenient facts: you make it about me. But that just a continuation of the sophist's dance: attack the source of these annoying facts and they'll go away. But they don't go away, do they? Because once people can see the facts for themselves, they can believe them on their own terms. Swatting at me doesn't help that, because they're real world facts, not Farooq opinions. You're attacking me as if I'm you. But my purpose here isn't to gain a reputation for being clever and right, it's to scatter those facts around when people's rhetoric gets ahead of reality.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
I'm not sure recruiting Nigerian nurses is because EU citizens have left (although some might have done). It's because nursing doesn't pay terribly well, and you now have to have a degree to get your SRN and run up three years of debt. When I worked in the NHS you got *paid* (as a nursing assistant) to do your nurse training.
NHS nursing has long been recruiting, very actively, from "The Third World". Long before Brexit was dreamed of.
This is because you can "sell" them on lower pay than people from the First World. And because we deliberately train less nurses each year than are required by the NHS.
There is a whole conveyor belt of training and jobs leading from various African countries. Some of whom are not entirely happy by what they see as stripping their health care systems of their best workers.
The comedy when New Labour accidentally switched off the Zimbabwean route was a good one, though.
EDIT: There is no evidence, in the story given, that the buyer was a nurse or even Nigerian. Scammers like this use sob stories as part of their thing.
Yes but obviously not a scammer as such because she paid me via the driver on collection
The driver was quite possibly the person on the other end of the transaction. The scam is trying to get things for free, by demanding money back and keeping the item.
There is a fuck of a lot of pontificating on this site from people who are sat at their keyboards and not out knocking on doors, meeting the voters.
So who on here has been pounding the pavements? Own up...
And tell us if your experience matches the polls.
Well I'm a Labour doorknocker, which is why I haven't posted here since the campaign began - too busy either working or doorknocking. I live in a safe Labour seat in South London. members here have been asked to canvass in our twinned target seat which is Croydon South. I've been to quite a few sessions, they seem well-supported, even on a wet weekday evening yesterday there were about 10 people out and there had been two previous sessions earlier in the afternoon. Weekend sessions are much larger.
This seat has never been Labour and there has not been much activity in the past but the doorstep response is pretty good, disillusionment and anger with the Tories is universal and they are clearly haemorrhaging support in all directions - some to Labour, some to Reform and some to the stay at home party. There is no sign of Tory activity - I have yet to come across one of their leaflets and I have had people tell me on the doorstep that Labour is the only party that has called to ask for their vote. I'd say Labour is in with a pretty good chance of taking the seat - the odds are certainly much shorter than the 2-1 against that was quoted on here a few days ago.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
It seems that the number of EU nationals employed by the NHS has increased:
For example, in June 2016 there were 58,702 NHS staff with a recorded EU nationality, and in June 2023 there were 74,142 – an apparent rise. But to present this as the full story would be misleading because there are around 60,000 more staff for whom nationality is known now than in 2016. It is very likely that there has been an overall increase in the number of NHS staff with EU nationality since 2016, but we can’t be sure about the scale of the change, and it would be misleading to calculate an increase based solely on the two numbers above.
There are some grumpalumps on here this morning so I’m heading out.
The story was startling and is. It’s very uncomfortable for the Conservatives in particular because it’s a microcosm of what has happened: Brexit (and covid) led to massive staff shortages in key sectors of the economy. They responded to this by opening the borders to what, for many people, feels like a floodgate.
So sneer away @TOPPING but for once I agree with @Leon You may think this doesn’t matter, or that it’s a silly anecdote of some pointless middle-aged batty woman in Devon, but you’re wrong. This is precisely why Reform are on the march.
Wake up Topping, twistedfirestopper3 and others. Don’t you see what is happening? Do you not realise WHY Reform have such traction?
Sometimes the myopic complacency of the Centre is it’s downfall
Governments for decades have asked foreigners to come and work in the NHS.
And this is BOMBSHELL NEWS for heathener. And we should all WAKE UP.
Laugh/cry not at all sure.
UK governments asking foreigners to come to the UK to help out the NHS ?
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your actual family either. So you tell PB.
In retrospect as I said at the time the Tories should have kept Boris as PM and leader. He would still likely have lost but kept the Conservatives over 200 seats and Reform polling under 5% not 10-15%+ like now. Boris would then also have owned the defeat and taken the hit for the government's unpopularity.
Rishi however, having an ego the size of Canada, thought that because up to now he had had a brilliant career, 1st class Oxford degree, made lots of money in the city, married a billionaire's daughter in law, he would equally be a brilliant political leader and PM. However clearly his political nous as a campaigner having been given a safe seat in 2015 having never even stood for a local council seat before and having no real history in the party is somewhat lacking. By ousting Boris all he has down is taken ownership of the government's unpopularity after over a decade in power from Johnson while also leaking massively to Reform.
Had Rishi waited though, he would now be in prime position to be Leader of the Opposition after a Johnson heavy defeat where he would have been well placed to exploit the problems a Starmer government likely faces with the economy. Instead he has destroyed much of his reputation and put the Tories on life support to boot!
Isn't the problem there that the lying to Parliament thing would still have happened? OK, it's like Al Capone and tax evasion, in some ways a trivial technicality. But one of the essences of Johnson was "if you can't punish me for it, I can do it, even if it's not cricket". And Johnson could only have survived that by making the party take a mega hit to itsreputaiton.
Rishi is a poor PM and a worse politician. But he's also the one who has been left holding the baby with the poonami. Johnson is the one who fed it senna pods.
There is a fuck of a lot of pontificating on this site from people who are sat at their keyboards and not out knocking on doors, meeting the voters.
So who on here has been pounding the pavements? Own up...
And tell us if your experience matches the polls.
If you want peoples experiences of the last week or two.....There is an advertising festival at Cannes about to start.....there were three flights from the UK that arrived at the same time. The filter is 'EU'-'Non EU'. There were two people stamping 'Non EU' passports. Dealing with three planes arriving at the same time was obviously going to take time but when everyone with an EU passport immediately took precedence and were waved through it became quite tetchy........
A tiny example but if you are looking for good news from those pounding the pavements don't go near airports or anywhere where British people once enjoyed the pleasures of being treated as equals with our European partners......... Nor anyone from advertising....... Nor anyone actually.
The UKIP/Tories are rightly going to get the kicking of their lives.
There are some grumpalumps on here this morning so I’m heading out.
The story was startling and is. It’s very uncomfortable for the Conservatives in particular because it’s a microcosm of what has happened: Brexit (and covid) led to massive staff shortages in key sectors of the economy. They responded to this by opening the borders to what, for many people, feels like a floodgate.
So sneer away @TOPPING but for once I agree with @Leon You may think this doesn’t matter, or that it’s a silly anecdote of some pointless middle-aged batty woman in Devon, but you’re wrong. This is precisely why Reform are on the march.
Wake up Topping, twistedfirestopper3 and others. Don’t you see what is happening? Do you not realise WHY Reform have such traction?
Sometimes the myopic complacency of the Centre is it’s downfall
Governments for decades have asked foreigners to come and work in the NHS.
And this is BOMBSHELL NEWS for heathener. And we should all WAKE UP.
Laugh/cry not at all sure.
You have your head in the sand.
Pull it out and wake up before it’s too late. You are representing precisely the kind of self-satisfied complacency that is feeding Farage.
The increase in net migration in recent years is a massive problem TO MANY PEOPLE.
It isn’t particularly to me but it sure is to many voters out there.
You want to deal with right-wing populism? You address the genuine issues. You don't ignore them, you certainly don't constantly talk about them while deliberately failing to address them because you think it is a 'wedge issue'.
Just a note that UKIP polled 19% in one poll in the 2015 campaign. The issue now is whether a squeeze will come between Ref and the Cons and if any in what direction
Migration is the biggest issue that feeds Reform, but it’s not the only one. But the reason it does so is very clear to me.
This election campaign is a great example. Mainstream politicians gravely intone we need to reduce migration and stop the boats. Journalists breathlessly report on their every word.
But if you’re a voter where it’s a big concern, you have heard over the past 20 or so years this tale being told again and again. And net migration goes up and up. And whoever you vote for keeps telling you they’ll fix it, next time, next month, next year, next parliament. It’s all so easy look. We’ll send people to Rwanda, or we’ll have a quota, or points system, or we’ll put money in X, Y, Z….
In the meantime you get a media who fail to ask the probing questions on the topic. They might relish unpicking the latest government policy wheeze, but they don’t necessarily focus on the strain on resources and public services that extra migration can cause. Let’s give public services more money and it’ll all be ok, nothing to see here, move along….
So, yes, when opportunists like Farage come along, of course he gets a hearing.
The solution to this? Mainstream parties need to be braver about confronting issues like migration and culture. And instead of speaking in soundbites and policy wonkery, and actually deliver. If you want to reduce net migration, you’re going to have to properly invest in skills and border security, for instance. That’s unflashy, and not very immediate, but it starts to potentially turn the dial. And trust the voters to judge you on results, not just image. Voters are a lot savvier than many think.
I don't think there are any issues that need Reform (but there are plenty of issues that need reform)
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
lol
When you take over the deeds of the pub, you can bar me
I'm... not ordering you to leave. I'm suggesting it as an option for you. For your own benefit. I'm just taking you at your word. You think this place is full of irrecoverable thickos. Stay. Go. Whatever makes you happy. But do consider going.
There is a fuck of a lot of pontificating on this site from people who are sat at their keyboards and not out knocking on doors, meeting the voters.
So who on here has been pounding the pavements? Own up...
And tell us if your experience matches the polls.
If you want peoples experiences of the last week or two.....There is an advertising festival at Cannes about to start.....there were three flights from the UK that arrived at the same time. The filter is 'EU'-'Non EU'. There were two people stamping 'Non EU' passports. Dealing with three planes arriving at the same time was obviously going to take time but when everyone with an EU passport immediately took precedence and were waved through it became quite tetchy........
This is the oven-ready deal in action. Britain to be tret like Armenia, a.n.other 3rd country with no access rights. Of course we need to queue for a stamp and soon for fingerprints. We held all the cards and this is the freedom we all wanted.
There are some grumpalumps on here this morning so I’m heading out.
The story was startling and is. It’s very uncomfortable for the Conservatives in particular because it’s a microcosm of what has happened: Brexit (and covid) led to massive staff shortages in key sectors of the economy. They responded to this by opening the borders to what, for many people, feels like a floodgate.
So sneer away @TOPPING but for once I agree with @Leon You may think this doesn’t matter, or that it’s a silly anecdote of some pointless middle-aged batty woman in Devon, but you’re wrong. This is precisely why Reform are on the march.
Wake up Topping, twistedfirestopper3 and others. Don’t you see what is happening? Do you not realise WHY Reform have such traction?
Sometimes the myopic complacency of the Centre is it’s downfall
Governments for decades have asked foreigners to come and work in the NHS.
And this is BOMBSHELL NEWS for heathener. And we should all WAKE UP.
Laugh/cry not at all sure.
You have your head in the sand.
Pull it out and wake up before it’s too late. You are representing precisely the kind of self-satisfied complacency that is feeding Farage.
The increase in net migration in recent years is a massive problem TO MANY PEOPLE.
It isn’t particularly to me but it sure is to many voters out there.
Because a Nigerian nurse (and if you believe that you'll believe anything) tried to scam you?
Interesting analysis from Public First (they're a policy tracker / consultancy) which possibly mitigates against our - my - assumptions about a Tory swingback and Reform slide.
Farage will be licking his lips at this kind of analysis.
For example: "On average, Labour voters are expecting their party to fall just shy of a majority with 320 seats, while Conservatives are now on average expecting fewer seats than Labour but roughly a hung parliament (240 seats Conservative, 262 Labour)."
and: " 46% of the public agreed with the slightly excessive statement that the Conservatives “deserve to lose every seat they have”, including around a quarter of their own 2019 voters (24%), and a whole 64% of those who intend to vote Labour."
I think there is a difference between "deserve" and "good thing if". No party in recent times more deserves to be crushed than the current Tories in my view. But it's not a good thing if it disappears and is unable to come back as a pragmatic party of government.
The result I would want for them is a crushing defeat and they learn the right lessons from where they went wrong. This is possible, but there are plenty of current Conservatives who seem determined to learn the wrong lessons, including on this board.
The Tories will take comfort in the narrative of a divided right, just as Labour did for the left in 1983. It's easier than confronting the reality that if reform disappeared, the Tories would still be defeated, possibly by an even bigger margin, just as was true for Labour and its long suicide note
They wouldn't as even now most Reform voters prefer Sunak to Starmer as PM whereas in 1983 SDP voters were split between preference for Thatcher or Foot as PM
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I am beginning to wonder if we will see conservative discipline implode totally and the tory campaign just collapse altogether.... We are certainly looking at a total rewriting of the electoral landscape..... The majority of boomers shuffle off to reform to live out the rest of their lives there as their control over the centre wanes. The younger conservative centrists (wets) go to lib dems and a newly centrist labour.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
Except that almost every single country in the western world is showing surging support for the hard right, or far right, in the young. Other than that, good point
I think there's a considerable amount of cherry-picking going in this narrative, and it serves both those who like the far right to ramp their performance and those who are anxious about it to exaggerate the threat (for clicks or for votes).
I don't share the view that there is something epochal happening here. This is just a coalition of people getting a little overexcited for different reasons.
Part of this can be seen in the identity of the cherry picking. The narrative has moved on from Sweden, who have been the darling/bête noire in recent years, because, well, nothing really changed there this time. See also Hungary. Now people are talking about France and Germany and projecting forwards from the far right's gains as if it's inexorable. But the recent evidence from other countries is that it's not inexorable. Elsewhere, the tide is going back out, which is why the aggregate result aren't dramatic.
If you can't see a populist rightwing shift around the western world then....... there is little hope for you. But that's no change, so we can all relax, there was never any hope for you
I agree that there is a populist rightwing shift around the western world. The Western world is in relative decline and I doubt there is much any party is going to do much to prevent that continuing.
If the Farage, Trump and Le Pens of this world win elections I am pretty certain that they will also fail, probably more spectacularly than the old parties but we may have have to go there in order to discover that. It won't be pretty
In retrospect as I said at the time the Tories should have kept Boris as PM and leader. He would still likely have lost but kept the Conservatives over 200 seats and Reform polling under 5% not 10-15%+ like now. Boris would then also have owned the defeat and taken the hit for the government's unpopularity.
Rishi however, having an ego the size of Canada, thought that because up to now he had had a brilliant career, 1st class Oxford degree, made lots of money in the city, married a billionaire's daughter in law, he would equally be a brilliant political leader and PM. However clearly his political nous as a campaigner having been given a safe seat in 2015 having never even stood for a local council seat before and having no real history in the party is somewhat lacking. By ousting Boris all he has down is taken ownership of the government's unpopularity after over a decade in power from Johnson while also leaking massively to Reform.
Had Rishi waited though, he would now be in prime position to be Leader of the Opposition after a Johnson heavy defeat where he would have been well placed to exploit the problems a Starmer government likely faces with the economy. Instead he has destroyed much of his reputation and put the Tories on life support to boot!
You're forgetting that Boris would have faced a recall petition, that he would have lost, and he'd have lost the by-election if he stood. Thus he'd have had to resign as PM, find another seat, win it, then be re-elected as Tory leader and invited to become PM again. That sequence was never going to happen.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Indeed that was the context for Diane Abbott's rant in 1996 about the NHS recruiting 'blonde, blue-eyed Finnish nurses' to cover gaps, who may 'never have met a black person before, let alone touched one'.
That's 30 years.
And I'm sure that we have people here with memories of similar importation going back to the 80s, 70s or 60s.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
At least we now know how these scammers manage to sleep at night - on good quality, barely used mattresses
In retrospect as I said at the time the Tories should have kept Boris as PM and leader. He would still likely have lost but kept the Conservatives over 200 seats and Reform polling under 5% not 10-15%+ like now. Boris would then also have owned the defeat and taken the hit for the government's unpopularity.
Rishi however, having an ego the size of Canada, thought that because up to now he had had a brilliant career, 1st class Oxford degree, made lots of money in the city, married a billionaire's daughter in law, he would equally be a brilliant political leader and PM. However clearly his political nous as a campaigner having been given a safe seat in 2015 having never even stood for a local council seat before and having no real history in the party is somewhat lacking. By ousting Boris all he has down is taken ownership of the government's unpopularity after over a decade in power from Johnson while also leaking massively to Reform.
Had Rishi waited though, he would now be in prime position to be Leader of the Opposition after a Johnson heavy defeat where he would have been well placed to exploit the problems a Starmer government likely faces with the economy. Instead he has destroyed much of his reputation and put the Tories on life support to boot!
Isn't the problem there that the lying to Parliament thing would still have happened? OK, it's like Al Capone and tax evasion, in some ways a trivial technicality. But one of the essences of Johnson was "if you can't punish me for it, I can do it, even if it's not cricket". And Johnson could only have survived that by making the party take a mega hit to itsreputaiton.
Rishi is a poor PM and a worse politician. But he's also the one who has been left holding the baby with the poonami. Johnson is the one who fed it senna pods.
It is Rishi as PM leading the Tories to under 100 seats and behind even Reform on one poll, Boris for all his faults would have kept the Conservatives miles ahead of Reform and over 200 seats.
As I said Rishi should have waited until Opposition to stand for leader, David Miliband did and nearly won in 2010 winning Labour MPs and members, only the unions elected Ed Miliband
In retrospect as I said at the time the Tories should have kept Boris as PM and leader. He would still likely have lost but kept the Conservatives over 200 seats and Reform polling under 5% not 10-15%+ like now. Boris would then also have owned the defeat and taken the hit for the government's unpopularity.
Rishi however, having an ego the size of Canada, thought that because up to now he had had a brilliant career, 1st class Oxford degree, made lots of money in the city, married a billionaire's daughter in law, he would equally be a brilliant political leader and PM. However clearly his political nous as a campaigner having been given a safe seat in 2015 having never even stood for a local council seat before and having no real history in the party is somewhat lacking. By ousting Boris all he has down is taken ownership of the government's unpopularity after over a decade in power from Johnson while also leaking massively to Reform.
Had Rishi waited though, he would now be in prime position to be Leader of the Opposition after a Johnson heavy defeat where he would have been well placed to exploit the problems a Starmer government likely faces with the economy. Instead he has destroyed much of his reputation and put the Tories on life support to boot!
You're forgetting that Boris would have faced a recall petition, that he would have lost, and he'd have lost the by-election if he stood. Thus he'd have had to resign as PM, find another seat, win it, then be re-elected as Tory leader and invited to become PM again. That sequence was never going to happen.
The Tories won the Uxbridge by election
And the Tories won the Hartlepool byelection. Where they now poll 10%.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
Nick had a stroke? I had missed that. Best wished Nick - yes, hope he's recovering and will be with us for a while yet. NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Indeed that was the context for Diane Abbott's rant in 1996 about the NHS recruiting 'blonde, blue-eyed Finnish nurses', who may 'never have met a black person before, let alone touched one'.
And I'm sure that we have people here with memories of similar importation going back to the 80s, 70s or 60s.
After the local results last night, I am beginning to think that The Tories are not looking at an ELE, but an NDE, a Near Death Experience. They will badly, but the combination of having local campaigns and the innate stickiness of FPTP allows them to save at least 100 seats, even if they are third in the popular vote.
Reform, despite their media cheerleaders, cannot run ground campaign to win more than 4 or 5 MPs. Even if they get anywhere close to their current polls (but colour me sceptical on that) they will not be able to concentrate their vote. Even at same votes as the Tories,the seat split would be at least 1; 20, so e.g 5:100. The Tories may face meltdown, even in their core areas, but taken in the round they will most likely cling on in a fair number of seats, even if 20k+ majorities fall to the hundreds. I don´t believe in the system, but even a majority of 1 still gets you the seat.
After that, it rather depends on which MPs survive the cull. I think the Tory Party will turn on the Faragist wing that lead them so close to the abyss, and it is more likely that Tugendhat emerges as the core leader group, rather than Truss, Badenoch and Braverman who have been so equivocal about Farage. Maybe then the Tories re-emerge as an actual Conservative party in 2 or 3 Parliaments.
Meanwhile, the Lib Dems will at least get back above the SNP in number of seats, and could win a large number of targets and even one or two bonuses. A third party of 60+ MPs is much more formidable than one of 20 MPs. Then the Lib Dems get a platform to make a serious challenge, not just to the Tories, but also Labour.
The need for real reform of British politics: PR, an elected House of Lords, major devolution to local governments etc is really cutting through. Then there is Brexit, which the Lib Dems have opposed all along. In the same way as Lib Dem opposition to the Iraq war was treated with derision at the time, but with hindsight now seems obvious, so the Lib Dem position on Europe is also cutting through. The Lib Dems are having a great campaign, and the more people see of Ed Davey, the better they like him. The stunts are well planned and have blown away the boring label that his opponents would have liked to pin on him.
The Tories are in peril, but parties seldom die in a single election. The question for them now, is whether they can survive the NDE and come back stronger, or if they go further down the Faragist, populist rabbit hole and face real oblivion next time.
As for Labour, its all a bit bloodless, but what else can they do? I note that they are planning for a disciplined and efficient administration, with some people like Sue Grey on board. However they will need to hit the ground running, they have only a short window to make the radical change, which the voters clearly want to se. If it is wasted, then SKS is the one who will be boring.
Yet, this is very much not a boring election, indeed it could be an epochal one.
Thanks, Cicero. That's well argued, as usual, but I have my concerns about the New Conservtive Party that would emerge from a NDE.
Truss, Badenoch and Braverman would all likely survive anything but an ELE, and if just one lone Tory were returned I suspect it would be Gavin Williamson.
It's famously (some) arthropods that survive Armageddon. And his pet spider will need a servant.
While we look at the polls and marvel or are horrified or delighted, the most important part for me, looking at the Electoral Calculus tracker, is the following. Look at the voteshares vs seat predictions of the LibDems & Reform. How can this be right. As in justified. I appreciate it is all in where the votes are but surely those two stats (LibDems/Reform) are indicative of a bonkers system.
Ironically had the Tories switched to AV they would now be ideally placed to pick up Reform second preferences in many seats and Reform Tory second preferences, significantly boosting their seat numbers. PR would also give the Tories and Reform over a third of MPs in Parliament, compared to the less than 15% of MPs they are now forecast. The LDs, huge electoral reform fans, are actually now forecast to get almost the same number of MPs with FPTP PR would have given them anyway. Labour however benefit massively from FPTP, forecast to get over 70% of MPs on less than half the vote.
The only thing FPTP does look likely to do for the Tories is keep them ahead of Reform on seats, for now
Agree. I voted for AV, the only GE electoral reform I support, and the one essential to allowing the party logjam to be unjammed without chaos, but most voted the other way. Voters have to live with the system they voted not to change.
There is a fuck of a lot of pontificating on this site from people who are sat at their keyboards and not out knocking on doors, meeting the voters.
So who on here has been pounding the pavements? Own up...
And tell us if your experience matches the polls.
Well I'm a Labour doorknocker, which is why I haven't posted here since the campaign began - too busy either working or doorknocking. I live in a safe Labour seat in South London. members here have been asked to canvass in our twinned target seat which is Croydon South. I've been to quite a few sessions, they seem well-supported, even on a wet weekday evening yesterday there were about 10 people out and there had been two previous sessions earlier in the afternoon. Weekend sessions are much larger.
This seat has never been Labour and there has not been much activity in the past but the doorstep response is pretty good, disillusionment and anger with the Tories is universal and they are clearly haemorrhaging support in all directions - some to Labour, some to Reform and some to the stay at home party. There is no sign of Tory activity - I have yet to come across one of their leaflets and I have had people tell me on the doorstep that Labour is the only party that has called to ask for their vote. I'd say Labour is in with a pretty good chance of taking the seat - the odds are certainly much shorter than the 2-1 against that was quoted on here a few days ago.
I get regular reports from my parents, but they’re mostly canvassing in labour areas so hard to make a wider read to the rest of the population.
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
Nick had a stroke? I had missed that. Best wished Nick - yes, hope he's recovering and will be with us for a while yet. NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
I missed that too.
Best wishes Mr Palmer. Hope you join us again soon.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
“I have made myself look like a bit of a tit so I am going to blame everyone else”.
I am beginning to wonder if we will see conservative discipline implode totally and the tory campaign just collapse altogether.... We are certainly looking at a total rewriting of the electoral landscape..... The majority of boomers shuffle off to reform to live out the rest of their lives there as their control over the centre wanes. The younger conservative centrists (wets) go to lib dems and a newly centrist labour.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
Except that almost every single country in the western world is showing surging support for the hard right, or far right, in the young. Other than that, good point
I think there's a considerable amount of cherry-picking going in this narrative, and it serves both those who like the far right to ramp their performance and those who are anxious about it to exaggerate the threat (for clicks or for votes).
I don't share the view that there is something epochal happening here. This is just a coalition of people getting a little overexcited for different reasons.
Part of this can be seen in the identity of the cherry picking. The narrative has moved on from Sweden, who have been the darling/bête noire in recent years, because, well, nothing really changed there this time. See also Hungary. Now people are talking about France and Germany and projecting forwards from the far right's gains as if it's inexorable. But the recent evidence from other countries is that it's not inexorable. Elsewhere, the tide is going back out, which is why the aggregate result aren't dramatic.
If you can't see a populist rightwing shift around the western world then....... there is little hope for you. But that's no change, so we can all relax, there was never any hope for you
I agree that there is a populist rightwing shift around the western world. The Western world is in relative decline and I doubt there is much any party is going to do much to prevent that continuing.
If the Farage, Trump and Le Pens of this world win elections I am pretty certain that they will also fail, probably more spectacularly than the old parties but we may have have to go there in order to discover that. It won't be pretty
They will likely embark on voter suppression and media clamp downs to try and hold onto power .
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
I'm not sure recruiting Nigerian nurses is because EU citizens have left (although some might have done). It's because nursing doesn't pay terribly well, and you now have to have a degree to get your SRN and run up three years of debt. When I worked in the NHS you got *paid* (as a nursing assistant) to do your nurse training.
NHS nursing has long been recruiting, very actively, from "The Third World". Long before Brexit was dreamed of.
This is because you can "sell" them on lower pay than people from the First World. And because we deliberately train less nurses each year than are required by the NHS.
There is a whole conveyor belt of training and jobs leading from various African countries. Some of whom are not entirely happy by what they see as stripping their health care systems of their best workers.
The comedy when New Labour accidentally switched off the Zimbabwean route was a good one, though.
EDIT: There is no evidence, in the story given, that the buyer was a nurse or even Nigerian. Scammers like this use sob stories as part of their thing.
Yes but obviously not a scammer as such because she paid me via the driver on collection
The driver was quite possibly the person on the other end of the transaction. The scam is trying to get things for free, by demanding money back and keeping the item.
That's quite common.
Very common in private car purchases these days I believe: Buy a car off someone that looks like they might be a pushover, tell them something’s wrong with it 24 hours later & demand a refund. Either the seller offers a partial refund out of misplaced generosity, in which case the buyer is quids-in, or if they offer a full refund & return of the vehicle then the car is returned with a pile of expensive parts swapped out for knackered ones.
Remember that private car sales are final: Never offer a refund or return.
There is a fuck of a lot of pontificating on this site from people who are sat at their keyboards and not out knocking on doors, meeting the voters.
So who on here has been pounding the pavements? Own up...
And tell us if your experience matches the polls.
Well I'm a Labour doorknocker, which is why I haven't posted here since the campaign began - too busy either working or doorknocking. I live in a safe Labour seat in South London. members here have been asked to canvass in our twinned target seat which is Croydon South. I've been to quite a few sessions, they seem well-supported, even on a wet weekday evening yesterday there were about 10 people out and there had been two previous sessions earlier in the afternoon. Weekend sessions are much larger.
This seat has never been Labour and there has not been much activity in the past but the doorstep response is pretty good, disillusionment and anger with the Tories is universal and they are clearly haemorrhaging support in all directions - some to Labour, some to Reform and some to the stay at home party. There is no sign of Tory activity - I have yet to come across one of their leaflets and I have had people tell me on the doorstep that Labour is the only party that has called to ask for their vote. I'd say Labour is in with a pretty good chance of taking the seat - the odds are certainly much shorter than the 2-1 against that was quoted on here a few days ago.
I get regular reports from my parents, but they’re mostly canvassing in labour areas so hard to make a wider read to the rest of the population.
I saw a picture of Philp with a small canvassing team. Probably taken a minute or two before he got back into his limo and left them to it.
There is a fuck of a lot of pontificating on this site from people who are sat at their keyboards and not out knocking on doors, meeting the voters.
So who on here has been pounding the pavements? Own up...
And tell us if your experience matches the polls.
I haven't pounded the streets in this election, but I did in 1992 and was absolutely convinced that Labour would win or at least be largest party based on what I experienced on the doorstep, I was wrong again in 2017, I didn't get any clue that May would fail to win a majority on the doorstep, it felt like the two seats I worked were going to be close Labour holds at best, the majorities ended up being 11,000 and 13,000.
I'm reminded of a thing early in the BBC 1997 General Election coverage in the dead time before there's any results. Down in Mitcham and Morden the local Tories were reported to be upbeat and expecting Angela Rumbold to hold the seat with a small swing from Lab to Con. I don't think they were lying to the BBC, I think they genuinely believed it based on their canvassing. Three hours later the result came, a 16% swing from Con to Lab and a 1,000 Tory majority was now a 13,000 Labour majority.
My point is that door-to-door is a good source of information, but it's not the complete picture. I welcome your insight into what you're hearing on the ground, like hearing from Rochdale about what's going on in ANME too as it informs some constituency betting but I can't ignore the national polling either.
In retrospect as I said at the time the Tories should have kept Boris as PM and leader. He would still likely have lost but kept the Conservatives over 200 seats and Reform polling under 5% not 10-15%+ like now. Boris would then also have owned the defeat and taken the hit for the government's unpopularity.
Rishi however, having an ego the size of Canada, thought that because up to now he had had a brilliant career, 1st class Oxford degree, made lots of money in the city, married a billionaire's daughter in law, he would equally be a brilliant political leader and PM. However clearly his political nous as a campaigner having been given a safe seat in 2015 having never even stood for a local council seat before and having no real history in the party is somewhat lacking. By ousting Boris all he has down is taken ownership of the government's unpopularity after over a decade in power from Johnson while also leaking massively to Reform.
Had Rishi waited though, he would now be in prime position to be Leader of the Opposition after a Johnson heavy defeat where he would have been well placed to exploit the problems a Starmer government likely faces with the economy. Instead he has destroyed much of his reputation and put the Tories on life support to boot!
You're forgetting that Boris would have faced a recall petition, that he would have lost, and he'd have lost the by-election if he stood. Thus he'd have had to resign as PM, find another seat, win it, then be re-elected as Tory leader and invited to become PM again. That sequence was never going to happen.
The Tories won the Uxbridge by election
And the Tories won the Hartlepool byelection. Where they now poll 10%.
The Tories won the Hartlepool by election when their poll rating was double what it was at the Uxbridge by election
One thing I see the Tories have leapt on from last night's forecast was Rayner not ruling out CGT on house sales, including family homes. That's something Labour need to squash very quickly. CGT on family home sales would be an utterly catastrophic thing to let into a GE campaign discourse. It would crater them.
Green Party: We have a housing crisis! Voters: So you’ll build lots of houses? Green Party: If you elect us we’ll build even fewer houses. Voters: ?!
Green Party: There’s a climate crisis! We must do something! Voters: So you’ll build lots of green power stations then? Green Party: We’re going to cancel nuclear, onshore wind is bad because ruins people’s views & we’re not going to build the power lines to enable offshore wind for the same reason. Oh, and solar is bad too. Voters: ??!!
Green Party: There’s a climate crisis! We will put a carbon tax on everything. Voters: So you’ll put up the tax on petrol / diesel then? Green Party: Our carbon tax will cut the tax on petrol & diesel. Vote for us! Voters: ?????
These people are not serious.
Do you have a link for those?
I wouldn't support Greens nationally, because their beliefs are too dogmatic for me - but some of that does not look like Green policy, perhaps more like a creative interpretation thereof.
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
Nick had a stroke? I had missed that. Best wished Nick - yes, hope he's recovering and will be with us for a while yet. NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
Oh no, sorry to hear that. Get well soon @NickPalmer if you’re reading this. Someone with whom I more often disagree with than agree with politically, but he’s always polite and willing to engage in an honest discussion.
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
Nick had a stroke? I had missed that. Best wished Nick - yes, hope he's recovering and will be with us for a while yet. NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
I missed that too.
Best wishes Mr Palmer. Hope you join us again soon.
Others will have noted it but two interesting local byelections
The Con hold in Eltham was passable in normal times - a very good result in the current maelstrom. The Lab hold in Clydebank was a rather poor result for the SNP.
There is a months-long trend here of Con LE results far-outperforming their national picture (at least against Lab and/or in Scotland). Local BEs were a better indicator than polls in the run-up to 1992. I don't suggest anything on that scale but this should be a note of caution if going all-in on a high Lab seats total or a Ref UK break-through.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
I'm not sure recruiting Nigerian nurses is because EU citizens have left (although some might have done). It's because nursing doesn't pay terribly well, and you now have to have a degree to get your SRN and run up three years of debt. When I worked in the NHS you got *paid* (as a nursing assistant) to do your nurse training.
NHS nursing has long been recruiting, very actively, from "The Third World". Long before Brexit was dreamed of.
This is because you can "sell" them on lower pay than people from the First World. And because we deliberately train less nurses each year than are required by the NHS.
There is a whole conveyor belt of training and jobs leading from various African countries. Some of whom are not entirely happy by what they see as stripping their health care systems of their best workers.
The comedy when New Labour accidentally switched off the Zimbabwean route was a good one, though.
EDIT: There is no evidence, in the story given, that the buyer was a nurse or even Nigerian. Scammers like this use sob stories as part of their thing.
As an occasional user of the health service as well as concerned relative of others, my sense is that there's a big issue with agency nursing, regardless of whether the nurses are British born or foreign. I've had too many experiences of shift nurses seemingly knowing nothing about my or a relatives' conditions from one shift to the next, having no understanding of how the hospital works, making basic errors in treatment, and utterly lacking in bedside manner to the point of "suck it up, loser" rudeness. You really notice it when you occasionally get an actual permanent member of staff, because they know what they're doing, they seem to care, and talk to you like a human being rather than a statistic.
My relative who nearly died had a succession of UK doctors - always a different one. Same nurses and physios etc.
They all failed to provide continuity of care. Among other things they failed to notice someone dying of dehydration in front of them.
In retrospect as I said at the time the Tories should have kept Boris as PM and leader. He would still likely have lost but kept the Conservatives over 200 seats and Reform polling under 5% not 10-15%+ like now. Boris would then also have owned the defeat and taken the hit for the government's unpopularity.
Rishi however, having an ego the size of Canada, thought that because up to now he had had a brilliant career, 1st class Oxford degree, made lots of money in the city, married a billionaire's daughter in law, he would equally be a brilliant political leader and PM. However clearly his political nous as a campaigner having been given a safe seat in 2015 having never even stood for a local council seat before and having no real history in the party is somewhat lacking. By ousting Boris all he has down is taken ownership of the government's unpopularity after over a decade in power from Johnson while also leaking massively to Reform.
Had Rishi waited though, he would now be in prime position to be Leader of the Opposition after a Johnson heavy defeat where he would have been well placed to exploit the problems a Starmer government likely faces with the economy. Instead he has destroyed much of his reputation and put the Tories on life support to boot!
You're forgetting that Boris would have faced a recall petition, that he would have lost, and he'd have lost the by-election if he stood. Thus he'd have had to resign as PM, find another seat, win it, then be re-elected as Tory leader and invited to become PM again. That sequence was never going to happen.
The Tories won the Uxbridge by election
And the Tories won the Hartlepool byelection. Where they now poll 10%.
The Tories won the Hartlepool by election when their poll rating was double what it was at the Uxbridge by election
Yes. That was then. This is now. Its over. Hard stop. No point trying to pretend that Boris wasn't getting ousted and maybe it would be better had he still been PM.
He's gone. And in 3 weeks you're all gone.
10% mate. That was my dream a few nights back. And if you keep collapsing at the current exponential rate it just might be true. You yourself now reduced to ramping that the polls aren't that bad because you're still on for 71 seats and beating the LDs on 69.
To quote the titles of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3-part epic: Smashed. Wrecked. Gone.
I am beginning to wonder if we will see conservative discipline implode totally and the tory campaign just collapse altogether.... We are certainly looking at a total rewriting of the electoral landscape..... The majority of boomers shuffle off to reform to live out the rest of their lives there as their control over the centre wanes. The younger conservative centrists (wets) go to lib dems and a newly centrist labour.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
Except that almost every single country in the western world is showing surging support for the hard right, or far right, in the young. Other than that, good point
I think there's a considerable amount of cherry-picking going in this narrative, and it serves both those who like the far right to ramp their performance and those who are anxious about it to exaggerate the threat (for clicks or for votes).
I don't share the view that there is something epochal happening here. This is just a coalition of people getting a little overexcited for different reasons.
Part of this can be seen in the identity of the cherry picking. The narrative has moved on from Sweden, who have been the darling/bête noire in recent years, because, well, nothing really changed there this time. See also Hungary. Now people are talking about France and Germany and projecting forwards from the far right's gains as if it's inexorable. But the recent evidence from other countries is that it's not inexorable. Elsewhere, the tide is going back out, which is why the aggregate result aren't dramatic.
If you can't see a populist rightwing shift around the western world then....... there is little hope for you. But that's no change, so we can all relax, there was never any hope for you
I agree that there is a populist rightwing shift around the western world. The Western world is in relative decline and I doubt there is much any party is going to do much to prevent that continuing.
If the Farage, Trump and Le Pens of this world win elections I am pretty certain that they will also fail, probably more spectacularly than the old parties but we may have have to go there in order to discover that. It won't be pretty
They will likely embark on voter suppression and media clamp downs to try and hold onto power .
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
I'm not sure recruiting Nigerian nurses is because EU citizens have left (although some might have done). It's because nursing doesn't pay terribly well, and you now have to have a degree to get your SRN and run up three years of debt. When I worked in the NHS you got *paid* (as a nursing assistant) to do your nurse training.
NHS nursing has long been recruiting, very actively, from "The Third World". Long before Brexit was dreamed of.
This is because you can "sell" them on lower pay than people from the First World. And because we deliberately train less nurses each year than are required by the NHS.
There is a whole conveyor belt of training and jobs leading from various African countries. Some of whom are not entirely happy by what they see as stripping their health care systems of their best workers.
The comedy when New Labour accidentally switched off the Zimbabwean route was a good one, though.
EDIT: There is no evidence, in the story given, that the buyer was a nurse or even Nigerian. Scammers like this use sob stories as part of their thing.
Yes but obviously not a scammer as such because she paid me via the driver on collection
The driver was quite possibly the person on the other end of the transaction. The scam is trying to get things for free, by demanding money back and keeping the item.
That's quite common.
Very common in private car purchases these days I believe: Buy a car off someone that looks like they might be a pushover, tell them something’s wrong with it 24 hours later & demand a refund. Either the seller offers a partial refund out of misplaced generosity, in which case the buyer is quids-in, or if they offer a full refund & return of the vehicle then the car is returned with a pile of expensive parts swapped out for knackered ones.
Remember that private car sales are final: Never offer a refund or return.
All Facebook marketplace sales are final - it’s why I don’t sell on eBay - way too many scammers
Others will have noted it but two interesting local byelections
The Con hold in Eltham was passable in normal times - a very good result in the current maelstrom. The Lab hold in Clydebank was a rather poor result for the SNP.
There is a months-long trend here of Con LE results far-outperforming their national picture (at least against Lab and/or in Scotland). Local BEs were a better indicator than polls in the run-up to 1992. I don't suggest anything on that scale but this should be a note of caution if going all-in on a high Lab seats total or a Ref UK break-through.
I agree. It's not a foolproof guide because there have been very few local BEs (and the baselines for some of these are the very recent local elections, though not these), but it also shows Reform doing pretty badly, way below their polling.
I think polling is significantly overstating Ref (and Green) and understating Con.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
I thought it was an interesting story. I took no more from it than that
Whose turn is it to question whether it will be accurate, given all the movement in votes, and then be utterly humiliated on the day?
I’m happy to have a go?
The exit poll has been astonishingly accurate in the recent past. The last time it missed the result was IIRC 1992, where it predicted Major to be a few seats short rather than a few seats over the line.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
Is it? One of my partner's daughter's best friends is a medical student; she's quite smart but by no means a straight A student. She has actually struggled a lot with the course and workload, but has also been well supported by her various mentors.
It seems to me that the difficulty in recruiting trainee doctors in the UK is more to do with that fact that there are so many other ways for smart people to earn a decent wage that are far less arduous and require much less training.
Whose turn is it to question whether it will be accurate, given all the movement in votes, and then be utterly humiliated on the day?
I’m happy to have a go?
It doesn't matter how good the exit poll is, it's often hard to truly believe in it, and part of the fun/despair of election night is looking for clues in the early results as to why the exit poll is wrong or right, and slowly getting used to the idea that it's pretty much spot on.
I look forward to being part of this process on the night.
I am beginning to wonder if we will see conservative discipline implode totally and the tory campaign just collapse altogether.... We are certainly looking at a total rewriting of the electoral landscape..... The majority of boomers shuffle off to reform to live out the rest of their lives there as their control over the centre wanes. The younger conservative centrists (wets) go to lib dems and a newly centrist labour.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
Except that almost every single country in the western world is showing surging support for the hard right, or far right, in the young. Other than that, good point
I think there's a considerable amount of cherry-picking going in this narrative, and it serves both those who like the far right to ramp their performance and those who are anxious about it to exaggerate the threat (for clicks or for votes).
I don't share the view that there is something epochal happening here. This is just a coalition of people getting a little overexcited for different reasons.
Part of this can be seen in the identity of the cherry picking. The narrative has moved on from Sweden, who have been the darling/bête noire in recent years, because, well, nothing really changed there this time. See also Hungary. Now people are talking about France and Germany and projecting forwards from the far right's gains as if it's inexorable. But the recent evidence from other countries is that it's not inexorable. Elsewhere, the tide is going back out, which is why the aggregate result aren't dramatic.
If you can't see a populist rightwing shift around the western world then....... there is little hope for you. But that's no change, so we can all relax, there was never any hope for you
I agree that there is a populist rightwing shift around the western world. The Western world is in relative decline and I doubt there is much any party is going to do much to prevent that continuing.
If the Farage, Trump and Le Pens of this world win elections I am pretty certain that they will also fail, probably more spectacularly than the old parties but we may have have to go there in order to discover that. It won't be pretty
They will likely embark on voter suppression and media clamp downs to try and hold onto power .
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
I'm not sure recruiting Nigerian nurses is because EU citizens have left (although some might have done). It's because nursing doesn't pay terribly well, and you now have to have a degree to get your SRN and run up three years of debt. When I worked in the NHS you got *paid* (as a nursing assistant) to do your nurse training.
NHS nursing has long been recruiting, very actively, from "The Third World". Long before Brexit was dreamed of.
This is because you can "sell" them on lower pay than people from the First World. And because we deliberately train less nurses each year than are required by the NHS.
There is a whole conveyor belt of training and jobs leading from various African countries. Some of whom are not entirely happy by what they see as stripping their health care systems of their best workers.
The comedy when New Labour accidentally switched off the Zimbabwean route was a good one, though.
EDIT: There is no evidence, in the story given, that the buyer was a nurse or even Nigerian. Scammers like this use sob stories as part of their thing.
Yes but obviously not a scammer as such because she paid me via the driver on collection
The driver was quite possibly the person on the other end of the transaction. The scam is trying to get things for free, by demanding money back and keeping the item.
That's quite common.
Very common in private car purchases these days I believe: Buy a car off someone that looks like they might be a pushover, tell them something’s wrong with it 24 hours later & demand a refund. Either the seller offers a partial refund out of misplaced generosity, in which case the buyer is quids-in, or if they offer a full refund & return of the vehicle then the car is returned with a pile of expensive parts swapped out for knackered ones.
Remember that private car sales are final: Never offer a refund or return.
All Facebook marketplace sales are final - it’s why I don’t sell on eBay - way too many scammers
Apparently, it is quite often "amateur" scammers. So you need a mattress, buy one, get it and then try and get it for free. They think of this as "Pro Life Tip".
One thing I see the Tories have leapt on from last night's forecast was Rayner not ruling out CGT on house sales, including family homes. That's something Labour need to squash very quickly. CGT on family home sales would be an utterly catastrophic thing to let into a GE campaign discourse. It would crater them.
Labour will have to raise taxes since they wont cut spending. Set aside the Con Accusation of £2094 which is really £3000. But £7.5 billion of declared increases wont raise £7.5 billion.
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
Nick had a stroke? I had missed that. Best wished Nick - yes, hope he's recovering and will be with us for a while yet. NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
Oh no, sorry to hear that. Get well soon @NickPalmer if you’re reading this. Someone with whom I more often disagree with than agree with politically, but he’s always polite and willing to engage in an honest discussion.
I am beginning to wonder if we will see conservative discipline implode totally and the tory campaign just collapse altogether.... We are certainly looking at a total rewriting of the electoral landscape..... The majority of boomers shuffle off to reform to live out the rest of their lives there as their control over the centre wanes. The younger conservative centrists (wets) go to lib dems and a newly centrist labour.
This is the election where the millienials finally came into their own as a voting power house (I am Gen X btw... nobody gives a rats arse about us). That boomer bastion of conservative and reform vote will never recover...not ever. In 2029 and 2034 support for the culture war, pro brexit agenda will have all but been eradicated by natural demographics and the passing of time. So although it is (intellectually) exciting to see reform pass the conservatives in the polls, I see nothing but more head winds for that political project.
I think it is Gramsci who says that the past has died but the new has not yet been born and so we are haunted by the ghost of yesterday - that has been british politics since 2010 (brexit is part and parcel of that toxic nostalgia, seeking to bring back something that can never return), and especially the zombie government since 2019. I think something entirely different might be on the horison now. We may be going through an exorcism...
Except that almost every single country in the western world is showing surging support for the hard right, or far right, in the young. Other than that, good point
I think there's a considerable amount of cherry-picking going in this narrative, and it serves both those who like the far right to ramp their performance and those who are anxious about it to exaggerate the threat (for clicks or for votes).
I don't share the view that there is something epochal happening here. This is just a coalition of people getting a little overexcited for different reasons.
Part of this can be seen in the identity of the cherry picking. The narrative has moved on from Sweden, who have been the darling/bête noire in recent years, because, well, nothing really changed there this time. See also Hungary. Now people are talking about France and Germany and projecting forwards from the far right's gains as if it's inexorable. But the recent evidence from other countries is that it's not inexorable. Elsewhere, the tide is going back out, which is why the aggregate result aren't dramatic.
If you can't see a populist rightwing shift around the western world then....... there is little hope for you. But that's no change, so we can all relax, there was never any hope for you
I agree that there is a populist rightwing shift around the western world. The Western world is in relative decline and I doubt there is much any party is going to do much to prevent that continuing.
If the Farage, Trump and Le Pens of this world win elections I am pretty certain that they will also fail, probably more spectacularly than the old parties but we may have have to go there in order to discover that. It won't be pretty
They will likely embark on voter suppression and media clamp downs to try and hold onto power .
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
I'm not sure recruiting Nigerian nurses is because EU citizens have left (although some might have done). It's because nursing doesn't pay terribly well, and you now have to have a degree to get your SRN and run up three years of debt. When I worked in the NHS you got *paid* (as a nursing assistant) to do your nurse training.
NHS nursing has long been recruiting, very actively, from "The Third World". Long before Brexit was dreamed of.
This is because you can "sell" them on lower pay than people from the First World. And because we deliberately train less nurses each year than are required by the NHS.
There is a whole conveyor belt of training and jobs leading from various African countries. Some of whom are not entirely happy by what they see as stripping their health care systems of their best workers.
The comedy when New Labour accidentally switched off the Zimbabwean route was a good one, though.
EDIT: There is no evidence, in the story given, that the buyer was a nurse or even Nigerian. Scammers like this use sob stories as part of their thing.
Yes but obviously not a scammer as such because she paid me via the driver on collection
The driver was quite possibly the person on the other end of the transaction. The scam is trying to get things for free, by demanding money back and keeping the item.
That's quite common.
Very common in private car purchases these days I believe: Buy a car off someone that looks like they might be a pushover, tell them something’s wrong with it 24 hours later & demand a refund. Either the seller offers a partial refund out of misplaced generosity, in which case the buyer is quids-in, or if they offer a full refund & return of the vehicle then the car is returned with a pile of expensive parts swapped out for knackered ones.
Remember that private car sales are final: Never offer a refund or return.
All Facebook marketplace sales are final - it’s why I don’t sell on eBay - way too many scammers
Apparently, it is quite often "amateur" scammers. So you need a mattress, buy one, get it and then try and get it for free. They think of this as "Pro Life Tip".
Remember, these small time scammers are among the voters the parties are trying to win votes from.
@TOPPING your complacency about migration as an issue in this election is breathtaking
I very rarely agree with @Leon and he doesn’t help his cause, but this IS a big big issue for a lot of people
@TOPPING has status anxiety on this issue. Caring about immigration is by definition something done by the lower orders, he sees himself as posh but also affects not to care about poshness (did you know his nephews go to Eton? - he told us this, not that it matters of course, as he himself added)
Ergo, he is way out on the left on immigration, so we don't mistake him for a petit bourgeois UKIPPPER
Not quite.
I genuinely don't give a stuff about immigration. I do give a stuff about resources/infrastructure (hospitals, schools, etc) but any shortfall there is down to government's inaction or inability to build more schools, hospitals, etc.
What about a theoretical or actual 100m people coming to the UK - would that be a good thing or likely? Is the key question and one where you perhaps should have directed your enquiry to me rather than airing your own well-known insecurities about status.
And the answer is I'm not sure. As it stands, we don't have millions of people queuing up to come here and I do want some control of the borders in terms of the actual numbers.
I suppose my answer would be that the government/the parties should set out a growth plan together with the level of immigration required to support that plan. We then could vote for the one which suited us best.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
Is it? One of my partner's daughter's best friends is a medical student; she's quite smart but by no means a straight A student. She has actually struggled a lot with the course and workload, but has also been well supported by her various mentors.
It seems to me that the difficulty in recruiting trainee doctors in the UK is more to do with that fact that there are so many other ways for smart people to earn a decent wage that are far less arduous and require much less training.
The difficulty with us recruiting trainee doctors is that we don’t have enough spaces at university and when the spaces were provided at university we then don’t have the spaces in hospitals for the next stage.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Indeed that was the context for Diane Abbott's rant in 1996 about the NHS recruiting 'blonde, blue-eyed Finnish nurses' to cover gaps, who may 'never have met a black person before, let alone touched one'.
That's 30 years.
And I'm sure that we have people here with memories of similar importation going back to the 80s, 70s or 60s.
I'd say that Farage & Co are quite happy pushing racist hot buttons because they think it will help them with segments of their potential voters.
That Diane Abbott and Nigel Farage have spent their lives coming up will all sorts of racist tripe for political advantage, is hardly news. Meanwhile, the actual issue remains unresolved, that there are still shortages of key professionals in the NHS.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
Is it? On of my partner's daughter's best friends is a medical student; she's quite smart but by no means a straight A student. She has actually struggled a lot with the course and workload, but has also been well supported by her various mentors.
It seems to me that the difficulty in recruiting trainee doctors in the UK is more to do with that fact that there are so many other ways for smart people to earn a decent wage that are far less arduous and require much less training.
Yes and no. There are not enough places, and elements of the profession need rethinking. The medical establishment is very conservative about change.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
One thing I see the Tories have leapt on from last night's forecast was Rayner not ruling out CGT on house sales, including family homes. That's something Labour need to squash very quickly. CGT on family home sales would be an utterly catastrophic thing to let into a GE campaign discourse. It would crater them.
Labour will have to raise taxes since they wont cut spending. Set aside the Con Accusation of £2094 which is really £3000. But £7.5 billion of declared increases wont raise £7.5 billion.
Oh I agree, but this is one they need to shut down or they'll take a big hit for.
Green Party: We have a housing crisis! Voters: So you’ll build lots of houses? Green Party: If you elect us we’ll build even fewer houses. Voters: ?!
Green Party: There’s a climate crisis! We must do something! Voters: So you’ll build lots of green power stations then? Green Party: We’re going to cancel nuclear, onshore wind is bad because ruins people’s views & we’re not going to build the power lines to enable offshore wind for the same reason. Oh, and solar is bad too. Voters: ??!!
Green Party: There’s a climate crisis! We will put a carbon tax on everything. Voters: So you’ll put up the tax on petrol / diesel then? Green Party: Our carbon tax will cut the tax on petrol & diesel. Vote for us! Voters: ?????
These people are not serious.
Do you have a link for those?
I wouldn't support Greens nationally, because their beliefs are too dogmatic for me - but some of that does not look like Green policy, perhaps more like a creative interpretation thereof.
Naturally you have to read between the lines a little. The carbon tax they quote works out at less than current taxes on petrol / diesel on the forecourt. The house building rate of < 150k / year is in there too. The power generation section contains the gems about cutting nuclear & the claim that they will provide for grid transfer via off-shore power cables. These are wildly more expensive, less efficient & less reliable than an on-shore long distance power grid. Why aren’t they just building out an on-shore power grid? Well, the manifesto doesn’t say, but it’s because their members apparently don’t like how overground power cables look. Spoils their nice views I believe.
The solar thing is from the reality that the “Greens” have opposed solar farms almost everywhere, and are apparently convinced that rooftop solar is the only valid solar. So instead of building out as much solar as possible, as fast as possible to avert a climate catastrophe they are in favour of slowly building out the most expensive form of solar power known to man. (Not that there’s anything wrong with rooftop solar: it’s great, but on-ground solar on the poorer grades of farmland outperforms it on every metric. Well, except whether nimbys like it I guess?)
The Greens have become even more nimbyish than any other party which, given that they keep banging on about the climate crisis at every opportunity, is the height of hypocrisy imo.
One thing I see the Tories have leapt on from last night's forecast was Rayner not ruling out CGT on house sales, including family homes. That's something Labour need to squash very quickly. CGT on family home sales would be an utterly catastrophic thing to let into a GE campaign discourse. It would crater them.
Labour will have to raise taxes since they wont cut spending. Set aside the Con Accusation of £2094 which is really £3000. But £7.5 billion of declared increases wont raise £7.5 billion.
Yep - but the mess we are in is one that was created by the Tories going back to Cameron and Osbourne.
No country in the world has full CGT on primary residencies - it would be an interesting experiment but one I would prefer to watch from a safe distance
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
I thought it was an interesting story. I took no more from it than that
It may not have been the best example of migration but it's correct that this is a BIG factor in this election. We may not like that it is but it is.
Same goes in Europe.
If you don't want to feed the kind of BS that Leon posts then at least engage with the reasons behind it. Otherwise @Heathener is right that we are fuelling it through centrist complacency.
Exactly the same thing happened in the run up to Brexit. Fucking sneering complacency from the Metropoles. They couldn't see what was happening on their watch under their very noses.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
One of my partner's daughter's best friends is...
Gold standard PB anecdote source.
My partner's daughter lives with us, and her friend is a regular visitor to our house. It's not that tenuous.
She is a first hand example of someone who gained a place at medical school despite having less than stellar A level grades. This is evidence that you don't actually need top grades to get into medical school in the UK, contradicting the claim made by the poster to whom I was responding.
More news from Macclesfield (for those that care).
Still no leaflet or canvassers from the incumbent Conservative candidate. Considering I have had two from the guy who owns the local Garden Centre and is running as an independent that's pretty poor. Have had two canvassing visits from Labour and a ruck load of leaflets and mailings.
Sunak has had a visit (to a farm last week) and Rayner and Cooper have been here from the red team.
All seems lost for the blue team - and the last time it wasn't a Tory seat was circa 1910 when the Liberals had it.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
@TOPPING your complacency about migration as an issue in this election is breathtaking
I very rarely agree with @Leon and he doesn’t help his cause, but this IS a big big issue for a lot of people
@TOPPING has status anxiety on this issue. Caring about immigration is by definition something done by the lower orders, he sees himself as posh but also affects not to care about poshness (did you know his nephews go to Eton? - he told us this, not that it matters of course, as he himself added)
Ergo, he is way out on the left on immigration, so we don't mistake him for a petit bourgeois UKIPPPER
Not quite.
I genuinely don't give a stuff about immigration.r.
Well you ought to. Cos it really matters to the kind of voters who are affecting the outcome of this election.
Sneer at Hetherner but she is right on that point.
There are some grumpalumps on here this morning so I’m heading out.
The story was startling and is. It’s very uncomfortable for the Conservatives in particular because it’s a microcosm of what has happened: Brexit (and covid) led to massive staff shortages in key sectors of the economy. They responded to this by opening the borders to what, for many people, feels like a floodgate.
So sneer away @TOPPING but for once I agree with @Leon You may think this doesn’t matter, or that it’s a silly anecdote of some pointless middle-aged batty woman in Devon, but you’re wrong. This is precisely why Reform are on the march.
Wake up Topping, twistedfirestopper3 and others. Don’t you see what is happening? Do you not realise WHY Reform have such traction?
Sometimes the myopic complacency of the Centre is it’s downfall
Now, not having been to Germany for a fair few years the levels of visible immigration I’m seeing, even in deepest Bavaria, have been instructive. I first came to Bavaria interrailing in 1989 with a good friend who is of mixed race. He stuck out a mile then, in Munich, never mind the small towns. He certainly doesn’t now. This is huge change and undoubtedly the trigger for Reform support, Leon’s hyperactivity etc.
But what can you do about it? You can accept it, a multicultural future, rub along together etc. This is my broad view. Or you can try and stop it. But how? I have not seen a single realistic proposal from Farage, from Braverman, from Sunak, or from anybody else about how to deal with migration. Their only solutions are performative.
In reality the west needs to invest in the second and third world, if it wants to stop the second and third world coming to us.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
I thought it was an interesting story. I took no more from it than that
It may not have been the best example of migration but it's correct that this is a BIG factor in this election. We may not like that it is but it is.
Same goes in Europe.
If you don't want to feed the kind of BS that Leon posts then at least engage with the reasons behind it. Otherwise @Heathener is right that we are fuelling it through centrist complacency.
Exactly the same thing happened in the run up to Brexit. Fucking sneering complacency from the Metropoles. They couldn't see what was happening on their watch under their very noses.
Smell the coffee.
If immigration is such a big issue and we have had record immigration for the past several years aren't we the idiots that can't do anything about it. We are about to have a Lab landslide current predictions are for upwards of a 250-seat majority and I can promise you they won't be all that hard on immigration. Ergo, the country really doesn't care enough about immigration to vote someone in who's going to do anything about it.
Of course you're right that a sizeable minority cares a lot, but as it stands not enough people do for anything much to happen as a result.
One thing I see the Tories have leapt on from last night's forecast was Rayner not ruling out CGT on house sales, including family homes. That's something Labour need to squash very quickly. CGT on family home sales would be an utterly catastrophic thing to let into a GE campaign discourse. It would crater them.
Labour will have to raise taxes since they wont cut spending. Set aside the Con Accusation of £2094 which is really £3000. But £7.5 billion of declared increases wont raise £7.5 billion.
Oh I agree, but this is one they need to shut down or they'll take a big hit for.
Two examples
If North Sea oil is due to drop in price by 25% by year end as the IEA say then those windfall taxes have a bit of a hole. Some companies might actually be making a loss.
Likewise the VAT on school fees is a complete unknown with more down side that upside.
So the money will have to come from somewhere else.
I think what I am seeing with a lot of comments on here is 'centrist denial' and this could actually have some betting implications. People are reading the current situation in an essentially 20th century way ie what is happening on the right is 'extremists' 'splitting' and who will become increasingly irrellevant over time. This overlooks what has been happening over the last decade on a global scale with the rise of insurgent political movements that disrupt political norms- Brexit, Trump, Italy, France, Germany, the list goes on.
What seems apparent to me is that we are seeing the final death through incoherance and exhaustion of the 'broad church' conservative party and the creation of a more coherent right wing political movement which can, like everything else that has happened globally, begin as a ridiculed insurgency but end up close to, or achieving power, building on dissatisfaction with the inevitable failings of the 'centrist, managerial status quo'. It is a small jump from 30% to 40% but the latter can win a general election under the FPTP system.
It may not be 'reform' that carries this insurgency forward. It could be a revised version of the Conservative Party having dumped the Hunts, Sunaks and Mordaunts. Or a 'start up' party of the type Cummings suggests. But to just assume all this is irrelevant extremism just seems to be an act of enormous denial given what is happening on a global scale.
The analysis on here is fucking pitiful, if I am honest. Really really feeble. For all the reasons you state, it is a bunch of middle aged and frankly geriatric twats looking hopefully at reality through a 20th century prism, and with quite low watt IQ levels to illuminate the view
Idiots
And I speak as a late middle aged twat, but at least I'm not wearing the Goggles of Denial
Why do you come here? I don't think you're universally liked on here, and you seem to despise us. So why not fuck off? I think you'd be happier. I know I would be. Go on, do it. Sling your hook. What have you got to lose?
See. That's EXACTLY why I come here. To really wind up people like you. And I REALLY do wind you up, don't I?
If this was actually a pub I reckon you'd have angrily asked me outside at least eight times by now, in a frothing, slightly insane way, as the barman rolls his eyes and tells you to chill out, Farooq, not again, fer fucks sake
Yes, you do wind me up, but not always the times you're trying to. I think you've got a 10% hit rate. But let's not focus on me, let's think about you. I'm not offering you a fight outside the pub, I'm saying you really don't seem to like the people in here. You seem really quite miserable about how stupid we all are. So go. There's the door. You don't ever have to read a single thing any of us say ever again. You're better than us, go find a more elevated place. You won't miss us.
You're misunderestimating Leon. And PB. It's a big family and you can't tell your co-worker/boss/underling/agent to go fuck themselves so you tell your actual family. Except, because you are not six years old, you can't tell your family either. So you tell PB.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
Nick had a stroke? I had missed that. Best wished Nick - yes, hope he's recovering and will be with us for a while yet. NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
I hadn't heard that either. Best wishes to @NickPalmer for a speedy recovery. Don't work too hard sir and hope to see you back on the site soon.
I have avoided this topic entirely because I find it so toxic and this place is not my kind of natural demographic (I’m on here for betting reasons, so no offence meant). And I certainly do not want to light a touch paper.
However, I did encounter something I found very strange c. 18 months ago.
I was moving house and selling a few things which included a fairly new John Lewis mattress. I advertised on FB marketplace and the first person to respond clinched the sale. She sent a driver around with the cash to collect it.
I thought little more about it until 24 hours later she messaged me to say she wasn’t satisfied with the quality and wanted her money back. I was a bit taken aback (JLP aren’t usually rubbish) but I told her that was fine. Return the mattress and I’d refund her. Her reply was this:
’I am a Nigerian nurse who has come over here to work in your Health Service in response to your Government advertising in my country for people to come and help out in Britain. I have no money and I am doing you all a service so please give me the mattress for free.'
I was, and still am, on several levels astonished.
You obviously told her to get f@#ked?
I did.
For the benefit of Topping the startling part is obviously what she said. It’s sad that I have to spell it out, but for starters it wasn’t just her attitude: that somehow she had come to this country in order to help us out and was doing us a favour, that should mean freebies.
It was that the Government were recruiting Nigerian workers to make up for the (obvious) fact that others had left.
Where was this mentioned by the Leave campaign????
It was one personal encounter with what has clearly for many people become a serious issue: net migration.
And I’m a left-leaning person who loves multi-culturalism here. But there’s clearly a problem. We have totally fed Farage and us centrists ignore that at our grave peril.
You do realise we’ve been poaching labour for the NHS from commonwealth countries overseas since well before Brexit? They speak English, often have equivalent training, and will take the wages we offer. We recruit them because it takes a while to recruit and train them locally, so taking someone mid-career is an easy sugar fix. Zero link to Brexit.
Indeed, it’s been going on for decades.
Recruiting from overseas works in the short term to free up capacity, but long term we need more training places in the UK, and not have students in subjects like nursing getting into debt for a ‘degree’.
The BMA have until very recently been utterly opposed to more medical school places, preferring to encourage scarcity of doctors.
One of my pet ideas is to open a “British Hospital” somewhere like Mumbai or Manila, staffed at the top end by retired British doctors and managers doing it for a couple of years, and existing primarily to train up thousands of locals with UK-recognised qualifications that lead to visas. It also provides a service to the local population, and avoids taking mid-career professionals out of the country.
Medical school snootiness is a real issue. Doctors don’t need to be straight A students at A-level. They need good memories and a set of less academic competencies. However medical schools only favour the former.
One of my partner's daughter's best friends is...
Gold standard PB anecdote source.
You are being a bit of a prick tbf
It's true that PB can sometimes be a bit too fast or smart for some people. I'm sure you'll catch up in time.
What gobsmacked me is that Sunak didn't know the net migration numbers in the Sky debate. Not a clue what they were. This is the numbers guy. She had to tell him what they were.
This is why the Right is on the march in Europe and now here. Centrist middle class Metropole fucking complacency.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
I thought it was an interesting story. I took no more from it than that
It may not have been the best example of migration but it's correct that this is a BIG factor in this election. We may not like that it is but it is.
Same goes in Europe.
If you don't want to feed the kind of BS that Leon posts then at least engage with the reasons behind it. Otherwise @Heathener is right that we are fuelling it through centrist complacency.
Exactly the same thing happened in the run up to Brexit. Fucking sneering complacency from the Metropoles. They couldn't see what was happening on their watch under their very noses.
Smell the coffee.
If immigration is such a big issue and we have had record immigration for the past several years aren't we the idiots that can't do anything about it. We are about to have a Lab landslide current predictions are for upwards of a 250-seat majority and I can promise you they won't be all that hard on immigration. Ergo, the country really doesn't care enough about immigration to vote someone in who's going to do anything about it.
Of course you're right that a sizeable minority cares a lot, but as it stands not enough people do for anything much to happen as a result.
Immigration comes up much more often on this site than it does on the doorstep in my experience. No one has raised it with me during this campaign so far.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
It said nothing about the very real immigration problem in this country. We've been recruiting foreign workers for the NHS for years and without them it wouldn't function, so your anecdote bought nothing to the table apart from highlighting the worsening scammer issue on the internet. And quit with the pleas to "Wake Up". Makes you sound like a flat earther, moon landing denier, Bill Gates hating vaxxer.
Also Ref squeezing the Tory vote; I can't comment on the differential factors sensibly. I think the Tories are hunkered down in their rabbit hole.
I'll take a cycle ride round a couple of 1960s/70s housing areas later on, which I make to be mainly C1/C2 OK but not rich owner occupiers or their children.
I'd say the electoral calculus poll has credibility; the Lee Anderson one looks questionable.
Green Party: We have a housing crisis! Voters: So you’ll build lots of houses? Green Party: If you elect us we’ll build even fewer houses. Voters: ?!
Green Party: There’s a climate crisis! We must do something! Voters: So you’ll build lots of green power stations then? Green Party: We’re going to cancel nuclear, onshore wind is bad because ruins people’s views & we’re not going to build the power lines to enable offshore wind for the same reason. Oh, and solar is bad too. Voters: ??!!
Green Party: There’s a climate crisis! We will put a carbon tax on everything. Voters: So you’ll put up the tax on petrol / diesel then? Green Party: Our carbon tax will cut the tax on petrol & diesel. Vote for us! Voters: ?????
These people are not serious.
Do you have a link for those?
I wouldn't support Greens nationally, because their beliefs are too dogmatic for me - but some of that does not look like Green policy, perhaps more like a creative interpretation thereof.
Naturally you have to read between the lines a little. The carbon tax they quote works out at less than current taxes on petrol / diesel on the forecourt. The house building rate of < 150k / year is in there too. The power generation section contains the gems about cutting nuclear & the claim that they will provide for grid transfer via off-shore power cables. These are wildly more expensive, less efficient & less reliable than an on-shore long distance power grid. Why aren’t they just building out an on-shore power grid? Well, the manifesto doesn’t say, but it’s because their members apparently don’t like how overground power cables look. Spoils their nice views I believe.
The solar thing is from the reality that the “Greens” have opposed solar farms almost everywhere, and are apparently convinced that rooftop solar is the only valid solar. So instead of building out as much solar as possible, as fast as possible to avert a climate catastrophe they are in favour of slowly building out the most expensive form of solar power known to man. (Not that there’s anything wrong with rooftop solar: it’s great, but on-ground solar on the poorer grades of farmland outperforms it on every metric. Well, except whether nimbys like it I guess?)
The Greens have become even more nimbyish than any other party which, given that they keep banging on about the climate crisis at every opportunity, is the height of hypocrisy imo.
In other words, it is your "creative interpretation" rather than Green Party policies.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
I thought it was an interesting story. I took no more from it than that
It may not have been the best example of migration but it's correct that this is a BIG factor in this election. We may not like that it is but it is.
Same goes in Europe.
If you don't want to feed the kind of BS that Leon posts then at least engage with the reasons behind it. Otherwise @Heathener is right that we are fuelling it through centrist complacency.
Exactly the same thing happened in the run up to Brexit. Fucking sneering complacency from the Metropoles. They couldn't see what was happening on their watch under their very noses.
Smell the coffee.
If immigration is such a big issue and we have had record immigration for the past several years aren't we the idiots that can't do anything about it. We are about to have a Lab landslide current predictions are for upwards of a 250-seat majority and I can promise you they won't be all that hard on immigration. Ergo, the country really doesn't care enough about immigration to vote someone in who's going to do anything about it.
Of course you're right that a sizeable minority cares a lot, but as it stands not enough people do for anything much to happen as a result.
Do you ever go to a restaurant, the hospital or need care, eat vegetables.... that is where all those people are....they are working. The economy would tank without immigration. I work in research, my research group of 35 has two brits.... both of us are only half brits - and both the half brits did our PhDs in other countries.... the talent is inherently international. The british population is ageing, and lacks education (often priced out of education due to child and youth poverty)
One thing I see the Tories have leapt on from last night's forecast was Rayner not ruling out CGT on house sales, including family homes. That's something Labour need to squash very quickly. CGT on family home sales would be an utterly catastrophic thing to let into a GE campaign discourse. It would crater them.
Labour will have to raise taxes since they wont cut spending. Set aside the Con Accusation of £2094 which is really £3000. But £7.5 billion of declared increases wont raise £7.5 billion.
Oh I agree, but this is one they need to shut down or they'll take a big hit for.
Two examples
If North Sea oil is due to drop in price by 25% by year end as the IEA say then those windfall taxes have a bit of a hole. Some companies might actually be making a loss.
Likewise the VAT on school fees is a complete unknown with more down side that upside.
So the money will have to come from somewhere else.
All of the numbers are forecasts based on the information and facts we have now. Projections. So of course they will be wrong - most snapshots are.
The next government is almost certain to announce how Shocked and Outraged it is to discover the truth. Just how bad the nation's finances have been left, and how the Tories were covering it up. Sadly that means that x now needs to happen because of the Tories.
Basically take the Osborne script from 2010 and replace "Labour" with "Tories" and that is what we will get.
What gobsmacked me is that Sunak didn't know the net migration numbers in the Sky debate. Not a clue what they were. This is the numbers guy. She had to tell him what they were.
This is why the Right is on the march in Europe and now here. Centrist middle class Metropole fucking complacency.
The *far* right, not the right. They should own it.
More news from Macclesfield (for those that care).
Still no leaflet or canvassers from the incumbent Conservative candidate. Considering I have had two from the guy who owns the local Garden Centre and is running as an independent that's pretty poor. Have had two canvassing visits from Labour and a ruck load of leaflets and mailings.
Sunak has had a visit (to a farm last week) and Rayner and Cooper have been here from the red team.
All seems lost for the blue team - and the last time it wasn't a Tory seat was circa 1910 when the Liberals had it.
Needs a ten percent swing. If the Conservatives hold it, they're heading for 250ish seats. So...yeah.
Last time I tell an anecdote on here. It was an eye-opener for me and it was indicative of something which is clearly a significant driver in this election.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
Someone is trying to scam a mattress off you and this is indicative of a significant driver in this election?
I think Heathener was trying to drop in a mischievous bomb before disappearing for a while, where everyone would either be attacking “nigerian nurses” or attacking those who were attacking Nigerian nurses. Unfortunately the bomb went off before H could run away and she’s the only victim.
The only takeaway from the story is that there are poor Nigerian nurses operating at the other end of the scale to Nigerian Princes
I thought it was an interesting story. I took no more from it than that
It may not have been the best example of migration but it's correct that this is a BIG factor in this election. We may not like that it is but it is.
Same goes in Europe.
If you don't want to feed the kind of BS that Leon posts then at least engage with the reasons behind it. Otherwise @Heathener is right that we are fuelling it through centrist complacency.
Exactly the same thing happened in the run up to Brexit. Fucking sneering complacency from the Metropoles. They couldn't see what was happening on their watch under their very noses.
Smell the coffee.
If immigration is such a big issue and we have had record immigration for the past several years aren't we the idiots that can't do anything about it. We are about to have a Lab landslide current predictions are for upwards of a 250-seat majority and I can promise you they won't be all that hard on immigration. Ergo, the country really doesn't care enough about immigration to vote someone in who's going to do anything about it.
Of course you're right that a sizeable minority cares a lot, but as it stands not enough people do for anything much to happen as a result.
Do you ever go to a restaurant, the hospital or need care, eat vegetables.... that is where all those people are....they are working. The economy would tank without immigration. I work in research, my research group of 35 has two brits.... both of us are only half brits - and both the half brits did our PhDs in other countries.... the talent is inherently international. The british population is ageing, and lacks education (often priced out of education due to child and youth poverty)
Comments
And the reason we don't get on is that we're both immune. Your stories don't touch me, and you're immune to the truth.
You always react in the same way when I present you with inconvenient facts: you make it about me. But that just a continuation of the sophist's dance: attack the source of these annoying facts and they'll go away. But they don't go away, do they? Because once people can see the facts for themselves, they can believe them on their own terms. Swatting at me doesn't help that, because they're real world facts, not Farooq opinions. You're attacking me as if I'm you. But my purpose here isn't to gain a reputation for being clever and right, it's to scatter those facts around when people's rhetoric gets ahead of reality.
@Leon what you call ‘pub banter’ is often very off-putting, especially for women. This place can be a bear pit. And the pile-ons aren’t cool.
What distinguishes pb.com, or did on Mike Smithson’s watch, was people listening to those from various different perspectives. Sadly that is getting eroded and, with it, any attraction for those outside the ever-narrowing demographic.
xx
That's quite common.
This seat has never been Labour and there has not been much activity in the past but the doorstep response is pretty good, disillusionment and anger with the Tories is universal and they are clearly haemorrhaging support in all directions - some to Labour, some to Reform and some to the stay at home party. There is no sign of Tory activity - I have yet to come across one of their leaflets and I have had people tell me on the doorstep that Labour is the only party that has called to ask for their vote. I'd say Labour is in with a pretty good chance of taking the seat - the odds are certainly much shorter than the 2-1 against that was quoted on here a few days ago.
For example, in June 2016 there were 58,702 NHS staff with a recorded EU nationality, and in June 2023 there were 74,142 – an apparent rise. But to present this as the full story would be misleading because there are around 60,000 more staff for whom nationality is known now than in 2016. It is very likely that there has been an overall increase in the number of NHS staff with EU nationality since 2016, but we can’t be sure about the scale of the change, and it would be misleading to calculate an increase based solely on the two numbers above.
https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7783/CBP-7783.pdf
The number of EU nationals employed by the NHS increased by over three thousand in the year to June 2023.
The reason why there are increased numbers of 'Nigerian nurses' is that NHS employment has increased so much.
This is news to me and my family.
And on that note, I must actually go and do some PAID journalism. Later, PB!
Rishi is a poor PM and a worse politician. But he's also the one who has been left holding the baby with the poonami. Johnson is the one who fed it senna pods.
A tiny example but if you are looking for good news from those pounding the pavements don't go near airports or anywhere where British people once enjoyed the pleasures of being treated as equals with our European partners......... Nor anyone from advertising....... Nor anyone actually.
The UKIP/Tories are rightly going to get the kicking of their lives.
Pull it out and wake up before it’s too late. You are representing precisely the kind of self-satisfied complacency that is feeding Farage.
The increase in net migration in recent years is a massive problem TO MANY PEOPLE.
It isn’t particularly to me but it sure is to many voters out there.
Just a note that UKIP polled 19% in one poll in the 2015 campaign. The issue now is whether a squeeze will come between Ref and the Cons and if any in what direction
There are whole swathes of the economy where non-EU workers have replaced EU ones. Accommodation, retail, transport etc.
It is weirdly true. Occasionally I let a PB-er get under my skin (or at least I used to, it happens rarely now, if ever)
eg I remember being seriously angry that NPXMP laughed about the way the EU Constitution was blithely passed without a public vote, by means of Labour's double dealing. I thought this was tantamount to treachery and the laughter made it all so much worse, I was like @Farooq asking me outside, I wanted to give NPXMP a slap, literally.....
Looking back 1. Yes I was right, it was stupid, we Brexited because of the stupid crap Labour did on the EU and 2. Who carew? Why did I get so angry? Why did @NickPalmer wind me up so much??
Now I am rather fond of the old fella. I was sad to hear of his medical news - a minor stroke. I hope he is OK. If Nick is reading - hope you're OK! I would like to see him canvassing the fearful streets of Surrey for another two decades, and telling us all about his promising returns
And now I am getting sentimental and there is another air raid siren. That really IS a signal for me to go to work, and ignore the air raid siren
Ta-ra
If the Farage, Trump and Le Pens of this world win elections I am pretty certain that they will also fail, probably more spectacularly than the old parties but we may have have to go there in order to discover that. It won't be pretty
That's 30 years.
And I'm sure that we have people here with memories of similar importation going back to the 80s, 70s or 60s.
https://www.thefreelibrary.com/MP+Diane+in+`race'+rant+at+white+nurses.-a061282571
I'd say that Farage & Co are quite happy pushing racist hot buttons because they think it will help them with segments of their potential voters.
As I said Rishi should have waited until Opposition to stand for leader, David Miliband did and nearly won in 2010 winning Labour MPs and members, only the unions elected Ed Miliband
NPMP as he was then was the first person to interact with me on pb.com, I think.
Best wishes Mr Palmer. Hope you join us again soon.
Remember that private car sales are final: Never offer a refund or return.
He has a massive gender split in party support. C-L-R of 14-47-12 among women and 23-33-21 among men.
I'm reminded of a thing early in the BBC 1997 General Election coverage in the dead time before there's any results. Down in Mitcham and Morden the local Tories were reported to be upbeat and expecting Angela Rumbold to hold the seat with a small swing from Lab to Con. I don't think they were lying to the BBC, I think they genuinely believed it based on their canvassing. Three hours later the result came, a 16% swing from Con to Lab and a 1,000 Tory majority was now a 13,000 Labour majority.
My point is that door-to-door is a good source of information, but it's not the complete picture. I welcome your insight into what you're hearing on the ground, like hearing from Rochdale about what's going on in ANME too as it informs some constituency betting but I can't ignore the national polling either.
https://x.com/LBC/status/1801343634073121036
I wouldn't support Greens nationally, because their beliefs are too dogmatic for me - but some of that does not look like Green policy, perhaps more like a creative interpretation thereof.
The Con hold in Eltham was passable in normal times - a very good result in the current maelstrom.
The Lab hold in Clydebank was a rather poor result for the SNP.
There is a months-long trend here of Con LE results far-outperforming their national picture (at least against Lab and/or in Scotland). Local BEs were a better indicator than polls in the run-up to 1992. I don't suggest anything on that scale but this should be a note of caution if going all-in on a high Lab seats total or a Ref UK break-through.
I’m happy to have a go?
They all failed to provide continuity of care. Among other things they failed to notice someone dying of dehydration in front of them.
He's gone. And in 3 weeks you're all gone.
10% mate. That was my dream a few nights back. And if you keep collapsing at the current exponential rate it just might be true. You yourself now reduced to ramping that the polls aren't that bad because you're still on for 71 seats and beating the LDs on 69.
To quote the titles of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer 3-part epic: Smashed. Wrecked. Gone.
I think polling is significantly overstating Ref (and Green) and understating Con.
It seems to me that the difficulty in recruiting trainee doctors in the UK is more to do with that fact that there are so many other ways for smart people to earn a decent wage that are far less arduous and require much less training.
I look forward to being part of this process on the night.
James Heale
@JAHeale
·
2h
How many XL bullies are in your area?
Type your postcode into our database and find out
Great data project by
@johngconnolly
https://x.com/JAHeale/status/1801511926486257682
Although doesn't cover Odessa presumably.
I genuinely don't give a stuff about immigration. I do give a stuff about resources/infrastructure (hospitals, schools, etc) but any shortfall there is down to government's inaction or inability to build more schools, hospitals, etc.
What about a theoretical or actual 100m people coming to the UK - would that be a good thing or likely? Is the key question and one where you perhaps should have directed your enquiry to me rather than airing your own well-known insecurities about status.
And the answer is I'm not sure. As it stands, we don't have millions of people queuing up to come here and I do want some control of the borders in terms of the actual numbers.
I suppose my answer would be that the government/the parties should set out a growth plan together with the level of immigration required to support that plan. We then could vote for the one which suited us best.
Final answer.
Naturally you have to read between the lines a little. The carbon tax they quote works out at less than current taxes on petrol / diesel on the forecourt. The house building rate of < 150k / year is in there too. The power generation section contains the gems about cutting nuclear & the claim that they will provide for grid transfer via off-shore power cables. These are wildly more expensive, less efficient & less reliable than an on-shore long distance power grid. Why aren’t they just building out an on-shore power grid? Well, the manifesto doesn’t say, but it’s because their members apparently don’t like how overground power cables look. Spoils their nice views I believe.
The solar thing is from the reality that the “Greens” have opposed solar farms almost everywhere, and are apparently convinced that rooftop solar is the only valid solar. So instead of building out as much solar as possible, as fast as possible to avert a climate catastrophe they are in favour of slowly building out the most expensive form of solar power known to man. (Not that there’s anything wrong with rooftop solar: it’s great, but on-ground solar on the poorer grades of farmland outperforms it on every metric. Well, except whether nimbys like it I guess?)
The Greens have become even more nimbyish than any other party which, given that they keep banging on about the climate crisis at every opportunity, is the height of hypocrisy imo.
No country in the world has full CGT on primary residencies - it would be an interesting experiment but one I would prefer to watch from a safe distance
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/calcwork23.py?seat=Ashfield
Mr Anderson is claiming that Reform are ahead, but that is using something called a "User Defined Poll" at electoral calculus, whatever that is.
https://x.com/LeeAndersonMP_/status/1801536122834596125
So what is a User Defined Poll? Is Lee Anderson pulling the one with bells on?
It's here:
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html
Same goes in Europe.
If you don't want to feed the kind of BS that Leon posts then at least engage with the reasons behind it. Otherwise @Heathener is right that we are fuelling it through centrist complacency.
Exactly the same thing happened in the run up to Brexit. Fucking sneering complacency from the Metropoles. They couldn't see what was happening on their watch under their very noses.
Smell the coffee.
Reform hitting Labour.
Migration, see?
She is a first hand example of someone who gained a place at medical school despite having less than stellar A level grades. This is evidence that you don't actually need top grades to get into medical school in the UK, contradicting the claim made by the poster to whom I was responding.
Still no leaflet or canvassers from the incumbent Conservative candidate. Considering I have had two from the guy who owns the local Garden Centre and is running as an independent that's pretty poor. Have had two canvassing visits from Labour and a ruck load of leaflets and mailings.
Sunak has had a visit (to a farm last week) and Rayner and Cooper have been here from the red team.
All seems lost for the blue team - and the last time it wasn't a Tory seat was circa 1910 when the Liberals had it.
The colour coding of the map is also uncorrected for population density (hominine, rather than canine).
Sneer at Hetherner but she is right on that point.
But what can you do about it? You can accept it, a multicultural future, rub along together etc. This is my broad view. Or you can try and stop it. But how? I have not seen a single realistic proposal from Farage, from Braverman, from Sunak, or from anybody else about how to deal with migration. Their only solutions are performative.
In reality the west needs to invest in the second and third world, if it wants to stop the second and third world coming to us.
Of course you're right that a sizeable minority cares a lot, but as it stands not enough people do for anything much to happen as a result.
If North Sea oil is due to drop in price by 25% by year end as the IEA say then those windfall taxes have a bit of a hole. Some companies might actually be making a loss.
Likewise the VAT on school fees is a complete unknown with more down side that upside.
So the money will have to come from somewhere else.
This is why the Right is on the march in Europe and now here. Centrist middle class Metropole fucking complacency.
We've been recruiting foreign workers for the NHS for years and without them it wouldn't function, so your anecdote bought nothing to the table apart from highlighting the worsening scammer issue on the internet.
And quit with the pleas to "Wake Up". Makes you sound like a flat earther, moon landing denier, Bill Gates hating vaxxer.
I'll take a cycle ride round a couple of 1960s/70s housing areas later on, which I make to be mainly C1/C2 OK but not rich owner occupiers or their children.
I'd say the electoral calculus poll has credibility; the Lee Anderson one looks questionable.
The next government is almost certain to announce how Shocked and Outraged it is to discover the truth. Just how bad the nation's finances have been left, and how the Tories were covering it up. Sadly that means that x now needs to happen because of the Tories.
Basically take the Osborne script from 2010 and replace "Labour" with "Tories" and that is what we will get.
If the Conservatives hold it, they're heading for 250ish seats.
So...yeah.