I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
I don't think anyone should choose enforced lockdown but generally in life I try to make the best of any situation I find myself in. Also I think it was an important step to save lives. The situation in Wuhan and North Italy was horrible.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I'm sure he would have got "ALL the big calls right!"
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.
FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
For what it's worth, I think the Democrats are so scarred by 2016 and the relative closeness of 2020, that they have underestimated their chances.
And the same applies on the Republican/Trump side: because there was out
This flows through into what is being shared: i.e. the early voting data is disastrous! Is it, though? Instead of comparing it to 2020 which was the middle of Covid, how does it compare to 2016 or the 2022 midterms?
Likewise, the early voting from Georgia, which does not include party affiliation but does include gender and county looked pretty positive for Harris. 55% women, and the Atlanta area the main driver of turnout... I'd be very excited about that if I was the Democrat campaign given how significant the gender differences in turnout are.
Harris several points ahead is counter productive for the Dems. A comfortable looking win and they stay at home. I don't think that applies to Trump, his voters will either vote regardless or stay at home regardless.
I hope your book is right!
Number of Democrats yours truly knows who are expecting a "comfortable looking win" is ZERO.
There may be some spouting on the web, but damn thin on the ground! Even in states where Harris IS clearly winning (such as WA State) there are still plenty of down-ballot state and local races AND measures up for grabs.
Including some that are likely to motivate even low-propensity-to-vote voters, for example choice referendum in Florida.
Nice to have eyes on the ground. I'm rooting for Kamala, but fear Trump.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
If they really do add NI to employer pension contributions, it is a gigantic tax increase and it is up to the skills of the opposition to explain and lay it at the feet of the government. There’s no such things as a cost free tax increase.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The problem for Labour is whether a pain budget can really be “received well.”
I like others think it should have been gotten out of the way quicker - the fact it has been hanging over everyone like a cloud of doom has really not set the scene for the new government well.
Osborne was able to get his emergency budget out of the way relatively quickly after taking power - get the bad medicine delivered and out of the way. The problem Labour have is that they’ve been trailing this horrible event for 3 months now, before that they put us on notice that granny was freezing this winter, and straight after the budget we actually do go into winter, when the papers will be full of freezing granny stories.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
I don't think anyone should choose enforced lockdown but generally in life I try to make the best of any situation I find myself in. Also I think it was an important step to save lives. The situation in Wuhan and North Italy was horrible.
Absolutely. It was a horrendously damaging policy, but the point is that for some, lockdown was a temporary stepping off the elevator of life.
It's 50/50, but if he had to guess it would be that Trump will win. However, there's been a lot of poll methodology changes in the last four years, so a large polling miss is likely, and he doesn't know which way it will be.
The best bet, though, is for one of Trump or Harris to sweep at least 6 of the 7 battleground states. He thinks that's a 60+% chance.
That is a good analysis. Nobody knows anything, except as you said earlier it will be one of Harris or Trump.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
The messaging is half of the issue, but the least important half. Labour are not (quite) going to be able to sell this budget. Far more importantly the numbers (so far as I can guess) won't even get close to working.
Following a good period of Tory government is all Labour have ever done. Today they're following a bad period of Tory government, and their economic thought-vacuum is going to hurt us all. Reeves/Starmer will be the best of it - when they go it'll be much worse.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
Ugh. When graphs go bad.
I recognise some big differences compared to 2020, but if you want to compare the polling you really ought to make sure they're on the same scale of axes.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.
FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.
Remember Farage conceding?
I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist?
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
It was truly Hobson's choice. The Tories were tired and clapped out by the end, and I say that as someone who voted for them.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Playing German Opera is still allowed to this day you know.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
They don't have to sell it, they've five years to do stuff that they believe will change the country for the better. They can then be judged on the outcome.
IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
Quite possibly. Of course, though, that will mean they fall back in TX too, which will reduce their large number of wasted votes there.
CNN polling had the Dems doing better among White Non-College Educated voters, at the expense of Hispanic. Which would suggest the Dems lose ground in Florida, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, California and Arizona, but hold up well in the rust belt.
*IF* that is what is happening, then we could see Harris holds onto WI, MI and PA while losing the sunbelt and even falling behind in the PV.
Trump would be incandescent with rage in that scenario... he'd have won... but not won...
And I'm sure we'd see some of the usual suspects coming out and saying that his refusal to concede and attempts to delay certification etc., were all just the right thing to do given he'd won the PV.
Assuming employee employer match, Labour will cut the pensions of the youngest workers by 6.9%, those of us in our 40s by about half that. It's madness on stilts when we as a nation do not collectively put enough into our pots and will just increase social care costs down the line. A 1p increase across the board on income tax would have been a better idea.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It's possible we could end up in a situation similar to Biden's, with concrete economic improvements partly obscured for many. by media partisanship.
In our case, it would be newspapers ,rather than TV, but the principle being the same.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
I'd have negotiated lower pay rises and linked them to productivity deals, not just opened my chequebook and said: how much do you want?
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
Was the train driver settlement as a result of a pay review board ?
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
The Osborne/balls podcast had been banging on about how pay rises weren’t budgeted for months before the GE.
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Trump has the balls to have put solutions on the line.
So, he says: tariffs on everything imported into the US*, and quadruple on stuff from China.
It's an attempt to solve the problem of not enough stuff made in the US. It might - however - have horrendous consequences for the world and for the US economy.
I admire him for trying. But I think the solution he's proposing is potentially disastrous for the world.
* What should really worry the UK is that they specifically point to services for the first time. Now, in this case, it's referencing call centers going to the Philippines. BUT if tariff are put on UK services exports to the US it would have a lot of nasty consequences, including for my own business given we have developers in the UK who need to be crosscharged back to the US.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
I'd have negotiated lower pay rises and linked them to productivity deals, not just opened my chequebook and said: how much do you want?
That's certainly an option as government in practice has a lot of agency in imposing below market rates. I'm not saying that's necessarily a good option and by the way these pay rises were in line with national averages, except for junior doctors where the pay body recommendation was higher.
The interesting thing to me is that Sunak didn't take the option to impose smaller pay settlements. He was quite happy to let the strikes run and not make any pay settlements at all.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
I'd have negotiated lower pay rises and linked them to productivity deals, not just opened my chequebook and said: how much do you want?
That's to assume that the government held more of the cards than it did.
In the short term, the strikes were a hefty drag on the government- they look bad, they were costing the state a lot and stopping progress on things like waiting lists.
In the longer term, the situation was even worse. Lots of people linked to different bits of the public sector have pointed out how near-impossible it is to recruit at current pay scales. (So organisations spend even more on agency staff.) The 2024 pay round was around about the minimum necessary to stop things getting worse.
After all, one of the first rules of the market is that you can't buck it. Not forever, anyway.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
Was the train driver settlement as a result of a pay review board ?
The train driver settlement was slightly below average national earnings increases over the three year period
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
They don't have to sell it, they've five years to do stuff that they believe will change the country for the better. They can then be judged on the outcome.
IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
They need to sell it, because they need a story to explain to people why pain now is worth it, and what improvements later it will bring. Otherwise they don't get the credit for good things, and people don't understand why the bad things had to happen.
Their first budget hasn't even been announced yet.
weknow already they are going to give unions and especially public service ones anything they want including our money with no thought of conditions. We have exchanged one set of grifters for an even more incompetent set of grifters.
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
"Here are two conflicting thoughts as the US election nears. First, Kamala Harris is an imperfect candidate who should never have been crowned without challenge. Second, it doesn’t matter. Even if the Democrats had nominated a living saint, a Periclean orator, the election next month would still be a toss-up, as it was in 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020. The other two elections in this century — the victories of Barack Obama — weren’t blowouts either. There seems to be nothing a party can do to go above 53 per cent of votes cast, or much below 46. No other major democracy in the world is anything like as consistently deadlocked. Nor was the US itself in the last century. Its mutation into a 50-50 country (or really a 30-30-40 one, as four in 10 voters often abstain) has been a civic disaster. Why? Because there is no incentive to moderate. If you are guaranteed to be competitive in every national election, even if you nominate a twice-impeached felon, why mend your ways?"
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
No. It was the definition of awful. Glorious sunny weather and unable to see friends and family and enjoy it together. A truly horrible, oppressive time, that should never happen again.
I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.
FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.
Remember Farage conceding?
I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist?
Maths and stats isn't my strong point, but when betting the issues are odds and probabilities. If you can discern no truth from the polls and there is no realistic data on which to make a decision as to who is ahead in a two horse race, then there are two sane options only: You don't engage, or you back the candidate who is longest odds, if necessary continuing to do so with both horses as the odds change.
If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.
Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
If the Tories did, I didn't feel much of that enrichment.
"Here are two conflicting thoughts as the US election nears. First, Kamala Harris is an imperfect candidate who should never have been crowned without challenge. Second, it doesn’t matter. Even if the Democrats had nominated a living saint, a Periclean orator, the election next month would still be a toss-up, as it was in 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020. The other two elections in this century — the victories of Barack Obama — weren’t blowouts either. There seems to be nothing a party can do to go above 53 per cent of votes cast, or much below 46. No other major democracy in the world is anything like as consistently deadlocked. Nor was the US itself in the last century. Its mutation into a 50-50 country (or really a 30-30-40 one, as four in 10 voters often abstain) has been a civic disaster. Why? Because there is no incentive to moderate. If you are guaranteed to be competitive in every national election, even if you nominate a twice-impeached felon, why mend your ways?"
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Trump has the balls to have put solutions on the line.
So, he says: tariffs on everything imported into the US*, and quadruple on stuff from China.
It's an attempt to solve the problem of not enough stuff made in the US. It might - however - have horrendous consequences for the world and for the US economy.
I admire him for trying. But I think the solution he's proposing is potentially disastrous for the world.
* What should really worry the UK is that they specifically point to services for the first time. Now, in this case, it's referencing call centers going to the Philippines. BUT if tariff are put on UK services exports to the US it would have a lot of nasty consequences, including for my own business given we have developers in the UK who need to be crosscharged back to the US.
Cheer up! Tomorrow he might say he's in favour (and has always been so!) of 0% tariffs.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
They don't have to sell it, they've five years to do stuff that they believe will change the country for the better. They can then be judged on the outcome.
IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
They need to sell it, because they need a story to explain to people why pain now is worth it, and what improvements later it will bring. Otherwise they don't get the credit for good things, and people don't understand why the bad things had to happen.
The point is, it's 5 years to the next election. You don't need to sell it, it should have results inside 5 years. All governments should do the unpopular things in year 1 and not bother to explain.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
As predictable as night follows day.
Fortress Europe ain't a player in global geopolitics.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Absolutely. It was horrific and brought the worst out in people. Never again.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Labour had a good first couple of weeks I thought. The big event is clearly the budget, and always has been. Reeves has been preparing this for years, and Starmer has been backing Reeves at every step for years.
Who knows if it will make any sense, but I think it's likely to be reasonably ok.
If it's received well then there's some chance that the clown show that is the cabinet up their game. If received badly then it'll be a very, very long winter for Labour. (Relieved only by the warming bonfire that is the Tories)
I'm an ex-Tory, so not a Labour backer, but I really don't want to see them crash and burn this early in their run. They are after all running the shop.
The budget will not be received well.
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
Reeves and Starmer can't even get their spin lines right. They doubled the deficit and then tried to craft their own "black hole" narrative but now want to raise taxes by twice that amount to over £40bn.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
I thought they did well with repetition of the £22 billion thing, it seeped into the consciousness of the nation. It appeared a “very big number”, but when they start talking of £40 billion and £100billion it quickly turns in numberwang. They don’t really have a sympathetic media, it’s probably not going to go well for them.
It seeped in but it never resonated because they, stupidly, raised public sector pay by £9bn weeks before they did it so their attempts to pin it all on the Tories never worked.
How much would you have raised public sector pay by?
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
Was the train driver settlement as a result of a pay review board ?
The train driver settlement was slightly below average national earnings increases over the three year period
I'd have had train drivers crawl over broken glass to kiss my foot in exchange for me mitigating their pay cut.
JUST IN: The Justice Department has sent a letter to Elon Musk's super PAC, warning that his daily $1m giveaway to registered voters in swing states might violate federal laws, sources tell CNN. It's illegal to incentivize registration with cash/prizes. @evanperez
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Do you mean you and your neighbours all became much friendlier, looked out for one another, and are still much closer than before even now? That was my experience.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
If the Tories did, I didn't feel much of that enrichment.
Suppose I'm not a pensioner though.
You had to be a pensioner who favoured mass immigration, to feel the benefit of the last government.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
The problem with the Tories is you run out of other people's money enriching their core voters.
And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Do you mean you and your neighbours all became much friendlier, looked out for one another, and are still much closer than before even now? That was my experience.
No. He, and everyone else, was banned from seeing their neighbours, beyond 20 yard stares over the garden fence. Do you not remember?
Lockdown was a regulation inhumane hell. And what made the hell even worse was people saying they liked it.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Absolutely. It was horrific and brought the worst out in people. Never again.
I’m sure that Kemi Badenoch and Robert Jenrick are good people with a few good ideas, though I have reservations about both. Badenoch, like the Tory elite class, I suspect, is much more comfortable with mass immigration than she lets on, refuses to unequivocally commit to leaving the ECHR, and has not only supported aspects of the woke regime but has shown herself more than willing to indulge it.
I don't think Kemi is woke. I think she's fairly middle of the road on the woke/antiwoke spectrum.
Goodwin doesn't say that Kemi is woke in this piece. It's unfortunate that we sometimes fail in basic reading comprehension here. His critique is not that she is signed up to woke, but that she is prepared to be supine in the face of the spread of woke, apart from picking the odd media battle. Given that that has been the position of all Tory leaders (though Truss we didn't see enough of to gauge) from Cameron on, it's an important argument to weigh up.
Good evening from the salubrious delights of Spoons in Rochdale (don't ask). Would have stayed in Manchestoh in advance of tomorrow's corporate gig but Citeh are playing in the Champions League and the Hiltons want top dollah. That I had an invite to go to the Citeh vs Prague game as a guest of the corporate gig doesn't matter...
I see that the RNC and Farage are outraged at "foreign election interference" from the Labour team. Because Farage endlessly going to Trump rallies is obviously completely different.
Anyway, we need a cock-off. We know Arnold Palmer's was HUGE. And Trump's is small. Any more celeb cocks that will be used as crowdbait before election day...?
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
Look at the territory that once "belonged" to England/Britain/UK over the centuries! Even if we're being "ultra-woke" and only including European land, just for a bit of fun!
Iceland - British occupied 1940-1945 Faeroes - British occupied 1940-1945 Norway - personal union 1028-1035 (King Canute) Denmark - personal union 1018-1035 (King Canute) Southern tip of Sweden - personal union (as part of Denmark) 1018-1035 Hano island - Swedish island with a British base 1810-1812 Ireland - part of the UK until 1922 France - historic actual and dynastic claims until as late as 1801 Belgium - part of France pre-1801 Luxembourg - part of France pre-1801 Geneva - part of France pre-1801 Andorra - personal union with France from before 1801 Spain - personal union 1556-1558: Queen Mary I and King Phillip II; Menorca was British (sometimes!) 1713-1802 Netherlands - part of Spain 1556-1558, personal union 1688-1702 (William III and Mary II), also southern bits part of France pre-1801 Sardinia - part of Spain 1556-1558 Sicily - part of Spain 1556-1558 Southern mainland Italy (Kingdom of Naples) - part of Spain 1556-1558 Milan duchy (Lombardy-ish) - part of Spain 1556-1558 Trieste - British occupied 1947-1954, along with a tiny sliver of modern Slovenia Lissa (Vis) - Croatian island with British base 1809-1814 (approx. dates) Ionian islands - seven Greek islands British 1815-1864 Cyprus - British until 1960 (though bases are still British), de jure includes Turkish occupied north Crete - British occupation 1898-1908 (approx.) Malta - British until 1964 Istanbul - European part occupied 1918-1923 Schleswig-Holstein - British occupied 1945-1949; Heligoland was British 1807-1890, 1945-1952 Lower Saxony - personal union 1714-1837 (Hanoverians), including Bremen 1715-1720; also British 1945-1949 Hamburg - British 1945-1949 North Rhine-Westphalia - British 1945-1949, western bits French pre-1801 Rhineland-Palatinate - western parts French pre-1801 Saarland - part of France pre-1801 West Berlin (part) - British occupied 1945-1990 East Tyrol (Lienz district) - British occupied 1945-1955 Carinthia - British 1945-1955 Styria - British 1945-1955 Vienna (part) - British occupied 1945-1955
Total area 2.2 million sq. km; modern population c.300 million.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
Buyers remorse in this case needs a different name. It indicates that of the choices available you made the wrong one. The choices (say on house buying) would be: stay where you are, buy another.
In July we were choosing a government. Sticking where you were (keeping that Tory government) was and remains an abhorrent prospect in every way. No government isn't an option. Labour were the only other government available.
I am a bit distressed they are so bad at common sense, but as at this moment no better government is available. And no better electorate available either. So whatever I am suffering isn't buyers remorse. If there was an election tomorrow there would still only be one possible government, and that is Labour.
Niall Ferguson's first great work was on whether the financial markets had any inkling that the First World War was coming.
Were they the canary in the coalmine?
And the answer is no.
The imparted no information that would have led you to the conclusion that a great European conflagration was coming. So excuse me if I take "the gold price as a predictor of WW3" with a giant pinch of salt.
(To add to which, gold was rubbish when Yugoslavia collapsed. If you wanted to survive the collapse of government, of money and civilization, what you wanted was a stock of wine and cigarettes. Almost anything could be traded for wine and cigarettes.)
I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.
FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.
Remember Farage conceding?
I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist?
Maths and stats isn't my strong point, but when betting the issues are odds and probabilities. If you can discern no truth from the polls and there is no realistic data on which to make a decision as to who is ahead in a two horse race, then there are two sane options only: You don't engage, or you back the candidate who is longest odds, if necessary continuing to do so with both horses as the odds change.
If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.
Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
You may well be right but with such certainty please show your workings.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Do you mean you and your neighbours all became much friendlier, looked out for one another, and are still much closer than before even now? That was my experience.
No. He, and everyone else, was banned from seeing their neighbours, beyond 20 yard stares over the garden fence. Do you not remember?
Lockdown was a regulation inhumane hell. And what made the hell even worse was people saying they liked it.
I don't have a garden fence - so I wouldn't know. I was in an old tenement and people would check up on each other, people who were ill would get food/household parcels dropped off at their doors paid for by their neighbours chipping in, local cheery mailing group set up to keep peoples spirits up and in contact, someone who had a 'get out of jail free' pass would take orders for little treats from the shops.
Did I enjoy lockdown? No. It was terrible. But not everyone's neighbours were some kind of Home Office-reporting covid-nazi's.
The future of the West-Russia divide could hinge on two very different sets of voters in two very different places called Georgia (though their climates are not dissimilar).
Georgia shows why it’s an exaggeration to claim the EU is not a geopolitical player. As does Ukraine - recall what triggered the war in 2014.
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
The problem with the Tories is you run out of other people's money enriching their core voters.
And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
If you have evidence of conservative MPs awarding dodgy PPE deals you really should contact the Met police.
I think it is becoming increasingly likely that Labour aren’t going to do anything much to fix the country or economy, just cater to their special interests and fiddle while Rome burns. I hope I’m wrong.
I have a real feeling of Buyers remorse. I expected a government in waiting that was going to hit the ground running. What we have is a govt of mediocre middle managers with moderate policies aimed at their own special interest groups.
It really is continuity Sunak with a man who has even less charisma now running the nation.
The refreshing thing about Starmer is he's more or less the first prime minister since Cameron who hasn't been afraid to make decisions. The one exception was Liz Truss but she had other issues. I think his decisions are mostly defensible albeit you can always take a contrary view. And by the way Cameron made some massive mistakes.
In some other respects Starmer is quite like Sunak. Neither man is good at retail politics; both are/were highly unpopular; neither is nearly as bad as popular opinion of them and both are massively better than either of Sunak's predecessors.
I've just had a horrible vision of Starmer in charge during covid. Fun police doesn't even begin to cover it.
I guess Covid wasn't meant to be fun.
First lockdown was one of the best times of my life, at home, lovely back garden, new puppies, chilling out in the lovely spring sun, step son repatriated from abroad with loads of cooking ideas.
Some people didn't have gardens.
I hated lockdown and hope it never happens again.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Absolutely. It was horrific and brought the worst out in people. Never again.
Bits of it (the fear, the regulation, the shifting sands) sucked, and it would have been good to avoid the accelerator/brake stuff that seemed distinctively British. And the bill will take decades to pay off.
But bits of it were strange but lovely. For a while we did have time to consider those around us. And some of the technical developments- in healthcare and in remote working- will stick in a positive way.
But bottom line- if another novel virus comes along, we won't have any choice, because lockdown vs. washover is no choice at all. Especially now we know that mRNA can get vaccines into arms in months, not years.
(Someone has to write that dystopian alt-history... But not yet.)
I follow a lot of YouTube channels, mainly anti- Trump Republicans. They seem to think it is tight and could flip either way, and the polling seems to be nip and tuck both at state level and nationallyI have the greatest foreboding when on this site. I genuinely wonder whether we are more Trump favourable here because any Trump positive poll is posted and positive Harris polls posted randomly.
FWIW I suspect Trump shades the states, but how many?And Harris wins the popular vote but by less that the margin between Hillary and Trump.
That's what I thought - are you implying her imminent resignation @viewcode?
No. The referendum was on the Thursday. A few days before, Cameron gave an impromptu speech in Downing Street that contained nothing new. It was a signifier that he knew the campaign was in trouble. I assume the same motivator induced Kamala to speak.
A reminder that campaigns know shit, and betting and financial markets know shit too.
Remember Farage conceding?
I do indeed, but that leaves us back where we started. If the polls are bad, and the bets are bad, and the campaigns are bad...where does that leave us? I've got £2K to bet and I don't want to walk away, but day-um I am buggered if I'm going to resort to guessing: what do you think I am, an economist?
Maths and stats isn't my strong point, but when betting the issues are odds and probabilities. If you can discern no truth from the polls and there is no realistic data on which to make a decision as to who is ahead in a two horse race, then there are two sane options only: You don't engage, or you back the candidate who is longest odds, if necessary continuing to do so with both horses as the odds change.
If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.
Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
You may well be right but with such certainty please show your workings.
You are a changed man, perhaps humbled by your Sunak ‘1992’ certainty.
But yes, I agree. Any PBer who claims an outcome is certain must show his workings.
I don't think I've ever seen anyone jump the shark quite so badly as @SouthamObserver did on Musk on the last thread.
I mean, wow.
I've only dipped in and out this last month or so. What did I miss?
For context, I have "shit talked" Musk on a couple of videos (with throwaway comments that trigger certain viewers from Murica) and lost a few subscribers. Though doing so clearly gains more than it loses.
Smell some nasty geopolitics here: India and South Africa snub the Commonwealth for the BRICS summit, which feels unprecedented, whilst the Commonwealth itself focuses on a reparations hustle. Feels like we're losing a game we only half-realise is already being played.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
The Empire was a 19th century construct and the Commonwealth from the 20th. Wouldn't it be fantastic if there was some pan-European socio- economic, trade and defence alliance we could hitch our wagons to?
Looking at the big picture, there's a stark difference in the polling for this election compared with 2020.
There is no doubt that Trump is polling stronger than last time.
And there is no doubt that polls systematically understated Trump's vote last time.
The question is have pollsters corrected for what led to the undercount last time?
If no, then it will be an obvious massive Trump win.
But if they have corrected, and there is no systematic polling error, then Trump should be slight favourite.
On the other hand, if the changes they implemented - particularly past vote weighting - result in an overcorrection, then it's entirely possible that Harris is the one being undercounted this time.
It could also be Trump is a lot more popular nationally now in places it won’t impact the college. He could be a lot more popular in New York, and California, but not nearly enough to carry the state.
It would make the popular vote very tight, as HY says maybe even a Trump win, yet still deal Trump hefty college defeat as the battleground States narrowly go to Kam one by one.
If I’m right in “more salutes where you don’t really need them” theory, it makes the popular vote polls this time round very misleading to picking the winner based on PV history.
I think Pennsylvania, Georgia, Arizona and North Carolina is where it’s at. One candidate could win all four - all be it after days of counting - and be comfortable in the college, in spite of the popular vote.
I think it is near certain that Trump's vote efficiency will be worse that last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York. It's why I've been banging on about betting on Trump PV, Harris EV: not because it's the most likely outcome, but because I think it is significantly more likely than the odds suggest.
(I would also point out that I repeatedly tipped Harris at long odds.)
Yes. A switcheroo on the PV v EC historical trend, is worth punting on, if the odds are tasty.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies? And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
We are overlooking the obvious: Kamala is an incumbent in an election season where incumbents get punished on post-Covid inflation. It might be as simple as that.
That goes without saying, and - indeed - I wrote a header on that.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
Candidates aside, I've seen little in the way of political inspiration on either side for some years. Trump talks a good game, but the slightest examination reveals it as nonsense. The Dems are less grandiose, but also there's not much on offer.
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
Both Tories and Labour see their job as enriching their core voters, at the expense of the rest. Not dissimilar to 1964-79, although the nature of each party’s core vote has changed since then.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
The problem with the Tories is you run out of other people's money enriching their core voters.
And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
If you have evidence of conservative MPs awarding dodgy PPE deals you really should contact the Met police.
Oh give over. Not only have various people had their collars felt, the Public Accounts Committee found nearly 200 dodgy deals. Its one of the reasons the Tories got absolutely eviscerated at the election.
Comments
I wonder what it is about Badenoch that bothers him?
Even with all the dooming and glooming they've done to prepare people for the worst there are still threads on mumsnet expecting them to pull something out of the hat and cut taxes.
Suppose that it's objectively a good budget. It raises only as much money as is needed, from the sources which will do least damage to growth. It makes steps to fixing priority areas of public services, infrastructure and weaknesses in the economy.
Do you honestly think Reeves and Starmer can sell it?
Britain could have a budget surplus with debt to GDP low enough to cause the pension industry issues, gleaming infrastructure, a booking economy and efficient public services and I'd still back Starmer and Reeves to bungle the messaging on a giveaway budget.
I like others think it should have been gotten out of the way quicker - the fact it has been hanging over everyone like a cloud of doom has really not set the scene for the new government well.
Osborne was able to get his emergency budget out of the way relatively quickly after taking power - get the bad medicine delivered and out of the way. The problem Labour have is that they’ve been trailing this horrible event for 3 months now, before that they put us on notice that granny was freezing this winter, and straight after the budget we actually do go into winter, when the papers will be full of freezing granny stories.
Their agenda is clear: spend, spend, spend, State, State, State with cultural ideology on top.
Following a good period of Tory government is all Labour have ever done. Today they're following a bad period of Tory government, and their economic thought-vacuum is going to hurt us all. Reeves/Starmer will be the best of it - when they go it'll be much worse.
But the question is, if Trump's vote efficiency will be worse than last time, simply because of how much better he's doing in California and New York, then what is happening? What is up? Is it men? Young men? Non whites? Dog Ladies?
And why? Male Chauvinism? Feminism backlash? Certain section of society fared far far worse in pocket and other things under Biden and Harris, and Democrats have overlooked this?
Even though 2022 was unexpectedly good year for Democrats, it masked inklings of their Latino problem - not just Cubans in Florida, but Dems lost Latino’s everywhere. Maybe that will be even worse this time, costing them Nevada and Arizona.
Still worse was how it changed people's behaviour (neighbours) into something like how it would have been if we'd been occupied.
Are we sure we're funding the Foreign Office enough? And are we self-confident enough?
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/starmer-commonwealth-must-move-on-from-slavery-reparations-talk-5ff2mtv3q
IMO the absolute worst scenario is they produce a fiscally light, highly constrained budget with the promise of jam for the already jammy in 2029. The nation needs to become more than a retirement home with London bolted on the side..
CNN polling had the Dems doing better among White Non-College Educated voters, at the expense of Hispanic. Which would suggest the Dems lose ground in Florida, Texas, Nevada, New Mexico, California and Arizona, but hold up well in the rust belt.
*IF* that is what is happening, then we could see Harris holds onto WI, MI and PA while losing the sunbelt and even falling behind in the PV.
Trump would be incandescent with rage in that scenario... he'd have won... but not won...
And I'm sure we'd see some of the usual suspects coming out and saying that his refusal to concede and attempts to delay certification etc., were all just the right thing to do given he'd won the PV.
That this election is even close is a consequence of the Republicans picking a candidate who is poison to 45% of the electorate.
In our case, it would be newspapers ,rather than TV, but the principle being the same.
My hunch is that it's one of the reasons that Rishi ran when he did. He hadn't budgeted for the pay review reports, but the political flack for not accepting them would have destroyed him even more than he was.
https://www.instagram.com/reel/DAjUr2uyacC/
In the UK we see exactly the same thing. Labour hooting and hollering and going off like the very dampest of squibs, and the Tories not really even bothering to do much more than say 'we'll be ok, really'.
Did we reach the political endgame, where there's nothing to fix? Each to their own, but my view is not.
He's decided that the w word means anything he doesn't personally agree with.
He also insists he is cancelled despite everyone knowing what he thinks and having a show on GB News.
So, he says: tariffs on everything imported into the US*, and quadruple on stuff from China.
It's an attempt to solve the problem of not enough stuff made in the US. It might - however - have horrendous consequences for the world and for the US economy.
I admire him for trying. But I think the solution he's proposing is potentially disastrous for the world.
* What should really worry the UK is that they specifically point to services for the first time. Now, in this case, it's referencing call centers going to the Philippines. BUT if tariff are put on UK services exports to the US it would have a lot of nasty consequences, including for my own business given we have developers in the UK who need to be crosscharged back to the US.
The interesting thing to me is that Sunak didn't take the option to impose smaller pay settlements. He was quite happy to let the strikes run and not make any pay settlements at all.
In the short term, the strikes were a hefty drag on the government- they look bad, they were costing the state a lot and stopping progress on things like waiting lists.
In the longer term, the situation was even worse. Lots of people linked to different bits of the public sector have pointed out how near-impossible it is to recruit at current pay scales. (So organisations spend even more on agency staff.) The 2024 pay round was around about the minimum necessary to stop things getting worse.
After all, one of the first rules of the market is that you can't buck it. Not forever, anyway.
Let’s focus our efforts on friendly nations. Unfriendly ones can bugger off.
I expect that the local elections of 2025-27 will be as bad as 1967-69 for Labour.
"Here are two conflicting thoughts as the US election nears. First, Kamala Harris is an imperfect candidate who should never have been crowned without challenge. Second, it doesn’t matter. Even if the Democrats had nominated a living saint, a Periclean orator, the election next month would still be a toss-up, as it was in 2000, 2004, 2016 and 2020. The other two elections in this century — the victories of Barack Obama — weren’t blowouts either. There seems to be nothing a party can do to go above 53 per cent of votes cast, or much below 46.
No other major democracy in the world is anything like as consistently deadlocked. Nor was the US itself in the last century. Its mutation into a 50-50 country (or really a 30-30-40 one, as four in 10 voters often abstain) has been a civic disaster.
Why? Because there is no incentive to moderate. If you are guaranteed to be competitive in every national election, even if you nominate a twice-impeached felon, why mend your ways?"
https://www.ft.com/content/a29d4815-2a77-4acc-9375-c441ed7ca5bb
If (and only if) the POTUS election is literals a coin toss then Harris is value. Today.
Having said that, I don't believe the premise. Trump will win.
I think we've really taken our eye off the ball the last few years, and we've had some weirdly naive thinking about China.
Suppose I'm not a pensioner though.
Fortress Europe ain't a player in global geopolitics.
https://x.com/TheRickWilson/status/1849168351739699529
@evanperez
@HBRabinowitz
https://x.com/MarshallCohen/status/1849164733368476038
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/10/23/gold-stratospheric-rise-disaster-ahead-financial-order/
And not just core voters. See also dodgy PPE deals
He started young.
Lockdown was a regulation inhumane hell. And what made the hell even worse was people saying they liked it.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13991651/Now-FRANCE-follows-Germany-reinstates-border-controls-threats-posed-terrorists-migratory-flows-latest-blow-EU-Schengen-scheme.html
, Gambia, Tonga, Samoa.
I see that the RNC and Farage are outraged at "foreign election interference" from the Labour team. Because Farage endlessly going to Trump rallies is obviously completely different.
Anyway, we need a cock-off. We know Arnold Palmer's was HUGE. And Trump's is small. Any more celeb cocks that will be used as crowdbait before election day...?
Iceland - British occupied 1940-1945
Faeroes - British occupied 1940-1945
Norway - personal union 1028-1035 (King Canute)
Denmark - personal union 1018-1035 (King Canute)
Southern tip of Sweden - personal union (as part of Denmark) 1018-1035
Hano island - Swedish island with a British base 1810-1812
Ireland - part of the UK until 1922
France - historic actual and dynastic claims until as late as 1801
Belgium - part of France pre-1801
Luxembourg - part of France pre-1801
Geneva - part of France pre-1801
Andorra - personal union with France from before 1801
Spain - personal union 1556-1558: Queen Mary I and King Phillip II; Menorca was British (sometimes!) 1713-1802
Netherlands - part of Spain 1556-1558, personal union 1688-1702 (William III and Mary II), also southern bits part of France pre-1801
Sardinia - part of Spain 1556-1558
Sicily - part of Spain 1556-1558
Southern mainland Italy (Kingdom of Naples) - part of Spain 1556-1558
Milan duchy (Lombardy-ish) - part of Spain 1556-1558
Trieste - British occupied 1947-1954, along with a tiny sliver of modern Slovenia
Lissa (Vis) - Croatian island with British base 1809-1814 (approx. dates)
Ionian islands - seven Greek islands British 1815-1864
Cyprus - British until 1960 (though bases are still British), de jure includes Turkish occupied north
Crete - British occupation 1898-1908 (approx.)
Malta - British until 1964
Istanbul - European part occupied 1918-1923
Schleswig-Holstein - British occupied 1945-1949; Heligoland was British 1807-1890, 1945-1952
Lower Saxony - personal union 1714-1837 (Hanoverians), including Bremen 1715-1720; also British 1945-1949
Hamburg - British 1945-1949
North Rhine-Westphalia - British 1945-1949, western bits French pre-1801
Rhineland-Palatinate - western parts French pre-1801
Saarland - part of France pre-1801
West Berlin (part) - British occupied 1945-1990
East Tyrol (Lienz district) - British occupied 1945-1955
Carinthia - British 1945-1955
Styria - British 1945-1955
Vienna (part) - British occupied 1945-1955
Total area 2.2 million sq. km; modern population c.300 million.
In July we were choosing a government. Sticking where you were (keeping that Tory government) was and remains an abhorrent prospect in every way. No government isn't an option. Labour were the only other government available.
I am a bit distressed they are so bad at common sense, but as at this moment no better government is available. And no better electorate available either. So whatever I am suffering isn't buyers remorse. If there was an election tomorrow there would still only be one possible government, and that is Labour.
Were they the canary in the coalmine?
And the answer is no.
The imparted no information that would have led you to the conclusion that a great European conflagration was coming. So excuse me if I take "the gold price as a predictor of WW3" with a giant pinch of salt.
(To add to which, gold was rubbish when Yugoslavia collapsed. If you wanted to survive the collapse of government, of money and civilization, what you wanted was a stock of wine and cigarettes. Almost anything could be traded for wine and cigarettes.)
International coalition building in defence of British values is supposed to be what we're good at.
Did I enjoy lockdown? No. It was terrible. But not everyone's neighbours were some kind of Home Office-reporting covid-nazi's.
Useful analysis, though I’d say probably a touch too optimistic, on the potential outcome.
https://x.com/terjehelland/status/1849169458276737186?s=46
The future of the West-Russia divide could hinge on two very different sets of voters in two very different places called Georgia (though their climates are not dissimilar).
Georgia shows why it’s an exaggeration to claim the EU is not a geopolitical player. As does Ukraine - recall what triggered the war in 2014.
I mean, wow.
But bits of it were strange but lovely. For a while we did have time to consider those around us. And some of the technical developments- in healthcare and in remote working- will stick in a positive way.
But bottom line- if another novel virus comes along, we won't have any choice, because lockdown vs. washover is no choice at all. Especially now we know that mRNA can get vaccines into arms in months, not years.
(Someone has to write that dystopian alt-history... But not yet.)
Clearly a nothing story !!
https://x.com/politlcsuk/status/1849144596946682208?s=61
But yes, I agree. Any PBer who claims an outcome is certain must show his workings.
For context, I have "shit talked" Musk on a couple of videos (with throwaway comments that trigger certain viewers from Murica) and lost a few subscribers. Though doing so clearly gains more than it loses.