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The Liz Truss legacy in one chart – politicalbetting.com

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  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    Farooq said:

    Fair.
    Reform deserve greater scrutiny because they receive greater coverage. If the Greens get an uptick in coverage then I agree, I'd expect a much more robust examination of their (often loopy) economic policies.
    The level of delusion from the Green party is on another scale. I remember for a while they had a thing 'vote for policies', the suggestion being that you could just vote for policies you like, like massive increases in government spending, but without any mechanism to pay for it. Their policy on defence was also until recently to just reduce spending to avoid anything other defending ourselves. All this time people I know, educated to PHD level, would vote for this and stand as candidates, believing themselves to be enlightened. I always just regarded them as populists in the same manner as Trump, Corbyn, UKIP etc.

    It is very revealing that the green party get a free pass. They just actually seem to get humoured, like they are idealistic children, only now they run Council's and have MP's. The disparity with how the reform party are treated is massive and unfortunately revealing of a deep cultural bias.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    My great fear really is that Rayner isn’t capable of policy delivery, perhaps similar to the way Prescott essentially blocked up the plumbing of his critical portfolios in the New Labour years.

    I respect Rayner immensely as a politician, but there’s just no background of delivery I’m aware of.

    Exactly , got there like Prescott by climbing the greasy pole in the unions, no real experience of real business and likely to be as big a dud as Prescott was. Labour always need a union rep as deputy to keep the wolves happy.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 54,220
    edited July 2024
    IanB2 said:

    The Tories will be looking for a Blair when realistically they need a Kinnock.

    Like Napoleon, they have two fight two big battles in succession, against the LibDems in the Home Counties and against Labour everywhere else, and win them both while preventing their troops deserting off the right of the field.
    I strongly suspect immigration will be a horror show for Labour, to the point even the LibDems will be taking the piss out of them. It's all Reform has. Give it a couple of years and even that will no longer be their redoubt. Then people will look at what is left - and walk away.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,692

    No, I agree with you on Penny. Similar reason.
    Ah, apologies - I must have been thinking of someone else.
  • Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 37,451
    Farooq said:

    Ok, but that's just a description of how it works, not a defence of it.

    You obviously didn't read the bit about how votes in constituencies that are not mine shouldn't change my MP
  • glwglw Posts: 10,292
    Icarus said:

    The answer with immigration is to reclassify temporary visitors as VISITORS rather than immigrants. These temporary immigrants include students and their families - and young people on 2 year work visas currently from Australia but why not from the EU.

    I quite like the idea, but that only deals with the headline numbers, it doesn't deal with the consequences. The consequences of high immigration/long-stay visits are still felt until we actually start building stuff in numbers that will beat demand and fill the humongous deficit we have allowed to grow. Labour's current proposals are of a scale that will make little material difference, we need to be far more ambitious.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,676

    Labour + Green + SDLP + WPB + Plaid + SNP (33.7% + 6.7% + 0.7% + 0.7% + 0.3% + 2.5) = 44.6%

    Tory + Reform + DUP + TUV + UUP + SDP [maybe] (23.7% + 14.3% + 0.6% + 0.2% + 0.3% + 0.1%) = 39.2%

    I know the LDs/Alliance really really really want to count all their 12.6% of voters to the Left-wing block, but they're not. If I was being really generous I'd give them 60% of them and 40% to the Right-wing block. That'd still get you to only 51.1% v 44.2%, and that's on a reduced turnout where many Tories stayed at home.

    Point is the country is still split into two-voter blocks. And there's not an awful lot between them, save the mathematics of FPTP, which computed into the landslide.

    A lot can change quickly.
    The Lib Dems absolutely do go into the box with Labour while the other box represents performative anti-woke culture war politics, Brexit and cancelling HS2. They certainly go in any box that is opposite to parties like TUV and the DUP. Im surprised you’d want to associate the Tory brand with those, or Reform.

    On the other hand the SNP sit in a different box altogether. You can’t lump them in with Labour when they are their chief rivals.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,383
    Morning all :)

    Back from an election week spent on the Isle of Man. Now, I'm sure @Leon has been from Point of Aire to the Calf of Man but it was my first visit.

    It's a curious place - all the trappings of modernity are there and yet Douglas feels like it's still in the 1970s - the bookies open fromn 10am to 6.30pm only. Friday was Tynwald Day, a public holiday, and the majority of shops and Government buildings closed.

    "Quaint" wouldn't be the correct word but it's the nearest I can get to. I'm sure @Sunil_Prasannan has covered these but the steam railway to Port Erin, the Manx Electric Railway to Ramsey and the Snaefell Mountain Railway are delightful if not easy on the behind (wooden benches). The buses are German, comfortable and dare one say it, equally teutonic in their punctuality.

    And yet, Douglas is quiet at night - the old fashioned hotels and b&bs along the Promenade cater for their guests with carvery restaurants and lounges and the (mostly) older clientele seem to prefer to stay put rather than venture out. They get cruise ships - Celebrity Silhouette called in with its 2000 passengers and the town got noticeably busier. There are some very good places to eat though the prices aren't far off London which again might explain why the hotels do so well.

    I'll leave the tourist reports to others.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 7,270
    Icarus said:

    The Conservatives aren't going to recover unless they can inspire and recruit some young people. Money is also going to be a problem, their costs are based on a pre-2024 Conservative party in government - why would anyone now contribute to the Conservatives? Their councillor numbers are likely to decline further. I cannot see a way back for them - though admit I am not inclined to look very hard for one.
    The first thing the Tories should do is come out in favour of votes at 16. It’s going to happen now (wrongly, in my view, but thems the breaks) and the worst thing they could do is immediately signal to that generation that they don’t actually want their votes. And really try and listen to and engage with those voters. I am not quite at the Leon level of thinking all young voters are ready to support the far right, but there is I think a willingness of younger generations to be more open minded about their political choices than perhaps the millennial generation before them (who for now have largely become comfortable centre-leftists).
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    Mordaunt, sadly, just isn't intellectual enough.
    Only sad gits with a crush think Mordaunt is anything other than a dumb donkey. She could not run a bath.
  • Roger said:

    I imagine the 4,000,000 are the most uneducated and politically illiterate in the country. It's unlikely they'll move in any direction because of ideology. It'll be interesting when the psephologists have done their work on the election but I'd be surprised if that's not the case
    Well this one has an honours degree in a subkect involving a lot of complex maths and is entitled to use the Designation Chartered xxxxx.

    One of the others I know of is a public sector worker who graduated not long ago.

    Your sneering attitude to millions of voters crystallises the reason why Reform came third in this election, votes wise, half a million ahead of the lib dems.

  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    glw said:

    You can be well educated, good at debating, good at public speaking, and still fundamentally be a stupid and unserious person who has poor reasoning skills. Truss it that to me.
    Like football, politics is a team game, and a good team needs people to do the thinking, to do the selling, and to do the delivery, with a good manager bringing everything together. Any individual politician can't tick all the boxes, but they do need to have conspicuous strengths in one of those three areas, ideally not be critically weak in any of them, and the guy or gal at the top needs to be a good leader.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,627
    .

    yes, the second of your points...
    It would have been joyous to see ELE. But that would almost certainly have elevated Farage and his mob - surely a worse outcome than what we have.

    Also, just enough of the nutters survived in the Tory Party to ensure that the crazy circus carries on even longer. We have seen parties suffer a catastrophic drop in support and spend some time rebuilding before being competitive again. That is the Tories most likely scenario. Can't rule out another oscillation in 2029 that sees them sweep back - in today's politics everything is possible.

    But the other scenario is to copy the Liberals a century ago. A crushing defeat followed by division, infighting and absolute self-destructive idiocy. Leading to another hammering into an even smaller total in the elections that follow. 121 may prove to be an impossible target in the next election...
  • Farooq said:

    I've read over your post several times, and I can't actually detect an argument for anything. You say it works well, and your evidence is... that you have an MP of some party because they got a plurality where you live? Ok, but that's just a description of how it works, not a defence of it.

    By the same token I could say murder is perfectly fine: I know some guy who poured petrol through a guy's letterbox and followed it up with a match, and the guy in the house died. See? Murder works.
    In the case of Yitsak Rabin, sadly murder worked all to well.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,729

    Labour + Green + SDLP + WPB + Plaid + SNP (33.7% + 6.7% + 0.7% + 0.7% + 0.3% + 2.5) = 44.6%

    Tory + Reform + DUP + TUV + UUP + SDP [maybe] (23.7% + 14.3% + 0.6% + 0.2% + 0.3% + 0.1%) = 39.2%

    I know the LDs/Alliance really really really want to count all their 12.6% of voters to the Left-wing block, but they're not. If I was being really generous I'd give them 60% of them and 40% to the Right-wing block. That'd still get you to only 51.1% v 44.2%, and that's on a reduced turnout where many Tories stayed at home.

    Point is the country is still split into two-voter blocks. And there's not an awful lot between them, save the mathematics of FPTP, which computed into the landslide.

    A lot can change quickly.
    Reform aren't a right-wing bloc party, sorry. They compete against Tories and promise magic money tree for the NHS.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    edited July 2024

    Excellent post.
    Indeed it is. The LibDems aren't obviously weak in any of those areas and bring considerable strengths to the table. Which is why they're a real long-term threat to what was always considered conservative England in the south, particularly as the turning of the generations brings more broad-minded social and cultural attitudes to the fore.
  • .

    It would have been joyous to see ELE. But that would almost certainly have elevated Farage and his mob - surely a worse outcome than what we have.

    Also, just enough of the nutters survived in the Tory Party to ensure that the crazy circus carries on even longer. We have seen parties suffer a catastrophic drop in support and spend some time rebuilding before being competitive again. That is the Tories most likely scenario. Can't rule out another oscillation in 2029 that sees them sweep back - in today's politics everything is possible.

    But the other scenario is to copy the Liberals a century ago. A crushing defeat followed by division, infighting and absolute self-destructive idiocy. Leading to another hammering into an even smaller total in the elections that follow. 121 may prove to be an impossible target in the next election...
    If we had had proportional representation then Farage would have got 100 MPs, most of them having no political experience and paper candidates who would have been a disaster and probably imploded the party within 18 months.

    FPTP keeps a party out until it reaches a critical mass and has now ensured that Farage only has his most able leiutenants in Parliament, with five years to professionalise the party.

    PR enthusiasts should be careful what they wish for.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022
    Eabhal said:

    You can't converse with conspiracy theorists without making yourself look like one too. Perfectly sensible Tories like Mark Harper made that mistake, undermining his own government's policies. It also leads to people like IDS siding with criminals.

    Woke has had next to zero impact on most people's lives. Legal immigration is a material issue, not illegal immigration. Net Zero is the only path to growth for the UK, not protecting 20th century technologies and special interests. Cheap, secure British Energy for the British Economy.

    If the Tories engage in the kind of paranoid culture battles you suggest, they'll just lose even more votes to Reform (the real deal) or the Lib Dems (the sensible alternative).
    Does 'woke' impact peoples lives? Perhaps not a lot so far. But the desecration of our universities will certainly do so in the long term.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,858
    .

    Labour + Green + SDLP + WPB + Plaid + SNP (33.7% + 6.7% + 0.7% + 0.7% + 0.3% + 2.5) = 44.6%

    Tory + Reform + DUP + TUV + UUP + SDP [maybe] (23.7% + 14.3% + 0.6% + 0.2% + 0.3% + 0.1%) = 39.2%

    I know the LDs/Alliance really really really want to count all their 12.6% of voters to the Left-wing block, but they're not. If I was being really generous I'd give them 60% of them and 40% to the Right-wing block. That'd still get you to only 51.1% v 44.2%, and that's on a reduced turnout where many Tories stayed at home.

    Point is the country is still split into two-voter blocks. And there's not an awful lot between them, save the mathematics of FPTP, which computed into the landslide.

    A lot can change quickly.
    Is the country split into two blocks ?
    The evidence of this election is that it’s a lot more complicated than that.

    There’s not a lot, other than the artificial constraints of FPTP, which makes for only two tribes,
  • MattWMattW Posts: 26,171
    Taz said:

    Chester-le-street actually 😉

    Interesting place Chester-le-Street.

    International Cricket and very some interesting / innovative community development back in the 1970s / 1980s.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 7,270
    EPG said:

    Reform aren't a right-wing bloc party, sorry. They compete against Tories and promise magic money tree for the NHS.
    I thought Reform were more free-marketeering on the NHS? Indeed I think that’s their biggest weakness. The Tories could probably have turned off vast swathes of voters from Reform if they’d spent some time attacking their NHS policy.

    I fully expect Farage to tack leftwards on that in the next Parliament to shut that attack line down.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    And the Sunday Rawnsley, as this morning's rain tries to clear:

    The outcome of this election may have been foretold, but that makes it no less momentous. This is a dazzling achievement by Sir Keir, the more so for being such a vindication of a strategy that very few people outside a tight circle of friends and allies ever completely trusted.

    It is true that Sir Keir has had a large number of assists from the Tories, but he wouldn’t have won this scale of majority without the drive to turn his party into an electable alternative to Conservative rule. This makes it a highly personal triumph. This victory magnifies his authority over Labour and the government will not have much to fear from opposition parties anytime soon.

    This regime change is being greeted with enthusiasm in Whitehall, not so much for reasons of ideological sympathy, but because it is more professionally satisfying for civil servants to work for a stable government with a sense of direction allied to the power to get stuff done.

    The euphoria is tempered by trepidation. Sue Gray, Sir Keir’s chief of staff, has a “shit list” of emergencies that could erupt during the infancy of this government, ranging from universities and more councils going bankrupt to a full-blown crisis in prisons. Government debt relative to output is at its largest in 60 years. Taxes as a proportion of GDP are heading towards the highest level since 1948. At the same time, critical public services are either on their knees or on the floor.

    This was a revenge election in which voters expressed visceral loathing for the Tories much more evidently than they did any love for Labour. Sir Keir is at Number 10 on the back of a vote share that fell short of 34%. There’s never been a lower score for a majority-winning party since 1832. So while the victory looks commanding, the mandate feels brittle. Sir Keir sits atop a skyscraper majority, but its foundations are built on clay. The answer to that is not easy, but it is obvious. Sir Keir will have to set about earning this majority by using it to deliver.

    He has astonished all those in his own party and beyond it who were once so sceptical that he was the man to take Labour back into power. Now he must confound the many doubters already noisily questioning whether his government will be equal to the towering challenges that have become Labour’s responsibility.




  • glwglw Posts: 10,292

    They created a wedge issue - then found themselves on the wrong side of the wedge. It goes back to Cameron and his foolish "under 100,000" pledge - another reaction to Farage like his Brexit referendum. The issue is not "immigration" but "population" - and the houses and services the population needs. Anyone proposing to "cut immigration" should start off by telling us who they are going to stop coming. NHS staff? Students?
    We had 67,000 asylum claims last year, so on Cameron's pledge we would have to have very little net migration to stay under 100,000 per year. Almost certainly that would be lower than the numbers we would want merely to staff essential services.

    Now unless we want to turn away all refugees through the schemes we have for places like Hong Kong and Ukraine, and all people arriving and making asylum claims with completely legitimate reasons, then we are going to almost certainly have migration north of 100,000 per year indefinitely. Maybe somewhere in the 200,000 - 300,000 region assuming we still want other types of migrants for high-skill jobs, academic studies, etc.

    So once we arrive at a necessary and unavoidable level of migration we basically need to ask one question. Where is everyone going to live and how much stuff do we need to build for them? That's the thing that we need to work on to make immigration work. Keep building at a much faster rate and we will at least make immigration sustainable and less of a resource problem.
  • Scrapheap_as_wasScrapheap_as_was Posts: 10,069
    Starmer's GOATs are a welcome move of looking 'serious'.

    Tories need to welcome back Gauke and co asap rather than head off to the fringes with Braverman.

    Sadly I don't think they will.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    Maybe a lot, but I think it’s really important to be clear about the different types of immigrant, legal and illegal.

    We need a revised vocabulary of immigration.
    Tag the illegals/no visa so you know where they are and can be easily deported. Hunt them down if the tags are removed. They have been pussyfooting about since the 90's and teh result is just thousands more economic migrants / ne'er do wells flooding into the country. It cannot go on there are not enough 5 star hotels to put them all up.
    Should havemassive sheds full of immigration staff processing them in a couple of days, then ship out the illegals etc immediately.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,676
    edited July 2024
    EPG said:

    Reform aren't a right-wing bloc party, sorry. They compete against Tories and promise magic money tree for the NHS.
    In some ways they are the anti-establishment mirror of the SNP.

    Both parties argue that their constituents’ needs cannot be met within the current Westminster setup. SNP from the left(ish) and independence perspective, Reform from the right.

    One says independence is the solution, the other says - what? The Nietschian superman I suppose.

    So you can’t group either into blocs with others because they are constitutionally set apart. But you can group many Reform voters into a potential pool with the Tories.

    Plaid, not so much. More like SDLP, for now.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617

    Does 'woke' impact peoples lives? Perhaps not a lot so far. But the desecration of our universities will certainly do so in the long term.
    It certainly does, as in this example of the desecration of universities.

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/10/observer-view-michelle-donolan-false-allegations
  • I thought Reform were more free-marketeering on the NHS? Indeed I think that’s their biggest weakness. The Tories could probably have turned off vast swathes of voters from Reform if they’d spent some time attacking their NHS policy.

    I fully expect Farage to tack leftwards on that in the next Parliament to shut that attack line down.
    He will see how Labour get on I suspect.

    His policy if moving to a French type system is excellent in principle.

    However in practice I fear it would degenerate into a US style system in short order as Britain seems institutionally incapable of avoiding extremes (as anyone who has been to a private equity owned chain vet (now most of them) will testify.

    Hence most will opt for a communist health service until such time as it irretrievably implodes.

    Personally I expect little change but a continuing drift to employer funded private health insurance and pressure building for fees for such to be tax deductable as they are in the rest of the world.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    Labour + Green + SDLP + WPB + Plaid + SNP (33.7% + 6.7% + 0.7% + 0.7% + 0.3% + 2.5) = 44.6%

    Tory + Reform + DUP + TUV + UUP + SDP [maybe] (23.7% + 14.3% + 0.6% + 0.2% + 0.3% + 0.1%) = 39.2%

    I know the LDs/Alliance really really really want to count all their 12.6% of voters to the Left-wing block, but they're not. If I was being really generous I'd give them 60% of them and 40% to the Right-wing block. That'd still get you to only 51.1% v 44.2%, and that's on a reduced turnout where many Tories stayed at home.

    Point is the country is still split into two-voter blocks. And there's not an awful lot between them, save the mathematics of FPTP, which computed into the landslide.

    A lot can change quickly.
    Exactly jsut look at 2019 , the buffoon was up against an idiot and we got 5 more years of the Tories, Labour can easily go the same way.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,729
    stodge said:

    On to the serious business and everyone seems to be preening themselves over the fortunes won betting on the election.

    https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/06/08/london-falling-the-capital-and-the-election/

    I put a few London bets on a month ago as follows:

    Harrow East – CON 9/4
    Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner – CON 4/5
    Bromley & Biggin Hill – CON 11/8
    Croydon East – CON 10/1
    Croydon South – CON 2/1
    Sutton & Cheam – LD 11/10
    Romford – CON 6/4


    I make that six out of seven - Croydon East always a bit of a long shot. Total return to a 1 point stake - 15.1 points so essentially backing a 14/1 winner but I'll take that all day every day.

    I disagreed with your analysis on Croydon East but delighted about all the others. Good betting.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    Starmer's GOATs are a welcome move of looking 'serious'.

    Tories need to welcome back Gauke and co asap rather than head off to the fringes with Braverman.

    Sadly I don't think they will.

    Some donkeys in there for sure though
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,627

    If we had had proportional representation then Farage would have got 100 MPs, most of them having no political experience and paper candidates who would have been a disaster and probably imploded the party within 18 months.

    FPTP keeps a party out until it reaches a critical mass and has now ensured that Farage only has his most able leiutenants in Parliament, with five years to professionalise the party.

    PR enthusiasts should be careful what they wish for.
    I support PR for two simple reasons:
    1) In a democracy you should get what you vote for. Every vote should count equally. As a matter of principle it is an aberation that Reform won so many votes and so few seats
    2) The best way to defeat any extreme is to expose it to scrutiny. Reform won 4.1m votes - 14.3%. If it has won 93 seats instead of 5 it would not have been a force at the next election. So many of those additional MPs would have been catastrophic for Reform. So many crazy people with appalling ideas and disgusting opinions. With them in the Commons we would have examined Faragism, been repelled by it and seen it off. Instead it continues to fester away in society.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,955
    darkage said:

    The level of delusion from the Green party is on another scale. I remember for a while they had a thing 'vote for policies', the suggestion being that you could just vote for policies you like, like massive increases in government spending, but without any mechanism to pay for it. Their policy on defence was also until recently to just reduce spending to avoid anything other defending ourselves. All this time people I know, educated to PHD level, would vote for this and stand as candidates, believing themselves to be enlightened. I always just regarded them as populists in the same manner as Trump, Corbyn, UKIP etc.

    It is very revealing that the green party get a free pass. They just actually seem to get humoured, like they are idealistic children, only now they run Council's and have MP's. The disparity with how the reform party are treated is massive and unfortunately revealing of a deep cultural bias.
    To be fair on the Greens, they were up front about the need for tax rises to fund their policies. That's better than what we got from Labour and the Conservatives (or Reform).

    That's not to say their policies were sensible. But I liked the honesty.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617
    TimS said:

    I’m quite pleased with Starmer’s last 2 days. I hope this continues. He seems to have managed to wrest the discussion away from the pointless arguments of the campaign to some more substantive issues and a focus on delivery.

    This is where Labour need to act first. Don’t allow a vacuum to develop. They can help to shift the Overton window if they have a good first month or two. And when I say shift the window, I don’t mean necessarily leftward but rather away from gesture politics and towards competence-based politics.

    And evidence-based. But yes.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617
    Eabhal said:

    To be fair on the Greens, they were up front about the need for tax rises to fund their policies. That's better than what we got from Labour and the Conservatives (or Reform).

    That's not to say their policies were sensible. But I liked the honesty.
    Maybe different lot of Greens?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    Does 'woke' impact peoples lives? Perhaps not a lot so far. But the desecration of our universities will certainly do so in the long term.
    Affects my blood pressure having to listen to the tossers.
  • boulayboulay Posts: 6,047
    Roger said:

    I imagine the 4,000,000 are the most uneducated and politically illiterate in the country. It's unlikely they'll move in any direction because of ideology. It'll be interesting when the psephologists have done their work on the election but I'd be surprised if that's not the case
    I’m not sure that someone who was schooled at the intellectual vacuum of Millfield, didn’t do a degree and has a career that is dependent on artistic talent rather than academic prowess should really be throwing around insults at millions of people about their education.

    Its a good job you can take a good photo otherwise your remaining skills would leave you in a bit of a pickle.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,676

    I support PR for two simple reasons:
    1) In a democracy you should get what you vote for. Every vote should count equally. As a matter of principle it is an aberation that Reform won so many votes and so few seats
    2) The best way to defeat any extreme is to expose it to scrutiny. Reform won 4.1m votes - 14.3%. If it has won 93 seats instead of 5 it would not have been a force at the next election. So many of those additional MPs would have been catastrophic for Reform. So many crazy people with appalling ideas and disgusting opinions. With them in the Commons we would have examined Faragism, been repelled by it and seen it off. Instead it continues to fester away in society.
    The main objections to PR are all variations on the theme of not liking list systems, which is an absolutely fair point except that the obvious PR solution is STV in multi member constituencies, which doesn’t have a list system.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    Scott_xP said:

    You obviously didn't read the bit about how votes in constituencies that are not mine shouldn't change my MP
    We'll put you into a larger constituency and you and the people living therearound can have its five MPs all to yourselves.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 64,883
    Highest turnout since 1981 in Francet midday
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022
    Isn't it interesting that so many people seem to think the Tories NEED to do what they personally WANT the Tories to do.

    I think the Tories have options. I don't know which they will choose. At one end they could try the full Matthew Goodwin patriotic/social democratic realignment or alternatively revert to a sort of George Osborne win back those wealthier seats. Or something in the middle. It isn't that obvious. Not least because we don't really know what Starmer is likely to be and where he will likely make himself vulnerable. There will also be events, dear boy, events......

    Blair it appears has been writing in the Sunday Times that if you want to deal with Reform, get control of migration. Pretty obvious but I'm amazed at the number of people who think right wing populism is just some irrational spasm that's come out of nowhere. It's a result of countries losing control of their borders and struggling to maintain internal unity as a result of multiculturalism.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,740
    edited July 2024
    malcolmg said:

    Exactly , got there like Prescott by climbing the greasy pole in the unions, no real experience of real business and likely to be as big a dud as Prescott was. Labour always need a union rep as deputy to keep the wolves happy.
    Yes. it's absolutely disgusting that a working class woman like Rayner, with a trades union background of all things, should end up as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Honestly, what were they thinking? Have they forgotten their history?
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,395
    malcolmg said:

    Some donkeys in there for sure though
    He's done very well to assemble such a sensible looking team from the Labour benches.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,398
    malcolmg said:

    Exactly , got there like Prescott by climbing the greasy pole in the unions, no real experience of real business and likely to be as big a dud as Prescott was. Labour always need a union rep as deputy to keep the wolves happy.
    It isn't the politicians that deliver, it is the Civil Servants. I think that Rayner will work well with the Civil Service.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,955
    malcolmg said:

    Affects my blood pressure having to listen to the tossers.
    Woke is responsible for the pressure on the NHS. Millions of Daily Mail readers pushed to the edge of a heart attack by rainbow lanyards and vegan sausage rolls.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    EPG said:

    Reform aren't a right-wing bloc party, sorry. They compete against Tories and promise magic money tree for the NHS.
    It's because Casino is thinking of the culture war, not economics (although resists the logic therein of putting the LibDems firmly on the left, because it would upset his sums). Economically, Reform voters and some of the MPs will be firmly left - the irony is that they're led by free-market libertarians like Farage and Tice.
  • murali_smurali_s Posts: 3,078
    edited July 2024

    Well this one has an honours degree in a subkect involving a lot of complex maths and is entitled to use the Designation Chartered xxxxx.

    One of the others I know of is a public sector worker who graduated not long ago.

    Your sneering attitude to millions of voters crystallises the reason why Reform came third in this election, votes wise, half a million ahead of the lib dems.

    It may be sneering but it’s largely true. Farage and his blackshirts now has a presence in the HoC. It may only be 5 seats but it is a bridgehead.

    The 4 million people who voted for these fascists are largely uneducated, lazy, xenophobic, bigoted and not willing to take any personal responsibility. Instead Farage has used these people (by telling these folk it’s the immigrants that are the issue; nothing to do with how lazy and thick they are) to further his political aims.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 7,270
    edited July 2024

    I support PR for two simple reasons:
    1) In a democracy you should get what you vote for. Every vote should count equally. As a matter of principle it is an aberation that Reform won so many votes and so few seats
    2) The best way to defeat any extreme is to expose it to scrutiny. Reform won 4.1m votes - 14.3%. If it has won 93 seats instead of 5 it would not have been a force at the next election. So many of those additional MPs would have been catastrophic for Reform. So many crazy people with appalling ideas and disgusting opinions. With them in the Commons we would have examined Faragism, been repelled by it and seen it off. Instead it continues to fester away in society.
    But in PR we get governments that nobody votes for. That is the trade-off. Let’s say you like party policy X and Y, so you vote for that party. You then have to hope that party forms part of a coalition and doesn’t ditch X and Y in favour of A and B.
  • CarlottaVanceCarlottaVance Posts: 60,281
    PM Starmer, the video:

    My government will restore politics as a force for good.

    Let's get started.


    https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1809876856419561483
  • pigeonpigeon Posts: 5,173
    Nigelb said:

    .

    Is the country split into two blocks ?
    The evidence of this election is that it’s a lot more complicated than that.

    There’s not a lot, other than the artificial constraints of FPTP, which makes for only two tribes,
    Yes, it's certainly more complicated than that, and voters exist along a spectrum with a great many of them possessing inherently contradictory views on a range of subjects.

    Taking my subject of the morning, the Green Party, as an obvious example, how many Green voters are actually left-leaning? You just have to look at the four seats they actually won - two urban cores, two very rural - to appreciate that the party is both viewed as authentic (the commonality between its voters in both locations will doubtless be a strong interest in the environment, and the voters will believe the Greens care about this,) and yet, at the same time, can present two faces.

    The Trotskyite trans activist-green voters of Bristol and the Love Your Weekend with Alan Titchmarsh-green voters of North Herefordshire would doubtless disagree on rather a lot if they were forced to pit their interests against one another, but the Greens are a small insurgent party in no danger of coming to power, so the potential for conflict simply doesn't arise. It doesn't matter if you're fiscally dry or a tax and spend socialist, all that's really important is caring about the world not being consumed by fire and that all the little birds, bees and cute fluffy animals should live. Most people can agree on this.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,969
    edited July 2024
    dixiedean said:

    Glad I'm not the only one to not fully get the y axis. Thought I was being dim. But now @geoffw has outed himself as uncertain, I know it can't be that
    It isn't clear though. I accept it is interesting if it is what @pm215 says

  • stodgestodge Posts: 14,383
    edited July 2024
    As to events locally, Sir Stephen Timms was safely returned in East Ham but lost a third of his vote share. There are some obvious parallels with 2005 though this is slightly worse than that for Timms.

    Tahir Mirza of the Newham Independents got 18% and came in second (the Respect candidate in 2005 got 21%). The other big winner was the Greens who came third quadrupling their vote share despite doing nothing in the constituency and I'm sure they will be second next time and will be starting to challenge at Council level. The Conservative was fourth with 10% - their worst result since the constituency was re-created in 1997.

    Reform, the Liberal Democrats and both Independents all lost their deposits and turnout slumped from 66% to 48%. Having enjoyed majorities of over 30,000, Timms now has less than 13,000 in hand.

    A similar result in West Ham & Beckton with James Asser getting home by 9,250 with his vote share falling from 70% to 45%. Sophia Naqvi for the Newham Independents got 20% but I know the Newham Independents put a lot more effort into this seat than East Ham and I think they may just have hit the glass ceiling of pro-Palestine support. The Greens were again third going from 2.5% to 11% and now look the principal opposition to Labour in the future. The Conservative got 10% in fourth but Reform did better polling 8% in fifth - the constituency has a larger WWC element down around Silvertown and the Docks than East Ham.

    In Stratford & Bow, the Greens put in the work and finished second as Labour fell from 70% to 44%. The Conservative vote halved and their candidate finished fourth behind the Workers' Party. The Greens went from 4% to 17%.

    Looking to the 2026 locals, I suspect the Greens will be targeting Labour votes across the borough - whether the Newham Independents will be as strong a force by then I've no clue. Only Timms got above 50% so it could well be we'll see a midterm collapse in Labour support at Council level from which the Greens look set to be the main beneficiaries.

  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,858

    But in PR we get governments that nobody votes for. That is the trade-off. Let’s say you like party policy X and Y, so you vote for that party. You then have to hope that party forms part of a coalition and doesn’t ditch X and Y in favour of A and B.
    You have to hope that for governments elected under FPTP.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994

    Yes. it's absolutely disgusting that a working class woman like Rayner, with a trades union background of all things, should end up as Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. Honestly, what were they thinking? Have they forgotten their history?
    That is their problem , they are stuck on their history.
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,771

    Isn't it interesting that so many people seem to think the Tories NEED to do what they personally WANT the Tories to do.

    I think the Tories have options. I don't know which they will choose. At one end they could try the full Matthew Goodwin patriotic/social democratic realignment or alternatively revert to a sort of George Osborne win back those wealthier seats. Or something in the middle. It isn't that obvious. Not least because we don't really know what Starmer is likely to be and where he will likely make himself vulnerable. There will also be events, dear boy, events......

    Blair it appears has been writing in the Sunday Times that if you want to deal with Reform, get control of migration. Pretty obvious but I'm amazed at the number of people who think right wing populism is just some irrational spasm that's come out of nowhere. It's a result of countries losing control of their borders and struggling to maintain internal unity as a result of multiculturalism.

    That is describing approaches they could take to implementing what they *need* to do - which is to develop a coherent vision and, eventually, policy platform that they can bang on about for years in order to establish themselves as a competent alternativr government. The danger is mistaking that for the tactical stuff.
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 7,270
    murali_s said:

    It may be sneering but it’s largely true. Farage and his blackshirts now has a presence in the HoC. It may only be 5 seats but it is a bridgehead.

    The 4 million people who voted for these fascists are largely uneducated, lazy, xenophobic, bigoted and not willing to take any personal responsibility. Instead Farage has used these people (by telling these folk it’s the immigrants that are the issue; nothing to do with how lazy and thick they are) to further his political aims.
    Calling them all the names under the sun won’t get those voters back into supporting mainstream parties. Do you want a rump of disaffected people disconnected from society and getting progressively more angry in this country? I don’t. And the only way we can stop that from happening is from engaging with them and discussing their concerns - some of which are legitimate but will not be solved by political extremism.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 27,390

    This last point is key. The scandals and the melodrama and the crayon policies are all distractions from the reason the Tories got smashed.

    Fuck Business.

    You may consider that to be a throw away line from Boris, but it neatly summarised the policy agenda of Tory government over the last decade.

    If the Tories can step away from knee-jerk populism aimed at voters who don't understand economics, and go back to a sound economic base which will be a popular sell to those voters, it can recover. And would *deserve* to recover. So much of why this country is so broken is because we have had a government who implemented a fuck business agenda.

    Borrow. Invest. Gain a return on the investment. Grow. Employ. Tax revenues increase. People have cash to spend. Feel good is tangible and our communities aren't shuttered and crumbling.

    Whither capitalism?
    That depends on what you mean by 'business'.

    Business comes in a multitude of types.

    The business I work for invests and trains and produces and exports.

    The businesses which are sucking the life out of Morrisons, Asda and some of the utilities are very different.

    I'm not sure that the Conservatives understand the difference or if they do would not prefer the second type.

    Michelle Mone, after all, is also in business.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,871

    Highest turnout since 1981 in Francet midday

    Signifies only a knife edge election, rather than a foregone conclusion, to me.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994
    Eabhal said:

    Woke is responsible for the pressure on the NHS. Millions of Daily Mail readers pushed to the edge of a heart attack by rainbow lanyards and vegan sausage rolls.
    I will not mention "venison" as it upsets one of our esteemed posters.
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,676

    Highest turnout since 1981 in Francet midday

    I am expecting a crushing victory for the united non-RN forces led by Macron’s Renaissance….

    …in the scattering of tiny golden stone hamlets that make up St Vincent des Pres, 71250.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    stodge said:

    On to the serious business and everyone seems to be preening themselves over the fortunes won betting on the election.

    https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2024/06/08/london-falling-the-capital-and-the-election/

    I put a few London bets on a month ago as follows:

    Harrow East – CON 9/4
    Ruislip, Northwood & Pinner – CON 4/5
    Bromley & Biggin Hill – CON 11/8
    Croydon East – CON 10/1
    Croydon South – CON 2/1
    Sutton & Cheam – LD 11/10
    Romford – CON 6/4


    I make that six out of seven - Croydon East always a bit of a long shot. Total return to a 1 point stake - 15.1 points so essentially backing a 14/1 winner but I'll take that all day every day.

    Just a shame you had to go all the way to the Isle of Man to be sufficiently incognito to find a bookmaker to take the bets?
  • TimSTimS Posts: 14,676
    dixiedean said:

    Signifies only a knife edge election, rather than a foregone conclusion, to me.
    It does also shine a light on this week’s UK election turnout. And the strength of the minor parties. It was a free hit election with not much riding on it.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,858
    Farooq said:

    You can group them in in terms of whom they would support in government. So right now in mid 2024, the LDs would support a Labour-led government but almost certainly not a Conservative one. Reform would probably be the opposite way around. SNP would probably find it slightly tricky to support Labour but would never, ever support the Tories.

    Casino is missing the point to a certain extent when he tries to split the Lib Dems down a 60-40 line and use that to keep them out of the left bloc. The Lib Dems would, in a hung parliament, have elevated Starmer with zero hesitation. He's right in that this reality can change but there's no sign of that any time soon.
    Except they’ll be opposing them on quite a lot of stuff in this parliament, and they were part of a coalition with the Tories a decade back.

    All Casino is effectively saying is that FPTP is the way it should be.
    That’s a circular argument, not one of principle.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,395
    IanB2 said:

    It's because Casino is thinking of the culture war, not economics (although resists the logic therein of putting the LibDems firmly on the left, because it would upset his sums). Economically, Reform voters and some of the MPs will be firmly left - the irony is that they're led by free-market libertarians like Farage and Tice.
    Are Farage and Tice really free-market libertarians? I think I might fit that description but I'm a long way from them.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,496
    https://x.com/MichaelDnes1/status/1809853434465591770

    @MichaelDnes1
    It’s a truth universally acknowledged that road pricing is political suicide.

    But what if it wasn’t? And what if I knew people who’d almost proved it?

    Come with me, and try to avoid losing a trillion dollars as we go.🧵


    Interesting thread. TLDR is - bring in road pricing on vehicles registered from a point in the future onwards and people won't complain. But, now is the time to act. Soon it will be too late not impose road pricing on existing vehicles and that will be unpopular.

    I have to say, I'm not sure it would be accepted just like that, but it would certainly have a better chance than getting to 2028 and going "oh, what are we going to do?"
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994
    darkage said:

    It isn't the politicians that deliver, it is the Civil Servants. I think that Rayner will work well with the Civil Service.
    Hard for her to be worse than two jags. Though both have property as a hobby so who knows.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,264

    PM Starmer, the video:

    My government will restore politics as a force for good.

    Let's get started.


    https://x.com/Keir_Starmer/status/1809876856419561483

    Pleasantly understated. He's definitely growing on me. A few more months and BJO will be onboard
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994
    darkage said:

    It isn't the politicians that deliver, it is the Civil Servants. I think that Rayner will work well with the Civil Service.
    The civil servants in between watching Netflix, PMSL.
  • FF43FF43 Posts: 17,798

    Labour + Green + SDLP + WPB + Plaid + SNP (33.7% + 6.7% + 0.7% + 0.7% + 0.3% + 2.5) = 44.6%

    Tory + Reform + DUP + TUV + UUP + SDP [maybe] (23.7% + 14.3% + 0.6% + 0.2% + 0.3% + 0.1%) = 39.2%

    I know the LDs/Alliance really really really want to count all their 12.6% of voters to the Left-wing block, but they're not. If I was being really generous I'd give them 60% of them and 40% to the Right-wing block. That'd still get you to only 51.1% v 44.2%, and that's on a reduced turnout where many Tories stayed at home.

    Point is the country is still split into two-voter blocks. And there's not an awful lot between them, save the mathematics of FPTP, which computed into the landslide.

    A lot can change quickly.
    The important numbers are 121 and 411. The Conservatives need to get to 300 seats or so to form the next government even if they can get into a coalition with Reform. Meanwhile Labour have an issuance policy of a coalition with the Lib Dems if their seat count is drastically cut.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,842

    Starmer's GOATs are a welcome move of looking 'serious'.

    Tories need to welcome back Gauke and co asap rather than head off to the fringes with Braverman.

    Sadly I don't think they will.

    Starmer's GOATS appointments smack too much of gimmicks, and will doubtless annoy or disappoint backbenchers who regard themselves, rightly or wrongly, as at least as talented and more deserving than Blairite retreads and the Covid bloke. It stores up trouble for the future, although to be cynical, Starmer will be ready to take his bus pass by the next election.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943

    But in PR we get governments that nobody votes for. That is the trade-off. Let’s say you like party policy X and Y, so you vote for that party. You then have to hope that party forms part of a coalition and doesn’t ditch X and Y in favour of A and B.
    Instead we just got a government that 66% of people didn't vote for.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,871
    Omnium said:

    Are Farage and Tice really free-market libertarians? I think I might fit that description but I'm a long way from them.
    Free market, yes. Authoritarian on social issues.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,994
    Farooq said:

    These sheds must be enormous if you need to tag the inmates to find them in there
    You wit gets no better, a loud groan from the audience.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 10,022
    darkage said:

    It isn't the politicians that deliver, it is the Civil Servants. I think that Rayner will work well with the Civil Service.
    They are there to implement what the ministers want to do. You can't expect them to do it for them. Unless the government just wants to continue with Tory policy.
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 44,617
    IanB2 said:

    Instead we just got a government that 66% of people didn't vote for.
    Er, 66% of actual voting voters. About 80% of the total slate, counting DNV (and the claim that DV means that they can be ignored is unfair this time round, esp. in Scotland and NI, because some were disfranchised in the rush).
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    stodge said:

    As to events locally, Sir Stephen Timms was safely returned in East Ham but lost a third of his vote share. There are some obvious parallels with 2005 though this is slightly worse than that for Timms.

    Tahir Mirza of the Newham Independents got 18% and came in second (the Respect candidate in 2005 got 21%). The other big winner was the Greens who came third quadrupling their vote share despite doing nothing in the constituency and I'm sure they will be second next time and will be starting to challenge at Council level. The Conservative was fourth with 10% - their worst result since the constituency was re-created in 1997.

    Reform, the Liberal Democrats and both Independents all lost their deposits and turnout slumped from 66% to 48%. Having enjoyed majorities of over 30,000, Timms now has less than 13,000 in hand.

    A similar result in West Ham & Beckton with James Asser getting home by 9,250 with his vote share falling from 70% to 45%. Sophia Naqvi for the Newham Independents got 20% but I know the Newham Independents put a lot more effort into this seat than East Ham and I think they may just have hit the glass ceiling of pro-Palestine support. The Greens were again third going from 2.5% to 11% and now look the principal opposition to Labour in the future. The Conservative got 10% in fourth but Reform did better polling 8% in fifth - the constituency has a larger WWC element down around Silvertown and the Docks than East Ham.

    In Stratford & Bow, the Greens put in the work and finished second as Labour fell from 70% to 44%. The Conservative vote halved and their candidate finished fourth behind the Workers' Party. The Greens went from 4% to 17%.

    Looking to the 2026 locals, I suspect the Greens will be targeting Labour votes across the borough - whether the Newham Independents will be as strong a force by then I've no clue. Only Timms got above 50% so it could well be we'll see a midterm collapse in Labour support at Council level from which the Greens look set to be the main beneficiaries.

    I mentioned the collapse of urban liberalism earlier; in a fair few areas, the Greens are picking up the mantle, Conservatism having been rejected after Thatcher and Liberalism after its coalition.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,871

    Starmer's GOATS appointments smack too much of gimmicks, and will doubtless annoy or disappoint backbenchers who regard themselves, rightly or wrongly, as at least as talented and more deserving than Blairite retreads and the Covid bloke. It stores up trouble for the future, although to be cynical, Starmer will be ready to take his bus pass by the next election.
    Isn't he 61 and resident in London?
    He's therefore eligible for one already.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,842
    FF43 said:

    The important numbers are 121 and 411. The Conservatives need to get to 300 seats or so to form the next government even if they can get into a coalition with Reform. Meanwhile Labour have an issuance policy of a coalition with the Lib Dems if their seat count is drastically cut.
    That conventional thinking is quite wrong, as shown last week. Winning an extra 200 seats is not 200 times as difficult as winning one. We are not liberating Europe from the Nazis one village at a time. Seats are fought in parallel, not in series.

    And talk of a Labour LibDem coalition forgets 2010 to 2015. Why should the LibDems want to repeat the circumstances of their demise? Why should Labour be interested in the Tories' little helpers?
  • novanova Posts: 747
    EPG said:

    Reform aren't a right-wing bloc party, sorry. They compete against Tories and promise magic money tree for the NHS.
    I'm amazed at how often I'm seeing the Con+Reform vote as the same thing. Both left and right are suggesting that Reform saved Labour.

    Yet, we already know that most Reform voters wouldn't have voted Tory. Farage admitted he couldn't "deliver" them before the election, and polling for the last two years has consistently showed that most weren't keen on the Tories.

    In fact, if this polling from the day after the election is correct, given the extremely efficient Lab/LD/Green tactical voting, then no Reform may have been a bad thing for the Tories.

    https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/1809270711619395945
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,825
    glw said:

    We had 67,000 asylum claims last year, so on Cameron's pledge we would have to have very little net migration to stay under 100,000 per year. Almost certainly that would be lower than the numbers we would want merely to staff essential services.

    Now unless we want to turn away all refugees through the schemes we have for places like Hong Kong and Ukraine, and all people arriving and making asylum claims with completely legitimate reasons, then we are going to almost certainly have migration north of 100,000 per year indefinitely. Maybe somewhere in the 200,000 - 300,000 region assuming we still want other types of migrants for high-skill jobs, academic studies, etc.

    So once we arrive at a necessary and unavoidable level of migration we basically need to ask one question. Where is everyone going to live and how much stuff do we need to build for them? That's the thing that we need to work on to make immigration work. Keep building at a much faster rate and we will at least make immigration sustainable and less of a resource problem.
    Something that keeps on getting left out of the immigration debate is that there is no hard wall between economic migration and asylum migration.

    Many of the economic migrants I have worked with have backstories that could amount to an asylum claim. My wife might well have been able to make an asylum claim, for example.

    It is much easier to get into work via the economic migration route. Asylum claiming is a last resort.
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 9,003
    Scott_xP said:

    You obviously didn't read the bit about how votes in constituencies that are not mine shouldn't change my MP
    With STV, votes in other constituencies wouldn't change your MPs. It's just that your MPs would better reflect local preferences.

    There would also be competition between candidates of the same party. You wouldn't be stuck with whoever your local party chooses as their sole candidate.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943

    Starmer's GOATS appointments smack too much of gimmicks, and will doubtless annoy or disappoint backbenchers who regard themselves, rightly or wrongly, as at least as talented and more deserving than Blairite retreads and the Covid bloke. It stores up trouble for the future, although to be cynical, Starmer will be ready to take his bus pass by the next election.
    Can anyone think of a GOAT who succeeded in achieving anything much, and/or stuck around?

    In a sense, they're a hostage to fortune, because they're seen as semi-independent and if they get fed up and stomp off, you get a bad publicity hit.
  • viewcodeviewcode Posts: 23,940
    malcolmg said:

    I will not mention "venison" as it upsets one of our esteemed posters.
    Oh, deer... )
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 65,035
    PB Tories - does Atkins have a cat's chance at the leadership or is she running to get a big job in Shadow Cabinet?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,825
    tlg86 said:

    https://x.com/MichaelDnes1/status/1809853434465591770

    @MichaelDnes1
    It’s a truth universally acknowledged that road pricing is political suicide.

    But what if it wasn’t? And what if I knew people who’d almost proved it?

    Come with me, and try to avoid losing a trillion dollars as we go.🧵


    Interesting thread. TLDR is - bring in road pricing on vehicles registered from a point in the future onwards and people won't complain. But, now is the time to act. Soon it will be too late not impose road pricing on existing vehicles and that will be unpopular.

    I have to say, I'm not sure it would be accepted just like that, but it would certainly have a better chance than getting to 2028 and going "oh, what are we going to do?"

    Thinking that road pricing on future vehicles isn’t political suicide is interesting.

    That seems to assume that existing car owners can’t conceive of needing a new(er) car sometime in the near future.

    If nothing else, it would crash the car market in interesting ways.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,740
    stodge said:

    As to events locally, Sir Stephen Timms was safely returned in East Ham but lost a third of his vote share. There are some obvious parallels with 2005 though this is slightly worse than that for Timms.

    Tahir Mirza of the Newham Independents got 18% and came in second (the Respect candidate in 2005 got 21%). The other big winner was the Greens who came third quadrupling their vote share despite doing nothing in the constituency and I'm sure they will be second next time and will be starting to challenge at Council level. The Conservative was fourth with 10% - their worst result since the constituency was re-created in 1997.

    Reform, the Liberal Democrats and both Independents all lost their deposits and turnout slumped from 66% to 48%. Having enjoyed majorities of over 30,000, Timms now has less than 13,000 in hand.

    A similar result in West Ham & Beckton with James Asser getting home by 9,250 with his vote share falling from 70% to 45%. Sophia Naqvi for the Newham Independents got 20% but I know the Newham Independents put a lot more effort into this seat than East Ham and I think they may just have hit the glass ceiling of pro-Palestine support. The Greens were again third going from 2.5% to 11% and now look the principal opposition to Labour in the future. The Conservative got 10% in fourth but Reform did better polling 8% in fifth - the constituency has a larger WWC element down around Silvertown and the Docks than East Ham.

    In Stratford & Bow, the Greens put in the work and finished second as Labour fell from 70% to 44%. The Conservative vote halved and their candidate finished fourth behind the Workers' Party. The Greens went from 4% to 17%.

    Looking to the 2026 locals, I suspect the Greens will be targeting Labour votes across the borough - whether the Newham Independents will be as strong a force by then I've no clue. Only Timms got above 50% so it could well be we'll see a midterm collapse in Labour support at Council level from which the Greens look set to be the main beneficiaries.

    My cursory analysis shows that the Green vote rose significantly in safe Labour seats, which is one reason why the overall Labour share was lower than expectations.

    However, the same analysis shows that the Green vote did not rise much, if at all, in the marginal seats won by Labour or the Lib Dems. Take Lewes, for example. Quite a lot of Greens around there, but the Green vote was only 3.5%, up by only 0.6% from 2019.
  • Peter_the_PunterPeter_the_Punter Posts: 14,569
    viewcode said:

    Oh, deer... )
    Rubbish. Don't fawn over them.
  • OmniumOmnium Posts: 11,395
    dixiedean said:

    Free market, yes. Authoritarian on social issues.
    I guess its hard to really put a sensible tag on economic policies that are so far from being sensible. They're like a more extreme version of Truss - and I disliked her not so much for the individual policies as the fact that she had no idea as to how the overall picture might work.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,131

    Highest turnout since 1981 in Francet midday

    I hear voting is brisk ;-)
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,943
    Farooq said:

    Yes, the LDs coalitioned with the Tories in 2010. It's that experience that means they are fairly unlikely to repeat it any time soon!
    Of course the LDs will be opposing Labour at some points in this parliament, and if Labour start to do really badly in the eyes of LDs then you WILL see that drift away. Casino is right in implying the mutability of such support. But that future is undecided. Right now, the LD position on Labour v Tory is extremely clear, and will remain so until such a time that Labour or the Tories change. The likelier outcome, in my view, is that the LDs will still be on the Labour side of the fence come the next election.
    LibDems won't like the way Labour goes about things, with civil liberties and centralism likely to be the dividing lines (noting that Labour has endorsed decentralisation in opposition, but time will tell), but it's hard to see what Labour might do that the LibDems would absolutely hate, like so much of the old government's policy?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,131
    tlg86 said:

    https://x.com/MichaelDnes1/status/1809853434465591770

    @MichaelDnes1
    It’s a truth universally acknowledged that road pricing is political suicide.

    But what if it wasn’t? And what if I knew people who’d almost proved it?

    Come with me, and try to avoid losing a trillion dollars as we go.🧵


    Interesting thread. TLDR is - bring in road pricing on vehicles registered from a point in the future onwards and people won't complain. But, now is the time to act. Soon it will be too late not impose road pricing on existing vehicles and that will be unpopular.

    I have to say, I'm not sure it would be accepted just like that, but it would certainly have a better chance than getting to 2028 and going "oh, what are we going to do?"

    From that thread,

    https://x.com/MichaelDnes1/status/1809853448097010154

    PhD and 3 post-docs and only has 6 papers. No wonder he is unemployed with such poor academic output.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,999

    That conventional thinking is quite wrong, as shown last week. Winning an extra 200 seats is not 200 times as difficult as winning one. We are not liberating Europe from the Nazis one village at a time. Seats are fought in parallel, not in series.

    And talk of a Labour LibDem coalition forgets 2010 to 2015. Why should the LibDems want to repeat the circumstances of their demise? Why should Labour be interested in the Tories' little helpers?

    All the history suggests that the LibDems prosper when Labour does. They kind of need each other. But its friends with benefits, not partnership, territory.

  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 27,390
    dixiedean said:

    Free market, yes. Authoritarian on social issues.
    I expect Farage and Tice are only 'free market' when it comes to increasing profits and cutting taxes (on themselves).

    As we have seen many of the loudest supporters of 'free markets' are happy to nationalise the losses when things go badly.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 29,842

    PB Tories - does Atkins have a cat's chance at the leadership or is she running to get a big job in Shadow Cabinet?

    Is Victoria Atkins even standing? Apart from a nod-and-wink denial, she's not said much.
  • SouthamObserverSouthamObserver Posts: 39,999

    Starmer's GOATS appointments smack too much of gimmicks, and will doubtless annoy or disappoint backbenchers who regard themselves, rightly or wrongly, as at least as talented and more deserving than Blairite retreads and the Covid bloke. It stores up trouble for the future, although to be cynical, Starmer will be ready to take his bus pass by the next election.

    Most Labour backbenchers are currently just glad - and rather surprised - to even be backbenchers.

This discussion has been closed.