8 days to go and Ipsos brings no good news for the Tories – politicalbetting.com

eek said:

NickyBreakspear said:

eek said:

MattW said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

I don't see it.

For some services District Councils are already way too big.

I was working for Oswestry Council when Hazel Blears unitised Shropshire, and some aspects of it were a mess. Much local knowledge / sympathy was just lost.

I'd be interested to see a comparison / contrast of say UK vs France, where much is at the level of Mairie, of which there are 35,000 - not dissimilar to the number of Parishes here. And we know how little power they have.

Here is an outline of the French setup.
https://portal.cor.europa.eu/divisionpowers/Pages/France-Introduction.aspx .

You can see similar issues in County Durham where things get waved through because they don't impact the people on the planning committee so another retail park in Bishop Auckland gets built because the councillors for Durham don't care.

North Yorkshire are starting to see similar issues but they haven't being going long enough yet...

Labour is going to change the planning process. So presumably local decisions are going out, so it will not matter how big the planning authority is?

Um, you've got a massive leap in logic there.

All I've seen so far is some focus on improving how nationally important schemes can be implemented without wasting billions of paperwork no one will ever read in its entirety.

TOPPING said:

While the Graun includes the Badenoch/Tennant spat deep in its rolling coverage, there is no mention at all of it, still less any story on its election website front page.

Farooq said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

So the Cons are in the invidious position of being likely to be out-polled by Reform and out-seated by the LibDems.

Yah.

We could be headed for the situation that Scotland is a stronghold for the Tories, relatively.

Doubt it. I think the Tories will win more than a fifth of all seats, but 5% of seats in Scotland

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

What if I wanted a Labour bin collection not a Tory one. How would I get that if there were a Tory government?

Vote for a change of government, or pay for alternative collections.

So long as the bins are emptied, why does that need a party label on who does it?

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

North Korea's Central Military Commission announced that North Korea would join forces with the Russian military. And as part of the North Korea and Russia military alliance, the North Korean Army engineer unit would be dispatched to Donetsk, Ukraine, which remains occupied by Russia. It will be dispatched as early as next month...
https://x.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1805871124388983109

Lol, now they have nothing left but sending NorKs to Donetsk. NorKs that have never had an actual fight with anyone.

What happens to that relationship, when it only takes a few weeks for thousands of bodies to return to families - or will they just be marked as ‘missing’, their wives and mothers destined to be forever unaware of what happened?

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

What if I wanted a Labour bin collection not a Tory one. How would I get that if there were a Tory government?

Carnyx said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

What if I wanted a Labour bin collection not a Tory one. How would I get that if there were a Tory government?

Vote for a change of government, or pay for alternative collections.

So long as the bins are emptied, why does that need a party label on who does it?

You must have missed the Tories making bin emptying a central element of the WAR ON WOKE.

twistedfirestopper3 said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

The Ann Summers Theatre of Dreams

EXCLUSIVE

🚨 Manchester United considering selling naming rights to Old Trafford as they seek to drive up revenues as part of Sir Jim Ratcliffe’s plans to refurbish Old Trafford or build a new stadium. Ticket price increases also under consideration.

https://x.com/AdamCrafton_/status/1805932992675643541

If I was a gazzilionaire, I'd buy the rights and call it Anfield.

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

What if I wanted a Labour bin collection not a Tory one. How would I get that if there were a Tory government?

Vote for a change of government, or pay for alternative collections.

So long as the bins are emptied, why does that need a party label on who does it?

BartholomewRoberts said:

Carnyx said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

What if I wanted a Labour bin collection not a Tory one. How would I get that if there were a Tory government?

Vote for a change of government, or pay for alternative collections.

So long as the bins are emptied, why does that need a party label on who does it?

You must have missed the Tories making bin emptying a central element of the WAR ON WOKE.

Actually that feeds my point, if bin collection rules are set nationally, why should the nation not pay for it?

What do the middlemen in the Council do that can't be abolished?

Beibheirli_C said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

eek said:

MattW said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

I don't see it.

For some services District Councils are already way too big.

I was working for Oswestry Council when Hazel Blears unitised Shropshire, and some aspects of it were a mess. Much local knowledge / sympathy was just lost.

I'd be interested to see a comparison / contrast of say UK vs France, where much is at the level of Mairie, of which there are 35,000 - not dissimilar to the number of Parishes here. And we know how little power they have.

Here is an outline of the French setup.
https://portal.cor.europa.eu/divisionpowers/Pages/France-Introduction.aspx .

You can see similar issues in County Durham where things get waved through because they don't impact the people on the planning committee so another retail park in Bishop Auckland gets built because the councillors for Durham don't care.

North Yorkshire are starting to see similar issues but they haven't being going long enough yet...

All the more reason to nationalise it. Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

Get rid of the NIMBY scum standing in the way of development.

We could widen the M62 to 100 lanes and pave over Warrington. Better traffic flow and Warrington substantially improved

BartholomewRoberts said:

Sandpit said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

I’ll disagree with ‘rails against’, but the point remains, that any property taxation based on an absolute, rather than relative to the local area, value of property, will create way more problems than it solves, make living in London even more expensive than it is now for the lower-paid, and make local authories even more dependent than they are already on central government. Meanwhile, the old Alastair Meeks attitude, that the rest of the country is being supported by London so they can all go eat dirt when it comes to spending, becomes even more prevalent.

Why shouldn't local council funding come from central government?

Local council expenditure overwhelmingly comes from central government diktats already.

Picture of the day, taken from the LGA (with a title page I disagree with for what its worth).


Where does every £1 in local spending go?
Public health and Adult social care - 46p - Why not the Department of Health and Social Care?
Children's Social Care - 22p - Why not the Department of Health and Social Care, or Department of Education?
Environmental and regulatory services - 10p - Again national regulations, so why not national expenditure?
Highways and Transport services - 4p - Since fuel duty and other taxes goes to HMRC, HMRC absolutely should be paying for this out of that revenue!
Housing (4p) and planning (2p) - should be national too. Set the law, then let people do as they please.

Not sure what central and other (7p) covers. If its the cost of keeping this level of bureaucracy going, then bin it and save the money!

What's truly local? Culture (4p) maybe, although we do have a culture department and the Lottery etc for helping fund that too.

Just get rid of the bureaucrats. People always say what can you cut, here's an entire level of things that can be abolished entirely.

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

kinabalu said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

What if I wanted a Labour bin collection not a Tory one. How would I get that if there were a Tory government?

BartholomewRoberts said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

Why do we need politicians for refuse collection?

Just determine what collection is appropriate then put it out to tender. Why do we need busybodies in the middle?

We could abolish the local councils and save a fortune and I doubt many people besides those interested in careers there would notice the difference.

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good afternoon

The weather is lovely today, lots of sport on TV, and then there is politics

I would just say I have accepted the result will see a landslide Starmer government and the conservative party can have no complaints if they are marginalised

I hope Starmer proves better than is expected as he is likely to be PM for a long time, but then events happen so who knows

I am looking forward to my wife and my 2 trips up Snowdon and on the Welsh Highland Railway next month and only have one question that really is a mystery to me and no doubt many others

Why on earth did Sunak suddenly call an election :

Concern the economy will be poorer in the Autumn

Expected an imminent vonc

Just wanted out

No doubt in time all will be revealed but to those who bet good luck, to those who have waited for a labour government your time is here, and to those of us who are one nation conservatives pray that Farage is consigned to the dustbin of history

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

JosiasJessop said:

Cookie said:

LostPassword said:

Foxy said:

Nigelb said:

North Korea's Central Military Commission announced that North Korea would join forces with the Russian military. And as part of the North Korea and Russia military alliance, the North Korean Army engineer unit would be dispatched to Donetsk, Ukraine, which remains occupied by Russia. It will be dispatched as early as next month...
https://x.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1805871124388983109

Looks to me that the Russians are desperate for warm bodies too.

They keep on managing to find them without having to anger the Muscovy core. There's an estimate of 3,000 Nepalis fighting for the Russians, for example.

Really? Why? Is it just for a big bag of money? Or is there more to it than that?

I hard something about Nepalis some time ago. The British Ghurkas are tiny in number compared to those in the Indian army, and joining either the British or Indian militaries are a major thing for many young Nepali men. Ones who do not make it often become soldiers for other people; sometimes other militaries such as Singapore or Brunei, but often anyone who will have them. Then there are ex-soldiers as well.

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

Carnyx said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Re Council tax.

Why don't we just bin it and replace it with a tax on the imputed rental value of the property?

Trying to think of a suitable name....

I'm old enough to remember when such things, maybe called "rates" - shall we try that?, were decried by the Conservative Party government of the day as unfair to the well off Tory voting householder.

TheScreamingEagles said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Farooq said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

So the Cons are in the invidious position of being likely to be out-polled by Reform and out-seated by the LibDems.

Yah.

We could be headed for the situation that Scotland is a stronghold for the Tories, relatively.

Doubt it. I think the Tories will win more than a fifth of all seats, but 5% of seats in Scotland

At least we've moved on from those hot tips of SCon gains and zero seats for the SNP.

Who tipped zero seats for the SNP?

Farooq said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

FUCKING HELL.

This is the election campaign that keeps on giving.

NEW on Honey Trap scandal:

I understand Labour was notified today of the arrest of a party member in Islington. The Labour Party immediately administratively suspended the individual from membership of the Labour Party.

https://x.com/AgnesChambre/status/1805957577420734835

What are you talking about? We've been repeatedly assured that this was the most boring campaign ever.

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

Phone masts in urban areas should not have restrictions.

Sorry to make this point again but planning has come up and it's my area.

mickydroy said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good afternoon

The weather is lovely today, lots of sport on TV, and then there is politics

I would just say I have accepted the result will see a landslide Starmer government and the conservative party can have no complaints if they are marginalised

I hope Starmer proves better than is expected as he is likely to be PM for a long time, but then events happen so who knows

I am looking forward to my wife and my 2 trips up Snowdon and on the Welsh Highland Railway next month and only have one question that really is a mystery to me and no doubt many others

Why on earth did Sunak suddenly call an election :

Concern the economy will be poorer in the Autumn

Expected an imminent vonc

Just wanted out

No doubt in time all will be revealed but to those who bet good luck, to those who have waited for a labour government your time is here, and to those of us who are one nation conservatives pray that Farage is consigned to the dustbin of history

I think it was the very real prospect of enough letters being received by the 1922 committee, on the question of Farage, I hope he, Corbyn and Galloway all lose in their respective seats, but I fear at least two will win

mickydroy said:

Big_G_NorthWales said:

Good afternoon

The weather is lovely today, lots of sport on TV, and then there is politics

I would just say I have accepted the result will see a landslide Starmer government and the conservative party can have no complaints if they are marginalised

I hope Starmer proves better than is expected as he is likely to be PM for a long time, but then events happen so who knows

I am looking forward to my wife and my 2 trips up Snowdon and on the Welsh Highland Railway next month and only have one question that really is a mystery to me and no doubt many others

Why on earth did Sunak suddenly call an election :

Concern the economy will be poorer in the Autumn

Expected an imminent vonc

Just wanted out

No doubt in time all will be revealed but to those who bet good luck, to those who have waited for a labour government your time is here, and to those of us who are one nation conservatives pray that Farage is consigned to the dustbin of history

I think it was the very real prospect of enough letters being received by the 1922 committee, on the question of Farage, I hope he, Corbyn and Galloway all lose in their respective seats, but I fear at least two will win

SandyRentool said:

Carnyx said:

MisterBedfordshire said:

Re Council tax.

Why don't we just bin it and replace it with a tax on the imputed rental value of the property?

Trying to think of a suitable name....

I'm old enough to remember when such things, maybe called "rates" - shall we try that?, were decried by the Conservative Party government of the day as unfair to the well off Tory voting householder.

Then closet Tories would once again be able to stand for the council under the branding of "Ratepayers".

Cookie said:

Sandpit said:

Nigelb said:

North Korea's Central Military Commission announced that North Korea would join forces with the Russian military. And as part of the North Korea and Russia military alliance, the North Korean Army engineer unit would be dispatched to Donetsk, Ukraine, which remains occupied by Russia. It will be dispatched as early as next month...
https://x.com/jurgen_nauditt/status/1805871124388983109

Lol, now they have nothing left but sending NorKs to Donetsk. NorKs that have never had an actual fight with anyone.

What happens to that relationship, when it only takes a few weeks for thousands of bodies to return to families - or will they just be marked as ‘missing’, their wives and mothers destined to be forever unaware of what happened?

I'm not sure that's the kind of thing that troubles the North Korean government.

kinabalu said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

But let's keep that outside the Box.

Theuniondivvie said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

Theuniondivvie said:

Farooq said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

TOPPING said:

So the Cons are in the invidious position of being likely to be out-polled by Reform and out-seated by the LibDems.

Yah.

We could be headed for the situation that Scotland is a stronghold for the Tories, relatively.

Doubt it. I think the Tories will win more than a fifth of all seats, but 5% of seats in Scotland

At least we've moved on from those hot tips of SCon gains and zero seats for the SNP.

Who tipped zero seats for the SNP?

I can't recall, but more a masturbatory fantasy I think. I suppose that could be described as a hot tip..

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

A

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

You get awfully upset about cycle lanes though. And LTNs.

No I don't, you must be confusing me with someone else.

I've said repeatedly I wholeheartedly support investing in building more cycle lanes and more roads.

And that building more new roads with cycle tracks enables converting pre-existing ones to have cycle tracks and be an LTN by alleviating the through traffic away from that road and onto the new one.

No wonder you're confused if you don't know who is who - I have never once objected to cycle tracks. I use the local cycle track to ride with my kids to take them to the local park.

TimS said:

PedestrianRock said:

Benpointer said:

TimS said:

Pulpstar said:

IanB2 said:

PedestrianRock said:

stodge said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

@TSE

Nice header, but why do you/we focus on the bad polls for the Tories?

I accept that Ipsos and Survation have some pedigree, but Varian, JLP and MiC are all solid enough and members of the BPC. I appreciate that even they are not so great for the Blue team, but they do at least feed a little life into what otherwise would be the dried out corpse of the outgoing government.

The question is why are we seeing such a wide divergence (the gap between 18% and 25% is vast in statistical terms). Is it methodology, sampling, weighting, re-allocation of Don't Knows?

I pointed to a huge discrepency in the over 65 vote shares between More In Common (40% for the Conservatives) and R&W (25%).

JL Partners has 43% Conservative share among the over 65s which explains its higher Conservative VI.

I saw something on Twitter that was saying some pollsters were accounting for some of the older Tory vote dying off since 2019, and some weren’t.

Didn’t look into it too much but that could explain a lot if it differs between pollsters?

The bigger issue for the MRPs is that the census data they use to back-project their poll findings and analysis onto each constituency are often quite old.

When you look at by-election swings, the Lib Dems have mahoosively outperformed Labour (Even though Labour had some very good swings this parliament). I think the yellows could be in for a very good night indeed.

I dare not jinx it but getting my hopes up. Done that too often.

I'll be relieved if we go above 20 seats, happy if we get 25+ and delirious if we beat the SNP into 3rd place.

I worry for you when the LDs beat the Tories into 2nd.

Yes I still think this bet at 4.5 is stunning value. If tactical voting is anything like all the indications suggest it will be, the LDs should have a good shot at getting over the line.

Not a chance. Even on the MRPs which generally show worse seat numbers than UNS the Tories are generally getting comfortably over 100 seats. And there remain at least 2 or 3 percentage points of Reform left to squeeze even if the Ref vote holds up much higher than in recent local elections.

Carnyx said:

Just reading this: getting uncanny vibes of similarity with this election (presumably complete with the equivalent of simulated dog turds in the grass):

https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/26/lawn-mowing-simulator-simulation-games

'“It’s weird that this genre not only exists, but is so popular,” explains Krist Duro, editor-in-chief of Duuro Plays, a video game reviews website based in Albania – and the first person I could find who has actually played and somewhat enjoyed Lawn Mowing Simulator. “But you need to be wired in a particular way. I like repetitive tasks because they allow me to enter into a zen-like state. But the actual simulation part needs to be good.”'

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

Beibheirli_C said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

eek said:

MattW said:

stodge said:

Pulpstar said:

stodge said:

biggles said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

Easy. Abolish local government. Everything gets run from the centre and everyone gets the same. Massive efficiencies are made.

The cherry on the top is killing off local politics, so that local busybodies never get any power.

As I'm sure your tongue is firmly in your cheek, let's play.

You'd have a National Refuse Collection Service presumably, a National Library Service, a National Fire Service, a National Police Service, a National Street Cleaning Service and a National Parking Management Agency and bring all locally-owned land and property assets under the Property Services Agency.

Can't quite see these efficiency savings.

No doubt somebody will pipe up about getting Planning abolished except for "national guidelines" - let's define those guidelines, shall we? Let's allow huge overdevelopment in one area and no development in another. Can you imagine recruiting the hundreds of civil servants required to adopt the National Plan - they could be recruited from all the local Planning departments perhaps?

The council and district system needs binning. Everywhere should be unitary.

That's a different question and I broadly agree.

The problem is not everywhere is the same. One example I'll offer is Surrey - 1 county council and 11 district and borough councils.

I suspect the County would like to take over the districts and boroughs as happened in Cornwall.

The districts and boroughs (and of course the "twin hat" councillors of all parties) aren't huge on that idea and favour three authorities, a West, a Mid and an East of about 350,000 each which is about the size of a London Borough and the Government's preferred size for a local authority.

Issues? The County would have to take on the key functions of refuse collection, council tax and crematoria/leisure management. If the County were split up, you'd need to build the three new authorities from the ground up and divvy up the County assets accordingly. You could continue to use three of the District Council buildings as HQ buildings and just sell the main County HQ.

If the County took on everything, the chances are they'd keep the eleven structures in the short term (it's what I would do) and migrate to, for example, a single Council Tax service using a single collection software system over a 3-5 year period.

None of it is pain or cost free.

I don't see it.

For some services District Councils are already way too big.

I was working for Oswestry Council when Hazel Blears unitised Shropshire, and some aspects of it were a mess. Much local knowledge / sympathy was just lost.

I'd be interested to see a comparison / contrast of say UK vs France, where much is at the level of Mairie, of which there are 35,000 - not dissimilar to the number of Parishes here. And we know how little power they have.

Here is an outline of the French setup.
https://portal.cor.europa.eu/divisionpowers/Pages/France-Introduction.aspx .

You can see similar issues in County Durham where things get waved through because they don't impact the people on the planning committee so another retail park in Bishop Auckland gets built because the councillors for Durham don't care.

North Yorkshire are starting to see similar issues but they haven't being going long enough yet...

All the more reason to nationalise it. Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

Get rid of the NIMBY scum standing in the way of development.

We could widen the M62 to 100 lanes and pave over Warrington. Better traffic flow and Warrington substantially improved

Warrington only has 3 motorways running through it. They could definitely do with a few more. Pave over the ship canal?

Good idea.

There's the M62 to the North, the M6 to the East and the M56 to the South.

But there's none to the West.

Building a motorway to the West with a bridge over the canal and over the Mersey to the West is something I would wholeheartedly endorse.

NickyBreakspear said:

One possible reason for difference in conservative vote between pollsters could be their sample stratification.

Survation https://cdn.survation.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/06/25230718/GMB_W3_2024-06-25_Tables.xlsx and More in Common https://www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/zhmphgw0/fo4vi.xlsx both split their age segmentation into a 65-74 and a 75+ whilst most other companies stick with a 65+ segment.

From both their tables, there is a significant difference in Conservative support between 75+ and 65-74, so a single 65+ segment is likely to be less accurate.

That said, there still is a 7% difference in the headline figures for Conservatives between Survation and More in Common.

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

Phone masts in urban areas should not have restrictions.

Sorry to make this point again but planning has come up and it's my area.

Yes, they should. You don't want them plonked in the middle of a school playing field, the flight path of an airport, or in a cemetery.

Come on. This anti-NIMBY stuff is starting to get a bit silly.

You don't need planning to deal with the former or the latter, the owners of the field or cemetery should determine what is appropriate with their own land. No need for NIMBYs to stick their oars in.

As for flight paths, flight safety is already dealt with separately under specific regulations, again no need for nosy neighbours to get involved.

So it's only the regulations that you personally don't like that should be ignored?

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

A

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

You get awfully upset about cycle lanes though. And LTNs.

No I don't, you must be confusing me with someone else.

I've said repeatedly I wholeheartedly support investing in building more cycle lanes and more roads.

And that building more new roads with cycle tracks enables converting pre-existing ones to have cycle tracks and be an LTN by alleviating the through traffic away from that road and onto the new one.

No wonder you're confused if you don't know who is who - I have never once objected to cycle tracks. I use the local cycle track to ride with my kids to take them to the local park.

Always conditional on new roads. You're at least as bad as a NIMBY who insists on basic sanitation.

Why is that bad?

Investment should include new stuff, yes.

What's wrong with saying when we invest we should build new stuff. That's kind of the point!

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

A

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

You get awfully upset about cycle lanes though. And LTNs.

No I don't, you must be confusing me with someone else.

I've said repeatedly I wholeheartedly support investing in building more cycle lanes and more roads.

And that building more new roads with cycle tracks enables converting pre-existing ones to have cycle tracks and be an LTN by alleviating the through traffic away from that road and onto the new one.

No wonder you're confused if you don't know who is who - I have never once objected to cycle tracks. I use the local cycle track to ride with my kids to take them to the local park.

Always conditional on new roads. You're at least as bad as a NIMBY who insists on basic sanitation.

Why is that bad?

Investment should include new stuff, yes.

What's wrong with saying when we invest we should build new stuff. That's kind of the point!

Are new cycle lanes any of "your bloody business"?

TOPPING said:

So the Cons are in the invidious position of being likely to be out-polled by Reform and out-seated by the LibDems.

Eabhal said:

BatteryCorrectHorse said:

Phone masts in urban areas should not have restrictions.

Sorry to make this point again but planning has come up and it's my area.

Yes, they should. You don't want them plonked in the middle of a school playing field, the flight path of an airport, or in a cemetery.

Come on. This anti-NIMBY stuff is starting to get a bit silly.

Beibheirli_C said:

TheScreamingEagles said:

I wonder what first attracted this chap to Nigel Farage?

Reform candidate Leslie Lilley said he would ‘slaughter migrants’

The 70-year-old conspiracy theorist who is likely to reap 20 per cent of the vote in Southend East & Rochford is Facebook friends with the fascist leader Gary Raikes

A Reform candidate said he would “slaughter” migrants arriving on small boats and “have their family taken out”.

Leslie Lilley, who is set to win almost 20 per cent of the vote in the Labour battleground seat of Southend East & Rochford, made the threats on the official Facebook account he uses to run his local campaign.

In a post in June 2020, Lilley reacted to the news of a small boat arriving in Dover saying: “I hope I’m near one of these scumbags one day I won’t run away I’ll slaughter them then have their family taken out.”

The same month, Lilley, now 70, railed against “more scum entering the UK”, adding “I hope your family get Robbed, Beaten or attacked”.

He also suggested Border Force vessels should have razor wire to tear small boats carrying migrants across the Channel, and commented “gas” along with several laughing emojis under a video of Muslims praying.

Lilley, who has also argued that the pandemic was a plan to “depopulate the world” and was “mass murder by government”, is one of the 41 Reform UK candidates who are “friends” on Facebook with Gary Raikes, the fascist leader.

https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/reform-candidate-leslie-lilley-said-he-would-slaughter-migrants-d7rl2dgt6

Wasn't it your friend Dave that described them as closet racists, fruitcakes and nutjobs? One of his more accurate descriptions IMO...

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

Eabhal said:

A

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

You get awfully upset about cycle lanes though. And LTNs.

No I don't, you must be confusing me with someone else.

I've said repeatedly I wholeheartedly support investing in building more cycle lanes and more roads.

And that building more new roads with cycle tracks enables converting pre-existing ones to have cycle tracks and be an LTN by alleviating the through traffic away from that road and onto the new one.

No wonder you're confused if you don't know who is who - I have never once objected to cycle tracks. I use the local cycle track to ride with my kids to take them to the local park.

Always conditional on new roads. You're at least as bad as a NIMBY who insists on basic sanitation.

Why is that bad?

Investment should include new stuff, yes.

What's wrong with saying when we invest we should build new stuff. That's kind of the point!

Are new cycle lanes any of "your bloody business"?

No.

For the umpteenth time, I have no objection to new cycle lanes and new roads getting built. I support it.

How about just a cycle lane?

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

williamglenn said:

Cookie said:

BartholomewRoberts said:

[snip] Everything anyone wants to build should be waved through.

*Applauds.*

I don't agree, but I love mad and uncompromising certainty on an extreme position.

We established a few days ago that @BartholomewRoberts doesn't actually mean it. He is assuming that people won't decide to build things that he doesn't like.

What are you talking about? I never said that!

If someone builds something I don't like, that's none of my bloody business is my position.

You said that you wouldn't want someone to build a balcony directly perpendicular to your garden, therefore you don't really think they should be able to build anything they want on their land.

I never said that. You tried (repeatedly) to get me to say that, but what I actually (repeatedly) said is whatever they want to do with their land should be up to them and if its on their land I have no objection whatsoever.

You did. When you eventually understood what kind of development I was proposing, you said you wouldn't be happy with it.

No, I said it would be their choice in my system.

And I literally said in my system if they did that I'd be free to do the same. Or extend the property so their balcony gets a view of a brick wall.

People should be free to do what they please, within the law, on their own land. Neighbours should mind their own f***ing business.

boulay said:

Carnyx said:

Just reading this: getting uncanny vibes of similarity with this election (presumably complete with the equivalent of simulated dog turds in the grass):

https://www.theguardian.com/games/article/2024/jun/26/lawn-mowing-simulator-simulation-games

'“It’s weird that this genre not only exists, but is so popular,” explains Krist Duro, editor-in-chief of Duuro Plays, a video game reviews website based in Albania – and the first person I could find who has actually played and somewhat enjoyed Lawn Mowing Simulator. “But you need to be wired in a particular way. I like repetitive tasks because they allow me to enter into a zen-like state. But the actual simulation part needs to be good.”'

Sounds excellent. I sometimes see a chap with a huge grazing field near me just sitting on his ride on mower for hours cutting the grass and I’m so jealous of him. He does different patterns each time and I have to force myself to step away and stop watching.

Then I’ve found myself watching long videos of people professionally power washing absolute shitholes.

There must be some psychological need for weirdos like me to just watch the change, I can sit for ages admiring my own lawn mowing or power washing. Maybe I just need a life.

BartholomewRoberts said:

Sandpit said:

stodge said:

@TSE - seriously, why do you do this to me?

FPT

Afternoon all

Financing local Government is one of those issues which nobody, if they've got any sense, wants to go anywhere near. The fact we are dealing with a hastily imposed settlement brought in as a result of the overthrow of Margaret Thatcher speaks volumes.

30+ years on and the consequences of that stupidity are clear. We have a banding system which bears little or no resemblance to the value of the properties to which it relates and the main reason for its creation - to allow local authorities to fund themselves without having to rely on central Government largesse - has also failed to be addressed.

In some authorites, up to two thirds of expenditure is on the provision of care for vulnerable adults and children as well on children with Special Education Needs (SEN). SEN referrals have increased exponentially since the end of lockdown but the provision of suitable teaching accommodation and the supply of qualified teachers has not. The funding of transport for SEN children is a particular area of concern with many authorities cutting it for children over sixteen.

The central question is what do you want local councils to do? In theory, adult social care could be taken out of local authority control and run by a national care agency which would ensure adequate levels of residential care, specialist (including dementia) care and domiciliary care across the country based on the maxim the older population should be treated with respect and dignity and the care offer should provide that. At the same time, the agency should be promoting in-family care where possible and acting as a positive help for carers of all ages and types. Caring should be viewed as a vital part of family life and carers should be encouraged as much as possible (employers hsould be given huge tax breaks to employ carers).

How do you fund the rest of local Government? With the pressure off in terms of care, other functions can be looked at - we need local community hubs where a range of services and advice are available and very often just a place for the lonely and the alone to go and meet other people. This needs to be a 24 hour a day, seven day a week service provision - the message being if you're lonely, you don't have to be alone.

How this society deals with the alone and the lonely is reprehensible and a shame to us all. Sport, for example, should be leading on this getting people out and about providing free or discounted admission so those who have no social life can have the opportunity to live a little.

Back to funding? @Sandpit rails against property taxation and the truth is there is no fair form of local Government funding. The truth is those with high value properties are doing very well out of the current system and any changes will disadvantage them (and they will whinge) and benefit the providers of Council Tax software (who won't).

I’ll disagree with ‘rails against’, but the point remains, that any property taxation based on an absolute, rather than relative to the local area, value of property, will create way more problems than it solves, make living in London even more expensive than it is now for the lower-paid, and make local authories even more dependent than they are already on central government. Meanwhile, the old Alastair Meeks attitude, that the rest of the country is being supported by London so they can all go eat dirt when it comes to spending, becomes even more prevalent.

Why shouldn't local council funding come from central government?

Local council expenditure overwhelmingly comes from central government diktats already.

Picture of the day, taken from the LGA (with a title page I disagree with for what its worth).


Where does every £1 in local spending go?
Public health and Adult social care - 46p - Why not the Department of Health and Social Care?
Children's Social Care - 22p - Why not the Department of Health and Social Care, or Department of Education?
Environmental and regulatory services - 10p - Again national regulations, so why not national expenditure?
Highways and Transport services - 4p - Since fuel duty and other taxes goes to HMRC, HMRC absolutely should be paying for this out of that revenue!
Housing (4p) and planning (2p) - should be national too. Set the law, then let people do as they please.

Not sure what central and other (7p) covers. If its the cost of keeping this level of bureaucracy going, then bin it and save the money!

What's truly local? Culture (4p) maybe, although we do have a culture department and the Lottery etc for helping fund that too.

Just get rid of the bureaucrats. People always say what can you cut, here's an entire level of things that can be abolished entirely.

noneoftheabove said:

Heathener said:

TimS said:

PedestrianRock said:

Benpointer said:

TimS said:

Pulpstar said:

IanB2 said:

PedestrianRock said:

stodge said:

Peter_the_Punter said:

@TSE

Nice header, but why do you/we focus on the bad polls for the Tories?

I accept that Ipsos and Survation have some pedigree, but Varian, JLP and MiC are all solid enough and members of the BPC. I appreciate that even they are not so great for the Blue team, but they do at least feed a little life into what otherwise would be the dried out corpse of the outgoing government.

The question is why are we seeing such a wide divergence (the gap between 18% and 25% is vast in statistical terms). Is it methodology, sampling, weighting, re-allocation of Don't Knows?

I pointed to a huge discrepency in the over 65 vote shares between More In Common (40% for the Conservatives) and R&W (25%).

JL Partners has 43% Conservative share among the over 65s which explains its higher Conservative VI.

I saw something on Twitter that was saying some pollsters were accounting for some of the older Tory vote dying off since 2019, and some weren’t.

Didn’t look into it too much but that could explain a lot if it differs between pollsters?

The bigger issue for the MRPs is that the census data they use to back-project their poll findings and analysis onto each constituency are often quite old.

When you look at by-election swings, the Lib Dems have mahoosively outperformed Labour (Even though Labour had some very good swings this parliament). I think the yellows could be in for a very good night indeed.

I dare not jinx it but getting my hopes up. Done that too often.

I'll be relieved if we go above 20 seats, happy if we get 25+ and delirious if we beat the SNP into 3rd place.

I worry for you when the LDs beat the Tories into 2nd.

Yes I still think this bet at 4.5 is stunning value. If tactical voting is anything like all the indications suggest it will be, the LDs should have a good shot at getting over the line.

Not a chance. Even on the MRPs which generally show worse seat numbers than UNS the Tories are generally getting comfortably over 100 seats. And there remain at least 2 or 3 percentage points of Reform left to squeeze even if the Ref vote holds up much higher than in recent local elections.

I find this a little unhelpful for a betting site, Tim. When you write ‘not a chance’ this is more party politicking or hoping than a betting comment?

Clearly the LibDems do have some chance of taking second place on seats. I still agree that the Conservatives are more likely but 4.5 looks a decent bet on the LibDems to me. It’s not ‘no chance’.

Betting profits can only happen when opinions differ......