I'd say they are testing the edges, and attacking resilience. The power cable will take months to repair.
I'm actually not sure what powers police and coastguards have to operate in international waters, or what sanctions can be applied to Russian-controlled ships. Iirc it's very complicated, and takes forever, if things are not done under "we need to do THIS" type powers that coastguards etc may not have.
I believe the UK now has one ship - RFA Proteus, bought second hand from Norway last year, dedicated to keeping an eye on undersea assets, amongst the other things it does.
What are the chances of an actual Russian attack on Finland in 2025? Or one of the Baltic states?
More than negligible.
If it does happen we are hopelessly unprepared.
The local armies are fully prepared. Bear in mind that the Russian army is a long way from the Baltic at present.
There are 2,700 full time soldiers in the Estonian Army.
That's about two days of casualties for the Russian army in the current war.
Estonia has Article 5 protection under NATO, and forces hosted there which are at least "tripwire" forces and probably much more. Russia won't, and probably at present can't, do any full on attacks. In full-on opposition to NATO they are weak, and would lose the benefit of confusion and hesitancy they have induced amongst different allies. IMO that would go the wrong way - as it did when they managed to trigger Finland and Sweden to join NATO, and would bring NATO back together.
It will be hybrid and publicly deniable. I'd say they won't want to get to the level of triggering Germany to get out of its circling the spot; having a sheet anchor or three dragging NATO back is priceless for Moscow.
From December 4th:
Speaking ahead of a meeting with Nato counterparts in Brussels, the Czech foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, stressed that Europe “needs to send a strong signal to Moscow that this won’t be tolerated”.
“This year there were 500 suspicious incidents in Europe. Up to 100 of them can be attributed to Russian hybrid attacks, espionage, influence operations,” Lipavský told reporters. ... Over recent years, European nations have witnessed a spate of incidents – cyber-attacks, arson, incendiary devices, sabotage and even murder plots. The aim of such episodes, security officials believe, is to sow chaos, exacerbate social tensions among Ukraine’s allies and disrupt military supplies to Kyiv.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
Slightly fewer omissions there, true. Then the first referendum came around, and they realised what they had to do to get popular consent for membership, leading to what happened around Maastricht, Lisbon, etc, etc, etc.
After all, even the Remain campaign in 2016 pretended the status quo was some sort of permanently stable end state.
… of the war between the Beaker People and their antecedents, probably.
I think you'll find that a snap Opinium poll from ~2000BC showed that the Beaker People were on track to win the Bronze Age. And thus it came to pass.
...
Oh, hang on.
For gods sake don't give Reform any ideas.
Based on mitochondrial DNA, the arrival of the Beaker People was the last time migrants were properly bad news for the indigenous people of the British Isles. Somewhere north of 95% of the indigenous population were dead within a generation of the arrival of the Beaker People. Probably due to similar reasons for the Native Americans being wiped out - disease to which we had no immunity.
… of the war between the Beaker People and their antecedents, probably.
I think you'll find that a snap Opinium poll from ~2000BC showed that the Beaker People were on track to win the Bronze Age. And thus it came to pass.
...
Oh, hang on.
For gods sake don't give Reform any ideas.
Based on mitochondrial DNA, the arrival of the Beaker People was the last time migrants were properly bad news for the indigenous people of the British Isles. Somewhere north of 95% of the indigenous population were dead within a generation of the arrival of the Beaker People. Probably due to similar reasons for the Native Americans being wiped out - disease to which we had no immunity.
Though I think you said that archaeological evidence suggests the Great Heathen Army was as brutal as contemporary chroniclers claimed.
… of the war between the Beaker People and their antecedents, probably.
I think you'll find that a snap Opinium poll from ~2000BC showed that the Beaker People were on track to win the Bronze Age. And thus it came to pass.
...
Oh, hang on.
For gods sake don't give Reform any ideas.
Based on mitochondrial DNA, the arrival of the Beaker People was the last time migrants were properly bad news for the indigenous people of the British Isles. Somewhere north of 95% of the indigenous population were dead within a generation of the arrival of the Beaker People. Probably due to similar reasons for the Native Americans being wiped out - disease to which we had no immunity.
Though I think you said that archaeological evidence suggests the Great Heathen Army was as brutal as contemporary chroniclers claimed.
True. And of course the Normans were not exactly a boon for large swathes of Northern England. But the Beaker migration is notable for the thoroughness with which it accidently wiped out the natives.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
That's not true though.
a true atheist actively disbelieves in god while an agnostic doesn't know if god exists but may actively disbelieve in the organised religions.
No amount of belief or disbelief amounts to knowledge. Neither atheists nor theists are in any position to correctly claim to 'know'. To know something is to have a justified true belief. Both theism and atheism are properly believable and both have abundant justification. But which (if either) is true remains entirely open.
That's a claim. One can adopt that as an epistemological position. There are alternate views as to the knowability of different positions.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
Biden appears to be equally scared of a Russian victory and a Russian defeat. Since he was unable to choose between what he saw as equally unpalatable options, then other actors would make that choice, and so he would bear some responsibility for not choosing to support a Ukrainian victory.
I don't think he was at all ambivalent between those two things. He had a calculus to manage involving domestic politics and military and geopolitical risk. He did that, and it involved very considerable support without which Ukraine would probably be gone. He has very little to apologise for on this one imo.
He was wrong.
He delayed providing Ukraine with necessary weapons numerous times and was wrong to do so, and had to be dragged into doing so by the Ukrainians or the British.
His fears over the escalation risk were shown to be unfounded over and over again, and he did not learn from this experience. He does not have a strategy for Ukrainian victory. He acts only to prevent Ukrainian defeat. That is why I say that he is equally scared of Russian defeat and Russian victory.
He's hoping they Russia will tire of the war and can it quits. That's all.
It may turn out to be better than Trump's "strategy", but it was never good enough.
As an aside, I think this is one of the corrosive effects of Trump on politics. It's made anti-Trumpists have really low standards. Simply not being Trump is good enough for them when there is plenty to criticise in non-Trump policy.
Indeed. On Ukraine policies there was a choice last month between "proven to be not remotely good enough" and "almost certainly worse".
The disturbing thing is that the US under Biden has provided a crapload of aid to Ukraine - dwarfing that from any individual European country - and yet could have provided massively more (particularly of more advanced systems). Which might already have ended the war.
Trump’s policy seems to be intended to end the war on terms disadvantageous to Europe, and probably disastrous to Ukraine.
The obvious conclusion is that both Europe and the UK need to have sufficient military capacity independent of the US. Which will cost.
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Jeez, Roger. I thought everyone knows The Armed Man.
Thank you. Really interesting. I must have been sleeping these last several years or maybe I just thought everyone in Wales was called Jenkins
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
… of the war between the Beaker People and their antecedents, probably.
I think you'll find that a snap Opinium poll from ~2000BC showed that the Beaker People were on track to win the Bronze Age. And thus it came to pass.
...
Oh, hang on.
For gods sake don't give Reform any ideas.
Based on mitochondrial DNA, the arrival of the Beaker People was the last time migrants were properly bad news for the indigenous people of the British Isles. Somewhere north of 95% of the indigenous population were dead within a generation of the arrival of the Beaker People. Probably due to similar reasons for the Native Americans being wiped out - disease to which we had no immunity.
Though I think you said that archaeological evidence suggests the Great Heathen Army was as brutal as contemporary chroniclers claimed.
You don't need disease if you set your mind to it. In the 12th/13th century, Merv was probably the largest city on Earth by population.
Then the Mongols arrived in 1221.
They said, "These people have resisted us" so they killed them all. Then Genghis Khan ordered that the dead should be counted and there were around 700,000 corpses.
A Persian historian, Juvayni, put the figure at more than 1,300,000.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Oh my God, that is awesome. I loved their work in Soft Machine. Ratledge is on Third, a brilliant album. Ditto Fourth, their next album. (OK, they weren't great at album names.) Jenkins joined the band later. He's on albums like Bundles.
And, yes, Jenkins then went off to do jingles and then converted that into a contemporary classical crossover thing, starting with Adiemus (Ratledge is also on that one) and then the very successful "Palladio".
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Jeez, Roger. I thought everyone knows The Armed Man.
I haven't heard either of the man or his music. Having a look, the ones I seem to recognise are the advertising tunes - clearly I work off a visual cue. To me, he makes 'textures' a little like Enya, and for me I don't think that is enough unless there is something else alongside it.
In some ways I find contemporary dance easier to appreciate than 'classical' music.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
Biden appears to be equally scared of a Russian victory and a Russian defeat. Since he was unable to choose between what he saw as equally unpalatable options, then other actors would make that choice, and so he would bear some responsibility for not choosing to support a Ukrainian victory.
I don't think he was at all ambivalent between those two things. He had a calculus to manage involving domestic politics and military and geopolitical risk. He did that, and it involved very considerable support without which Ukraine would probably be gone. He has very little to apologise for on this one imo.
He was wrong.
He delayed providing Ukraine with necessary weapons numerous times and was wrong to do so, and had to be dragged into doing so by the Ukrainians or the British.
His fears over the escalation risk were shown to be unfounded over and over again, and he did not learn from this experience. He does not have a strategy for Ukrainian victory. He acts only to prevent Ukrainian defeat. That is why I say that he is equally scared of Russian defeat and Russian victory.
He's hoping they Russia will tire of the war and can it quits. That's all.
It may turn out to be better than Trump's "strategy", but it was never good enough.
As an aside, I think this is one of the corrosive effects of Trump on politics. It's made anti-Trumpists have really low standards. Simply not being Trump is good enough for them when there is plenty to criticise in non-Trump policy.
Indeed. On Ukraine policies there was a choice last month between "proven to be not remotely good enough" and "almost certainly worse".
The disturbing thing is that the US under Biden has provided a crapload of aid to Ukraine - dwarfing that from any individual European country - and yet could have provided massively more (particularly of more advanced systems). Which might already have ended the war.
Trump’s policy seems to be intended to end the war on terms disadvantageous to Europe, and probably disastrous to Ukraine.
The obvious conclusion is that both Europe and the UK need to have sufficient military capacity independent of the US. Which will cost.
And when he did provide systems he sometimes put limits on their use that pretty much neutered them.
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Oh my God, that is awesome. I loved their work in Soft Machine. Ratledge is on Third, a brilliant album. Ditto Fourth, their next album. (OK, they weren't great at album names.) Jenkins joined the band later. He's on albums like Bundles.
And, yes, Jenkins then went off to do jingles and then converted that into a contemporary classical crossover thing, starting with Adiemus (Ratledge is also on that one) and then the very successful "Palladio".
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Jeez, Roger. I thought everyone knows The Armed Man.
I haven't heard either of the man or his music. Having a look, the ones I seem to recognise are the advertising tunes - clearly I work off a visual cue. To me, he makes 'textures' a little like Enya, and for me I don't think that is enough unless there is something else alongside it.
In some ways I find contemporary dance easier to appreciate than 'classical' music.
… of the war between the Beaker People and their antecedents, probably.
I think you'll find that a snap Opinium poll from ~2000BC showed that the Beaker People were on track to win the Bronze Age. And thus it came to pass.
...
Oh, hang on.
For gods sake don't give Reform any ideas.
Based on mitochondrial DNA, the arrival of the Beaker People was the last time migrants were properly bad news for the indigenous people of the British Isles. Somewhere north of 95% of the indigenous population were dead within a generation of the arrival of the Beaker People. Probably due to similar reasons for the Native Americans being wiped out - disease to which we had no immunity.
There was regular trade across the Channel before the Beaker People arrived, so this isn't like the Native Americans being wiped out by new diseases the Europeans brought, but it may be that a plague swept through everyone and the Beaker People were able to take advantage of the situation. The replacement was also not quite as rapid as that: e.g., https://www.nhm.ac.uk/discover/news/2018/february/the-beaker-people-a-new-population-for-ancient-britain.html "Studies suggest that within a few hundred years of this migration, only 10% of the British population's gene pool came from the earlier Neolithic famers."
The Anglo-Saxons also saw a pretty large replacement of the indigenous population.
I'd say they are testing the edges, and attacking resilience. The power cable will take months to repair.
I'm actually not sure what powers police and coastguards have to operate in international waters, or what sanctions can be applied to Russian-controlled ships. Iirc it's very complicated, and takes forever, if things are not done under "we need to do THIS" type powers that coastguards etc may not have.
I believe the UK now has one ship - RFA Proteus, bought second hand from Norway last year, dedicated to keeping an eye on undersea assets, amongst the other things it does.
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Jeez, Roger. I thought everyone knows The Armed Man.
I haven't heard either of the man or his music. Having a look, the ones I seem to recognise are the advertising tunes - clearly I work off a visual cue. To me, he makes 'textures' a little like Enya, and for me I don't think that is enough unless there is something else alongside it.
In some ways I find contemporary dance easier to appreciate than 'classical' music.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
Until your third paragraph, I thought you were talking about Trump.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
You might see a fracturing of the Russian Federation, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan going for independence. That might even spread further. Kalmykia? Tartarstan? Buryatia? It might be 1917 all over again.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
You might see a fracturing of the Russian Federation, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan going for independence. That might even spread further. Kalmykia? Tartarstan? Buryatia? It might be 1917 all over again.
It's a possibility that's been postulated but I'd be surprised if it happened to any significant degree
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
You might see a fracturing of the Russian Federation, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan going for independence. That might even spread further. Kalmykia? Tartarstan? Buryatia? It might be 1917 all over again.
It's a possibility that's been postulated but I'd be surprised if it happened to any significant degree
A more likely consequence would be a further loosening of the bonds that tie some neighbouring countries to Russia. Controls like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc, will look for closer relationships with other countries in the absence of Russia.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Exactly. The pro-Europeans needed to own the Project at the time of Maastricht and the constitution/Lisbon, let alone 2016 - and they probably should have pushed for euro membership from 1997.
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Oh my God, that is awesome. I loved their work in Soft Machine. Ratledge is on Third, a brilliant album. Ditto Fourth, their next album. (OK, they weren't great at album names.) Jenkins joined the band later. He's on albums like Bundles.
And, yes, Jenkins then went off to do jingles and then converted that into a contemporary classical crossover thing, starting with Adiemus (Ratledge is also on that one) and then the very successful "Palladio".
I've just been reading up on him. Quite a surprise. I knew he was in Soft Machine with Ratledge but then it was just jingles. He never talked to me -or anyone for that matter-even though i worked with him dozens of times.
Ratledge was the one who did all the talking. I just thought he was painfully shy and describing what you wanted with music is never easy unless you speak the language. I'd say 'maybe a bit faster at the end?' and i'd see him mumble to Ratledge 'does he want three beats or four...'. But he always wanted to use musicians and record at Abbey Road so he wasn't too popular with producers. But there wasn't anyone better in my opinion
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
You might see a fracturing of the Russian Federation, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan going for independence. That might even spread further. Kalmykia? Tartarstan? Buryatia? It might be 1917 all over again.
It's a possibility that's been postulated but I'd be surprised if it happened to any significant degree
A more likely consequence would be a further loosening of the bonds that tie some neighbouring countries to Russia. Controls like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc, will look for closer relationships with other countries in the absence of Russia.
On Ukraine and Western Alliances, one new fly in the ointment is that in 4 days Ukraine turns off it's transiting gas pipeline from Russia, as the contract finishes.
Countries quite heavily affected are Slovakia (Putin pandering, roughly) and Austria (trying to stay resolutely neutral), and to a lesser extent Hungary (Hungary !).
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
You might see a fracturing of the Russian Federation, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan going for independence. That might even spread further. Kalmykia? Tartarstan? Buryatia? It might be 1917 all over again.
It's a possibility that's been postulated but I'd be surprised if it happened to any significant degree
A more likely consequence would be a further loosening of the bonds that tie some neighbouring countries to Russia. Controls like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc, will look for closer relationships with other countries in the absence of Russia.
I agree. And add Belarus to the list, from Europe's point of view. And the Caucasus.
The New York Times is reporting that Ukraine is nearly out of the ATACMs missiles supplied by the US, and Britain doesn't have many Storm Shadow missiles left.
The failure of Western countries to produce key armaments to supply to Ukraine is stark.
The failure of Biden to call Putin's bluff in 2022 instead of closing the embassy and telling the world that Ukraine would fall in three days continues to have dreadful consequences.
That's not washing. Biden supported Ukraine whilst being mindful of the escalation risk. You can quibble on the margins, eg too risk averse?, but in no way will a Russian victory, if it happens, be on his head.
he was wishy washy and did the absolute minimum, useless.
Perhaps even short of the absolute minimum.
Don't be ridiculous.
I don't think that's ridiculous. With even half-hearted American support Ukraine could have prevailed. But it suited America to have a stalemate, not least due to its impact on POO.
I don't think this is true at all.
I think Biden would much rather that Ukraine had prevailed, because it would have led to the downfall of Putin, which would hugely of been in his interests.
It's more accurate to say - as @williamglenn does - that Biden was excessively concerned about the risks of escalation, and overestimated Russia's strength. And that was a mistake.
A mistake, for what it's worth, that many others made too.
I'm really not sure it is in America's interests for Putin to be replaced. Tge chances of Putin being replaced with someone who is better for America seem quite a long way lessthan 50%.
Again, I don't think that's true at all.
Putin's Russia has been a constant thorn in the West. In Poland, it spent a fortune on supporting groups to get fracking banned, for example. It has constantly tried to increase division in the West.
Those actions have, historically, had no consequences.
Any new regime in Moscow is going to be concerned primarily with getting sanctions removed and rebuilding the Russian economy. On the hierarchy of needs for any regime, getting the people fed and less likely to evict you is massively more important than stirring up trouble abroad.
I'd like to think that's so. But alternatively it could decide to pursue whatever mad bastardry it happens to have on its agenda while it has the chance? Worldwide, the record of benign regimes replacing dictators is at best mixed.
I'm not expecting a benign regime.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
What I'm expecting post Putin is instability. He's hollowed out the state, government and opposition of all potential replacements.
You might see a fracturing of the Russian Federation, with Chechnya, Ingushetia and Dagestan going for independence. That might even spread further. Kalmykia? Tartarstan? Buryatia? It might be 1917 all over again.
It's a possibility that's been postulated but I'd be surprised if it happened to any significant degree
A more likely consequence would be a further loosening of the bonds that tie some neighbouring countries to Russia. Controls like Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, etc, will look for closer relationships with other countries in the absence of Russia.
Turkey is the obvious alternate regional power.
They will certainly want some counterweight to China, but Turkey itself will suffer from turmoil in Russia.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
The idea that god should be benevolent is rare among religions and belied by history. It is not for nothing that natural disasters are also termed acts of god.
And why should god (or gods) bind themselves to human ethics and morals any more than humans should bind themselves to the morals or ethics of woodlice? The notion that gods should conform to man's desires rather than the other way round seems the height of arrogance and to rather miss the point about what gods are.
On Ukraine and Western Alliances, one new fly in the ointment is that in 4 days Ukraine turns off it's transiting gas pipeline from Russia, as the contract finishes.
Countries quite heavily affected are Slovakia (Putin pandering, roughly) and Austria (trying to stay resolutely neutral), and to a lesser extent Hungary (Hungary !).
It's quite astonishing really that Ukraine have continued the contract for Russian gas through 3 years of war.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Obviously a concept of God can be dressed up with lots of fancy stuff; but the most basic aspect of the monotheistic god - the sort whose definition includes there being just the one - is that there is a mindful and intentional uncaused cause of all existence and that is what we name as god.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Quite fun on a day when Don Cupitt has been mentioned !
He describes himself as a Christian non-realist, and has been exploring different angles on that since the 1960s.
To wit: "In his writings Cupitt sometimes describes himself as a Christian non-realist, by which he means that he follows certain spiritual practices and attempts to live by ethical standards traditionally associated with Christianity but without believing in the actual existence of the underlying metaphysical entities (such as "Christ" and "God")."
A mistake that imo some reductionists make is to pretend that it is all about the existence or not of a God or gods. Then they are uncomfortable when a freestanding set of 'logical' 'assertions' is not accepted as 'reality'. I'd say this is where some of the more tunnel-visioned Dawkins Disciples went wrong; they are stuck in a rabbit hole on one side of an artificial sacred-secular divide they have created in their own heads.
I've occasionally looked over the edge of Cupitt's speculations, but I've always felt that it is a bit far from the practical, and tend to treat it like Pope's Pierian spring.
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
You are writing a very expensive manifesto a long way out from the GE. Restoring unlimited agricultural relief, restoring WFP, reversing VAT on private schools, cutting Employers NI. No doubt wanting to continue the Triple Lock and increasing military spending.
What are you planning to cut to fund that lot?
I think Labour has played a very clever game by making these changes now. They have a strategy, it's just in the "unpopular" phase.
Has Leon been banned for good?
Leon is not currently banned sfaict.
He's on Cornwall. They don't have the Internet in such remote places.
Don't underestimate people's ability to connect to the Internet.
HYUFD is in 1954 and he has the Internet.
That was about the time I learned semaphore (messages with flags) in the Scouts.
Aw, I didn't have that when I was playing with my woggle and sleeping on top of a few sheets of newspaper in an old army tent a decade or two later.
#deprivedchildhood
Has one of Leon or TSE hacked your account?
Ever admitted being a former Scout? Someone is bound to ask about the woggle, so I just preempted it.
I was barred from cubs so never made it to scouts
Why am I not surprised, somehow?
Shrugs didn't even get to try out akela told me "we don't want you in, you will be a bad influence"....she put it less politely but was the gist of it
On Ukraine and Western Alliances, one new fly in the ointment is that in 4 days Ukraine turns off it's transiting gas pipeline from Russia, as the contract finishes.
Countries quite heavily affected are Slovakia (Putin pandering, roughly) and Austria (trying to stay resolutely neutral), and to a lesser extent Hungary (Hungary !).
It's quite astonishing really that Ukraine have continued the contract for Russian gas through 3 years of war.
There was perhaps a lot of pressure put on them whilst the bulk of Europe was desperately pivoting away from Russian supply.
And they have decided that it is now OK to pull the plug because the cost-benefit for them is now in favour of that decision, in addition to being the end of the contract so a good time to do so legally.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Not all faiths have a) a single deity b) an omnipotent omniscient deity
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Obviously a concept of God can be dressed up with lots of fancy stuff; but the most basic aspect of the monotheistic god - the sort whose definition includes there being just the one - is that there is a mindful and intentional uncaused cause of all existence and that is what we name as god.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
People don't usually stop with the "cause of all existence" bit, though, and usually being God is assumed to include a fair amount of active interest in and influence over peoples' lives. If you restrict your definition to "entity that wound up the watchspring of the universe" it's hard to argue against, but it's also then something it's entirely safe to not care about either way and which doesn't capture large parts of what people through history have meant when they believed in a god or gods.
To be honest, from here, Ukraine seems very far away. My cynical view is American policy since 2022 has been to keep the war going by ensuring Russia can’t win and Ukraine can’t lose.
The drip feeding of weaponry has been proportionate to that aim - Washington knows, as most sensible people do, containing the conflict is the key but as we’ve seen, keeping Russia busy in the Donetsk has had implications elsewhere.
The truth is the current status of ongoing contained conflict suits everyone (apart from those doing the fighting and dying obviously) and I suspect Trump and his incoming advisers will be reminded of that in no uncertain terms. The military/industrial complex has made money from supplying weapons (the same is true for those supplying Russia).
Victory or defeat for either Russia or Ukraine will have far reaching and unpredictable consequences and no one wants that kind of uncertainty. The current relative stability of ongoing low level conflict suits most - it maintains both Putin and Zelenskyy in power and to be blunt if one or both fell, would the alternatives be any better? The strong sense is in both cases, no and the idea of either falling into civil war or anarchy and the concomitant destabilisation of neighbouring states isn’t or shouldn’t be attractive.
Perhaps Trump and his people will thread the needle but that’s more likely to lead to an 1918-style armistice than any kind of proper resolution (though that’s very hard to envisage without significant population displacement).
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Quite fun on a day when Don Cupitt has been mentioned !
He describes himself as a Christian non-realist, and has been exploring different angles on that since the 1960s.
To wit: "In his writings Cupitt sometimes describes himself as a Christian non-realist, by which he means that he follows certain spiritual practices and attempts to live by ethical standards traditionally associated with Christianity but without believing in the actual existence of the underlying metaphysical entities (such as "Christ" and "God")."
A mistake that imo some reductionists make is to pretend that it is all about the existence or not of a God or gods. Then they are uncomfortable when a freestanding set of 'logical' 'assertions' is not accepted as 'reality'. I'd say this is where some of the more tunnel-visioned Dawkins Disciples went wrong; they are stuck in a rabbit hole on one side of an artificial sacred-secular divide they have created in their own heads.
I've occasionally looked over the edge of Cupitt's speculations, but I've always felt that it is a bit far from the practical, and tend to treat it like Pope's Pierian spring.
The anti realism of Cupitt and friends (who are good and interesting people IMHO) more or less inevitably both dissolves the distinctive features of ordinary religion for the rank and file like me, but also the metaphysical realism keeps creeping back in. What are 'standards' 'values' 'spiritual practices' etc etc if they are not assertions about stuff which does not lend itself to empirical examination - ie they are metaphysical but none the less we have determined beliefs about them.
It all stems from thinking Wittgenstein is a proper philosopher....
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Obviously a concept of God can be dressed up with lots of fancy stuff; but the most basic aspect of the monotheistic god - the sort whose definition includes there being just the one - is that there is a mindful and intentional uncaused cause of all existence and that is what we name as god.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
People don't usually stop with the "cause of all existence" bit, though, and usually being God is assumed to include a fair amount of active interest in and influence over peoples' lives. If you restrict your definition to "entity that wound up the watchspring of the universe" it's hard to argue against, but it's also then something it's entirely safe to not care about either way and which doesn't capture large parts of what people through history have meant when they believed in a god or gods.
To those of us outside the three mentioned judaism, christianity, islam it largely seems to be the same god you just stopped reading the one book at different points tbh....its almost swiftian little endian vs big endian
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Yes, Labour under Corbyn had 150,000 more members than it does now under Starmer but it was the latter who won a general election.
It is not surprising more hardcore rightwingers have switched to Farage's Reform over the Tories, though in most polls the Tories are still ahead of Reform even if Reform have more members. Remember the main swing since July has been Labour to Reform, the Tories little changed. Some Tories would vote LD over Reform even if they would not join any party
As the Tories are on the back of historically their worst performance in the post Victorian era, I would have thought Reform syphoning off more from Labour than the Conservatives is scant relief for the remaining faithful. I believe you understand the damage working class hero and snake oil salesman Farage could do to the Labour Party but have missed that he has already done his work on your party.
Although to be fair I would have thought you would dovetail neatly into Reform. Afterall they do all the fun things you like. Elitism, Grammar schools, no inheritance tax, reducing the size of the state, privatisation of public services, fox hunting, repatriation of foreigners and the list continues. No hanging and flogging yet, although when Suella has her feet under the table who knows?
Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats on current polls purely as a result of Labour voters going Reform and FPTP even if the Tory vote is largely unchanged from July.
There is no doubt Reform are gaining, now on -32% higher in net favourability than either Labour on -35% or the Tories on -43%.
Kemi still has a higher net favourable on -31% compared to -34% for Farage and -36% for Starmer
I just don't understand how your brain works. You know politics. You are involved in politics. So you know as well as I do that the snapshot today *is not how people will vote in 4 years time*
The question is how the trends will play out. And the trends are moving away from you and towards Reform, on what feels like an exponential curve once you factor in that Reform now have all the money and the media attention.
"Badenoch will gain 50-100 Labour seats". No, she won't. Which seats do you have in mind?
Electoral Calculus' average poll projection now has the Tories up 84 MPs to 205, Labour down 127 to 285, the LDs down 4 to 68 and Reform up 33 to 38 and the SNP up 7 to 16. Giving a hung parliament https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/homepage.html
Lab/LibDem coalition from the looks of it. If the LibDems are prepared to enter a coalition, of course. Could take a centre-left Government through to 2034.
Of course, things will almost certainly change.
Indeed, though as the LDs oppose the tractor tax, oppose the winter fuel allowance cut and are more NIMBY on building in greenbelt land in the home counties could be quite some demands Sir Ed gives Sir Keir for his support
What is the tractor tax?
Labour hammering family farms with assets over £1 million with IHT which the LDs oppose
Unlikely to have tractors worth that much. And would that be IHT at half the normal rate with 10 years to pay it by any chance?
It would be IHT destroying family farms which have an average value of around £2 million.
Regardless of the policy value anyway the Tories, Reform, the LDs and SNP all oppose it so Starmer if he loses his majority either has to scrap it and the winter fuel allowance cut all the opposition parties also oppose or they all no confidence a Labour minority government and throw him out of office
By 2029 this will be old hat, and the big landowners, who are most affected, will have worked out deals with their accountants and solicitors. The Winter Fuel Allowance will be long forgotten, as there will some directed form of support to the needy, not handouts for the likes of Big and myself.
No they won't, I live in a rural area and the loathing for this Labour government round here is unbelievable, rural areas will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with Labour and keeps the hated tractor tax.
Pensioners also will never forgive Labour either for their total betrayal, you even hear them at cafes whinging on Starmer's betrayal, they also will never forgive Labour or any party which does a deal with them and keeps the WFA cut.
Plus you have the employers and small businesses hammered by the NI for employers rise also furious with the government and Starmer and Reeves
The universal WFP will not be reinstated, and there will be a very different set of problems and issues that will need innovative ways to resolve by 2029
Mel Stride has already said the triple lock is unaffordable and that will not be in the manifesto as it is unaffordable
To be honest, you should join reform as that is where your heart is and where they live, back in the 1950s, whereas the country has moved on and frankly I expect reform to become quite unpopular if they take Musk's money and side with Trump and his crazy ideas
In which case the Starmer government will be thrown out of office once it loses its majority as the LDs will hold the balance of power on current polls and want the universal WFP reinstated let alone Reform.
The Tories are a million miles from a majority too so Stride can say what he wants he won't be able to implement it without LD or Reform backing either
The Scots have a wonderful expression for you
You are just 'havering'
Look it up
It is just reality, the Tories, LDs, Reform and SNP would all back a no confidence vote in a Labour minority government unless it reverses the tractor tax and WFA cut. So unless Labour retains its majority at the next GE both those policies are doomed
You assume far too much there. The SNP will never (again) put the Tories in over Labour. The Lib Dems are very unlikely to with the Tories in their current state. And we can't have endless general elections so if it is a Con-/Lab-led govt choice then they'd go with Labour.
You don't need to No Confidence a minority government to get your preferred policies when you can oppose vote-by-vote.
That said, the Winter Fuel issue will be very old news by 2028/9.
The LDs if Kingmakers could simply restore the WFA and reverse the IHT exemption removal for family farms via amendment to a Labour minority government's Budget and threaten to vote down the entire budget unless included
Except that its not going to be on their agenda by 2029.
The only reason its talked about today is its in the news today, come 2029 they'll have whatever priorities suit 2029 and not today's news.
Just like Labour screamed and screamed about the bedroom tax but once in office it wasn't their priority anymore.
At least half the LD seats are in rural areas and almost half LD voters are pensioners, it will be far more of an issue for them reversing the tractor tax and WFA cut than the bedroom tax will be for Labour now given the size of their majority. The LDs learnt their lesson from 2010-15 and will want more of a pound of flesh from any minority government before agreeing to support them.
Though Labour have managed to find huge payrises for their core voters such as train drivers and NHS GPs the Tories didn't even so. Reversing the bedroom tax was also never in Starmer's manifesto anyway
Interesting that Steve Baker said this evening that the Tories would never get anywhere until they start being serious and realise that such things as supporting the winter fuel payments for pensioners is unsustainable. I thought he was quite impressive.
Yes well if they lose all their pensioner core vote to the LDs and Reform the 2 remaining Tory MPs can be as serious as they like but nobody will be listening
Steve Baker is correct and you simply are stuck in reform
On another topic. Do you know a Welsh musician called Karl Jenkins? I worked with him and his partner Mike Ratledge many times. He was my first choice for composing jingles particularly for cars and he was super cool.
What I didn't know till this evening is that he's now been knighted and has written the most popular piece of classical music written by a living composer. I'm shocked!
Jeez, Roger. I thought everyone knows The Armed Man.
I haven't heard either of the man or his music. Having a look, the ones I seem to recognise are the advertising tunes - clearly I work off a visual cue. To me, he makes 'textures' a little like Enya, and for me I don't think that is enough unless there is something else alongside it.
In some ways I find contemporary dance easier to appreciate than 'classical' music.
The Armed Man is a fine piece; simple enough for an amateur choir, and good amateur orchestra, but with genuine depth. The Benedictus has a lovely melody. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc1Zoz-NUro
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
It seems Badenoch may be in trouble and Farage sees an opportunity to sue. Good to know the Common Sense right are being so sensible...
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
It seems Badenoch may be in trouble and Farage sees an opportunity to sue. Good to know the Common Sense right are being so sensible...
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
On Ukraine and Western Alliances, one new fly in the ointment is that in 4 days Ukraine turns off it's transiting gas pipeline from Russia, as the contract finishes.
Countries quite heavily affected are Slovakia (Putin pandering, roughly) and Austria (trying to stay resolutely neutral), and to a lesser extent Hungary (Hungary !).
It's quite astonishing really that Ukraine have continued the contract for Russian gas through 3 years of war.
It seems Badenoch may be in trouble and Farage sees an opportunity to sue. Good to know the Common Sense right are being so sensible...
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Obviously a concept of God can be dressed up with lots of fancy stuff; but the most basic aspect of the monotheistic god - the sort whose definition includes there being just the one - is that there is a mindful and intentional uncaused cause of all existence and that is what we name as god.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
People don't usually stop with the "cause of all existence" bit, though, and usually being God is assumed to include a fair amount of active interest in and influence over peoples' lives. If you restrict your definition to "entity that wound up the watchspring of the universe" it's hard to argue against, but it's also then something it's entirely safe to not care about either way and which doesn't capture large parts of what people through history have meant when they believed in a god or gods.
To those of us outside the three mentioned judaism, christianity, islam it largely seems to be the same god you just stopped reading the one book at different points tbh....its almost swiftian little endian vs big endian
Except that the right answer is obvious for the egg question, of course.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
It seems Badenoch may be in trouble and Farage sees an opportunity to sue. Good to know the Common Sense right are being so sensible...
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
This spat is almost as enjoyable as that one happening over the pond.
Since early November the world has appeared to be going to shit.
In the dying days of December it seems at least we're going to have some pleasant side excursions down cul de sacs as we hurtle towards the abyss.
The world has always been going to shit as I am sure people would assert during the napoleonic wars, the english civil war, the first world war, the second world war....mainly these days we just know more about how shit it is.
It seems Badenoch may be in trouble and Farage sees an opportunity to sue. Good to know the Common Sense right are being so sensible...
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
On Ukraine and Western Alliances, one new fly in the ointment is that in 4 days Ukraine turns off it's transiting gas pipeline from Russia, as the contract finishes.
Countries quite heavily affected are Slovakia (Putin pandering, roughly) and Austria (trying to stay resolutely neutral), and to a lesser extent Hungary (Hungary !).
It's quite astonishing really that Ukraine have continued the contract for Russian gas through 3 years of war.
There was perhaps a lot of pressure put on them whilst the bulk of Europe was desperately pivoting away from Russian supply.
And they have decided that it is now OK to pull the plug because the cost-benefit for them is now in favour of that decision, in addition to being the end of the contract so a good time to do so legally.
Karma that Slovakia, Hungary and Austria are the countries seeing their gas switched off. They were so smug about their useful connections with Putin keeping the lights on.
I'd say they are testing the edges, and attacking resilience. The power cable will take months to repair.
I'm actually not sure what powers police and coastguards have to operate in international waters, or what sanctions can be applied to Russian-controlled ships. Iirc it's very complicated, and takes forever, if things are not done under "we need to do THIS" type powers that coastguards etc may not have.
I believe the UK now has one ship - RFA Proteus, bought second hand from Norway last year, dedicated to keeping an eye on undersea assets, amongst the other things it does.
What are the chances of an actual Russian attack on Finland in 2025? Or one of the Baltic states?
More than negligible.
If it does happen we are hopelessly unprepared.
The local armies are fully prepared. Bear in mind that the Russian army is a long way from the Baltic at present.
There are 2,700 full time soldiers in the Estonian Army.
That's about two days of casualties for the Russian army in the current war.
But there are three and a half million in NATO.
If we don't defend Estonia, then NATO is a goner.
Any time in the next decade, Russia versus a full NATO response would give the Anglo-Zanzibar War a run for the Guinness Book of Records title.
I sure hope so, but we have to be realistic about the situation, particularly if Trump walks away from NATO commitments.
That would be a situation which would demand determined European leadership to keep the NATO alliance together. Who is going to provide it?
Merz if he wins February's German election would be a good prospect, he is tough, sharp and has had a successful career in the private sector and as head of NATO's largest economy after the US if he fulfils his commitment to significantly increase German military spending could make a real difference
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Obviously a concept of God can be dressed up with lots of fancy stuff; but the most basic aspect of the monotheistic god - the sort whose definition includes there being just the one - is that there is a mindful and intentional uncaused cause of all existence and that is what we name as god.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
People don't usually stop with the "cause of all existence" bit, though, and usually being God is assumed to include a fair amount of active interest in and influence over peoples' lives. If you restrict your definition to "entity that wound up the watchspring of the universe" it's hard to argue against, but it's also then something it's entirely safe to not care about either way and which doesn't capture large parts of what people through history have meant when they believed in a god or gods.
To those of us outside the three mentioned judaism, christianity, islam it largely seems to be the same god you just stopped reading the one book at different points tbh....its almost swiftian little endian vs big endian
Except that the right answer is obvious for the egg question, of course.
It seems Badenoch may be in trouble and Farage sees an opportunity to sue. Good to know the Common Sense right are being so sensible...
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
The problem with British pro-European liberalism is that it's just a reactionary response to ending up on the losing side of the referendum. It's very insular and detached from both the muscular federalist variety on the continent and the fact that the centre ground is more illiberal over there than over here.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
In retrospect I think Cameron's biggest mistake was not seeing the writing on the wall and positioning himself to be the PM to take us out without the division that was caused by his project fear campaign.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem they have is that at least since Maastricht (I don't really remember before that), "Europe" was used as a useful bogeyman by politicians of both sides to explain away something bad.
I'm not sure why they were so surprised that people took that message to heart.
To be honest, from here, Ukraine seems very far away. My cynical view is American policy since 2022 has been to keep the war going by ensuring Russia can’t win and Ukraine can’t lose.
The drip feeding of weaponry has been proportionate to that aim - Washington knows, as most sensible people do, containing the conflict is the key but as we’ve seen, keeping Russia busy in the Donetsk has had implications elsewhere.
The truth is the current status of ongoing contained conflict suits everyone (apart from those doing the fighting and dying obviously) and I suspect Trump and his incoming advisers will be reminded of that in no uncertain terms. The military/industrial complex has made money from supplying weapons (the same is true for those supplying Russia).
Victory or defeat for either Russia or Ukraine will have far reaching and unpredictable consequences and no one wants that kind of uncertainty. The current relative stability of ongoing low level conflict suits most - it maintains both Putin and Zelenskyy in power and to be blunt if one or both fell, would the alternatives be any better? The strong sense is in both cases, no and the idea of either falling into civil war or anarchy and the concomitant destabilisation of neighbouring states isn’t or shouldn’t be attractive.
Perhaps Trump and his people will thread the needle but that’s more likely to lead to an 1918-style armistice than any kind of proper resolution (though that’s very hard to envisage without significant population displacement).
This is unduly cynical and complacent.
Mainly I would argue that the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine is not low. A lot of people are dying every day. The continuation of the ear is bad for Western democracy, and it's weakening Western alliances, and it is not a stable state.
There is a decent chance of one side becoming exhausted before the other, and seeing the way that European and American public support for the war is draining away, that side could well be Ukraine. The consequences would be catastrophic for democracy in general. They would be very dark days indeed.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
In retrospect I think Cameron's biggest mistake was not seeing the writing on the wall and positioning himself to be the PM to take us out without the division that was caused by his project fear campaign.
He genuinely believed that he would win the referendum and could then use it to move to full membership.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem they have is that at least since Maastricht (I don't really remember before that), "Europe" was used as a useful bogeyman by politicians of both sides to explain away something bad.
I'm not sure why they were so surprised that people took that message to heart.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem is eight years after the referendum no-one faces up to the reality that the Brexit mistake will not be fixed. Leavers don't acknowledge it was a big mistake they were responsible for; Remainers don't accept we're not going back.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
How many of our mp's do you think read it before voting to ratify Lisbon, Caroline Flint, minister for europe certainly hadn't. Why in your mind is it ok to vote yes without reading it but wrong to vote no?
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
In retrospect I think Cameron's biggest mistake was not seeing the writing on the wall and positioning himself to be the PM to take us out without the division that was caused by his project fear campaign.
At the time I thought it possible that he might do this, and that it was why the renegotiation was lacklustre and rushed. This turned out to be an example of assuming too much competence in a public figure, but it makes for an interesting counterfactual.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
The European Project did not trust democracy.
As good a reason to leave it as any.
I th8nk it's more a UK particular problem. After all we're now seeing previously very hostile states like Iceland now moving to join the EU.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem is eight years after the referendum no-one faces up to the reality that the Brexit mistake will not be fixed. Leavers don't acknowledge it was a big mistake they were responsible for; Remainers don't accept we're not going back.
We're all in denial. It's not a healthy position.
I did quite well out of brexit, got my first actual real terms payrise just after we left since 2002
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
How many of our mp's do you think read it before voting to ratify Lisbon, Caroline Flint, minister for europe certainly hadn't. Why in your mind is it ok to vote yes without reading it but wrong to vote no?
And why were Brits alone in not being asked to approve these treaties? Lack of trust by the governments involved.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
In retrospect I think Cameron's biggest mistake was not seeing the writing on the wall and positioning himself to be the PM to take us out without the division that was caused by his project fear campaign.
At the time I thought it possible that he might do this, and that it was why the renegotiation was lacklustre and rushed. This turned out to be an example of assuming too much competence in a public figure, but it makes for an interesting counterfactual.
Would Boris Johnson have campaigned for Remain?
I think Boris would still have campaigned for Leave.
Thinking about it, if Cameron had taken a back seat, Corbyn might have been tempted to do the same, which might paradoxically have meant a stronger Labour Remain campaign.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
The European Project did not trust democracy.
As good a reason to leave it as any.
I th8nk it's more a UK particular problem. After all we're now seeing previously very hostile states like Iceland now moving to join the EU.
Agreeing to hold a referendum is not moving to join the uk, I suspect it will go the same way as norway's referendums have which is politicians say yes lets do it and people go no thanks
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
The European Project did not trust democracy.
As good a reason to leave it as any.
I th8nk it's more a UK particular problem. After all we're now seeing previously very hostile states like Iceland now moving to join the EU.
It's interesting to think about the EU (or any body politic) when confronted with repeated "no" from the electorate thinks to itself "hang on, maybe we need to rethink this". Maybe to the same conclusion, but at least that thought rattling round the corridors. At least then you could say "Ah! But...!" with a little conviction.
(I personally think leaving the EU was a total waste of time, not for any great love of the EU as a body, but just ... wtaf are you concretely offering instead?)
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
How many of our mp's do you think read it before voting to ratify Lisbon, Caroline Flint, minister for europe certainly hadn't. Why in your mind is it ok to vote yes without reading it but wrong to vote no?
And why were Brits alone in not being asked to approve these treaties? Lack of trust by the governments involved.
Politicians liked the EU. It gave them a scapegoat and I agree often the problem wasn't the EU but the gilding of EU legislation. It also gave them extra positions to move people to do as sinecures and jobs. Patronage for commisioner roles much like von leyden got for failing in every government job in germany
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
The European Project did not trust democracy.
As good a reason to leave it as any.
I th8nk it's more a UK particular problem. After all we're now seeing previously very hostile states like Iceland now moving to join the EU.
Agreeing to hold a referendum is not moving to join the uk, I suspect it will go the same way as norway's referendums have which is politicians say yes lets do it and people go no thanks
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
The European Project did not trust democracy.
As good a reason to leave it as any.
I th8nk it's more a UK particular problem. After all we're now seeing previously very hostile states like Iceland now moving to join the EU.
Agreeing to hold a referendum is not moving to join the uk, I suspect it will go the same way as norway's referendums have which is politicians say yes lets do it and people go no thanks
We will see if they ever get a referendum what the result is....I still think it will be a no....polling often said the eu wasn't a big issue here then we had a referendum with the highest electoral participation in recent history.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem is eight years after the referendum no-one faces up to the reality that the Brexit mistake will not be fixed. Leavers don't acknowledge it was a big mistake they were responsible for; Remainers don't accept we're not going back.
We're all in denial. It's not a healthy position.
I did quite well out of brexit, got my first actual real terms payrise just after we left since 2002
To be honest, from here, Ukraine seems very far away. My cynical view is American policy since 2022 has been to keep the war going by ensuring Russia can’t win and Ukraine can’t lose.
The drip feeding of weaponry has been proportionate to that aim - Washington knows, as most sensible people do, containing the conflict is the key but as we’ve seen, keeping Russia busy in the Donetsk has had implications elsewhere.
The truth is the current status of ongoing contained conflict suits everyone (apart from those doing the fighting and dying obviously) and I suspect Trump and his incoming advisers will be reminded of that in no uncertain terms. The military/industrial complex has made money from supplying weapons (the same is true for those supplying Russia).
Victory or defeat for either Russia or Ukraine will have far reaching and unpredictable consequences and no one wants that kind of uncertainty. The current relative stability of ongoing low level conflict suits most - it maintains both Putin and Zelenskyy in power and to be blunt if one or both fell, would the alternatives be any better? The strong sense is in both cases, no and the idea of either falling into civil war or anarchy and the concomitant destabilisation of neighbouring states isn’t or shouldn’t be attractive.
Perhaps Trump and his people will thread the needle but that’s more likely to lead to an 1918-style armistice than any kind of proper resolution (though that’s very hard to envisage without significant population displacement).
This is unduly cynical and complacent.
Mainly I would argue that the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine is not low. A lot of people are dying every day. The continuation of the ear is bad for Western democracy, and it's weakening Western alliances, and it is not a stable state.
There is a decent chance of one side becoming exhausted before the other, and seeing the way that European and American public support for the war is draining away, that side could well be Ukraine. The consequences would be catastrophic for democracy in general. They would be very dark days indeed.
It is possible Ukraine might agree to give up Crimea and the Donbass but even then only by a small margin and in return for NATO and EU membership for the rest of the country. Ukraine would never agree to give up Kyiv or the rest of the country though no matter what the cost in more lives lost was
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
The idea that god should be benevolent is rare among religions and belied by history. It is not for nothing that natural disasters are also termed acts of god.
And why should god (or gods) bind themselves to human ethics and morals any more than humans should bind themselves to the morals or ethics of woodlice? The notion that gods should conform to man's desires rather than the other way round seems the height of arrogance and to rather miss the point about what gods are.
In the Abrahamic religions I think they would each assert that human ethics are an expression / outgrowth of the nature of God - so the congruence comes from the other end, whether you view God as a real entity, or as a construct of human tradition, which enables you to access previous experience within a human tradition.
Judaism and Christianity would assert (explained in various ways) that God has an involvement with 'the creation' (I'm slightly struggling for a non-religious word for that) - asserting the principle of immanence (= present everywhere, in everything), which is a lynchpin in Celtic spirituality. *
The philosopher Charles Williams has a phrase which expresses that idea - Coinherence (“Things that exist in essential relationship with another, as innate components of the other.”), which he sees as a description of human interdependence, drawn from the idea of the relationships in the Holy Trinity. I think it was the former Head of the Russian Orthodox church in the UK, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (a resistance member in Paris in WW2) who described the entire community of his tradition, going back however many thousand years, as "Comrades in the Coinherence". CS Lewis also explored the idea.
Islam would aiui assert that God is more remote and perhaps less self-revealing, which lies behind Islamic ideas such as Inshallah ('God willing'), and imo a more passive acceptance of whatever happens. It's interesting that Calvinist Evangelicals, with their doctrines of predestination and grace, often use the same phrase, and parallel Islam in some ways,
* This tradition has always been important for me, as at tough times I don't find propositional logic - whether of the atheist or evangelical variety - helpful, and want emotion and reflection.
My most recent example was when my Doctor whipped me into hospital for 3 weeks in 2023 at 2 hours notice to have nasty abscesses treated. It could not be surgical, since as diabetic I would take 2 months not 2 weeks to recover, and other urgent medical treatment could not be given whilst the skin was healing. So they put me on a 14 day course of antibiotic infusions at 8-hourly intervals around the clock, each dose taking 2-4 hours to infuse, at 6am, 2pm and 10pm. Not fun. In the event I had a bit of an emotional collapse about 4 days in, and asked for a Chaplain to listen to me, and an 11C Celtic Prayer called St Patrick's Breastplate - which did help. I still have it in my phone case.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
How many of our mp's do you think read it before voting to ratify Lisbon, Caroline Flint, minister for europe certainly hadn't. Why in your mind is it ok to vote yes without reading it but wrong to vote no?
And why were Brits alone in not being asked to approve these treaties? Lack of trust by the governments involved.
Politicians liked the EU. It gave them a scapegoat and I agree often the problem wasn't the EU but the gilding of EU legislation. It also gave them extra positions to move people to do as sinecures and jobs. Patronage for commisioner roles much like von leyden got for failing in every government job in germany
Local government vs the centre, commons vs. lords, regional vs westminster, elected vs civil, on and on. Shake your little powerless fist at the baddies of the day, get a plush seat in the Lords. I really dislike being this cynical. But here we are. Maybe you'll get a few glorious positives headlines in the gasping death-spiral of the printed press before you claim your attendance allowance for the next 30 years.
And yes, I have been rewatching quite a few political drama's from the 60's to 80's this week. Thanks for asking.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem is eight years after the referendum no-one faces up to the reality that the Brexit mistake will not be fixed. Leavers don't acknowledge it was a big mistake they were responsible for; Remainers don't accept we're not going back.
We're all in denial. It's not a healthy position.
I think you should stick to speaking for yourself. I am delighted we left the EU. Regardless of the utter horlicks successive Governments have made of the process, as a baseline minimum, the fiscal advantages of no longer being part of the organisation, not being subject to future developments in EU law, not being subject to the judgements of the ECJ, and not being on the hook for future EU liabilities - these are plenty good enough for me.
Would I like existing EU law to be removed from the UK statute book so we could build reservoirs freely, build railway lines without bat tunnels, build houses that already have planning permission that are being held up by EU neutrality laws? Hell yes. Would I like trade with the EU to be smoother? Certainly. Would I like us to offer a low tax, lower regulation environment that is a beacon of capitalist prosperity in comparison to the sluggish organisation we've left? Yip. Would I like us to use Brexit powers over our borders to have strictly controlled immigration? Yes. But even if none of that stuff happens, the position now compared to the position then suits me absolutely fine.
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
That the referendum was held at all in the way that it was held was a sign of how weak the pro-European position had become over the course of the preceding couple of decades. It was the failure of the pro-Europeans in that period that I refer to, more than the referendum campaign itself (which I was out of the country for, and did not experience).
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
The problem is eight years after the referendum no-one faces up to the reality that the Brexit mistake will not be fixed. Leavers don't acknowledge it was a big mistake they were responsible for; Remainers don't accept we're not going back.
We're all in denial. It's not a healthy position.
I did quite well out of brexit, got my first actual real terms payrise just after we left since 2002
Oh..that's all right then...
Just saying brexit wasn't bad for all. In 2020 in real terms I was earning 45% less than I was in 2002. After brexit suddenly the going rate for my job left me only 19% behind what I was earning in 2002. Lets all remember the moaning about having to pay other staff like lorry drivers and hospitality staff more after brexit on this site
Sorry you consider me catching up somewhat on inflation something I should not celebrate
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
How many of our mp's do you think read it before voting to ratify Lisbon, Caroline Flint, minister for europe certainly hadn't. Why in your mind is it ok to vote yes without reading it but wrong to vote no?
And why were Brits alone in not being asked to approve these treaties? Lack of trust by the governments involved.
Politicians liked the EU. It gave them a scapegoat and I agree often the problem wasn't the EU but the gilding of EU legislation. It also gave them extra positions to move people to do as sinecures and jobs. Patronage for commisioner roles much like von leyden got for failing in every government job in germany
Local government vs the centre, commons vs. lords, regional vs westminster, elected vs civil, on and on. Shake your little powerless fist at the baddies of the day, get a plush seat in the Lords. I really dislike being this cynical. But here we are. Maybe you'll get a few glorious positives headlines in the gasping death-spiral of the printed press before you claim your attendance allowance for the next 30 years.
And yes, I have been rewatching quite a few political drama's from the 60's to 80's this week. Thanks for asking.
Watching politics makes you cynical because of how they behave. With politics you fix it however from the head down....no point fixing westminster while we are subordinate to the eu....no point trying to fix local government while its subordinate to westminster etc.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
Obviously a concept of God can be dressed up with lots of fancy stuff; but the most basic aspect of the monotheistic god - the sort whose definition includes there being just the one - is that there is a mindful and intentional uncaused cause of all existence and that is what we name as god.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
People don't usually stop with the "cause of all existence" bit, though, and usually being God is assumed to include a fair amount of active interest in and influence over peoples' lives. If you restrict your definition to "entity that wound up the watchspring of the universe" it's hard to argue against, but it's also then something it's entirely safe to not care about either way and which doesn't capture large parts of what people through history have meant when they believed in a god or gods.
To those of us outside the three mentioned judaism, christianity, islam it largely seems to be the same god you just stopped reading the one book at different points tbh....its almost swiftian little endian vs big endian
Except that the right answer is obvious for the egg question, of course.
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
The idea that god should be benevolent is rare among religions and belied by history. It is not for nothing that natural disasters are also termed acts of god.
And why should god (or gods) bind themselves to human ethics and morals any more than humans should bind themselves to the morals or ethics of woodlice? The notion that gods should conform to man's desires rather than the other way round seems the height of arrogance and to rather miss the point about what gods are.
Consider the impasse of a one God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, To keep his dying show on the road.
Sooner or later, "Look boss we don't have enough energy left to fry an elderly woman in a flea bag hotel bar."
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
The idea that god should be benevolent is rare among religions and belied by history. It is not for nothing that natural disasters are also termed acts of god.
And why should god (or gods) bind themselves to human ethics and morals any more than humans should bind themselves to the morals or ethics of woodlice? The notion that gods should conform to man's desires rather than the other way round seems the height of arrogance and to rather miss the point about what gods are.
Consider the impasse of a one God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, To keep his dying show on the road.
Sooner or later, "Look boss we don't have enough energy left to fry an elderly woman in a flea bag hotel bar."
"Well, we'll have to start faking it."
Why do you assume god is a he....mine is a girl god and if indeed there is a god consider this argument for why a girl god is the only sensible thing
Strip...look at yourself in a mirror....you think a male god couldn't come up with a better looking design....god is definitely a she and she was feeling whimsical when she designed us guys
Anybody who seriously thinks that the WFA cut, the IHT on farms issue, and the VAT on private school fees policy will be issues of significance in the 2028/29 GE must be bonkers, as must anybody who thinks that keying current polling figures into Electoral Calculus gives us a clue as to the outcome of that election. Sorry HYUFD, but therefore it follows logically that you must be bonkers.
I'd almost argue the opposite, why wouldn't they be?
Where does this idea that people "forget" policies or measures that targeted them once a parliament approaches its conclusion come from?
Some might give up, accept it, or move onto other issues, but that's very far from a given.
Certainly so. I won't vote for a party that supports Brexit.
What is this "supports Brexit"? It's a part of history.
Just agreeing with CR. Voters have long memories and bear grudges.
I won't vote for a party that still supports the most collosal mistake of British foreign policy since Suez.
The Tories will become electable again when they support their policy of the half century to 2016 and want to join the EU. I don't expect it to happen any time soon.
The Tories didn't want to join the EU for half a century. In the 70s most of them supported joining the Common Market, which was very different from the EU, despite Ted Heath's lies about retaining sovereignty.
In the 90s Major just about got his party to pass the Maastricht treated, which spawned the EU.
And their policy in the 2010s was to have a referendum and implement the results, which they did, backed by the biggest democractic vote in this country's history, and endorsed by three general elections.
So there's no continuity in European policy for them to go back to, nor could there have been, as the EU has mutated and metastacised so much over that time.
Insofar as there was a consistent policy for that half century, it was "lie about what the European project was actually about".
To quote the Queens Speech at the State opening of Parliament in 1972:
"My Government will play a full and constructive part in the enlarged European Communities. They look forward to the opportunities membership will bring, for developing the country's full economic and industrial potential, for working out social and environmental policies on a European scale, and for increasing the influence of the enlarged Community for the benefit of the world at large."
It was always and explicitly more than a trading arrangement. Unless you believe that the Queen was lying to Parliament.
Yeah, as if that's a full description of the Project.
Perhaps the 1973 Queens speech in Hansard helps:
"In co-operation with other Member States My Government will play their full part in the further development of the European Community in accordance with the programme established at the European Summit in October 1972. This programme includes progress towards economic and monetary union; measures for the establishment of a regional development fund; and co-operation in foreign policy between Member States."
For a secret project the operational security wasn't very tight, with the Queen blabbing like that in Parliament.
An Inconvenient Truth.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
Show me a social movement and I'll show you a set of myths about the past. It was true in the English Civil War and it's as true now as then.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Eh, this is nonsense really. Obviously pro-Europeans lost the referendum, but now it's reality it's Brexit that is incredibly unpopular, with its supporters searching for betrayals and increasingly desperate explanations as to why it went so wrong and reasons to whinge about those suggesting revisiting certain consequences.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
Pro europeans fumbled it by never having referendums of a lesser scale on maastricht or lisbon. I suspect they knew people would say no to lisbon and that when reasked as they did it ireland would say which part of no did you fail to understand
I'm not sure it was ever wise to have a referendum on treaties very few had read and which invariably people are wont to focus on things they don't like the sound of and say, "no think again" with few consequences. As in your example, the Irish have done incredibly well out of the EU and are more pro-European than the UK, but would still reject a treaty because it's cost free to you to object to anything you dislike about it.
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
How many of our mp's do you think read it before voting to ratify Lisbon, Caroline Flint, minister for europe certainly hadn't. Why in your mind is it ok to vote yes without reading it but wrong to vote no?
And why were Brits alone in not being asked to approve these treaties? Lack of trust by the governments involved.
Politicians liked the EU. It gave them a scapegoat and I agree often the problem wasn't the EU but the gilding of EU legislation. It also gave them extra positions to move people to do as sinecures and jobs. Patronage for commisioner roles much like von leyden got for failing in every government job in germany
Local government vs the centre, commons vs. lords, regional vs westminster, elected vs civil, on and on. Shake your little powerless fist at the baddies of the day, get a plush seat in the Lords. I really dislike being this cynical. But here we are. Maybe you'll get a few glorious positives headlines in the gasping death-spiral of the printed press before you claim your attendance allowance for the next 30 years.
And yes, I have been rewatching quite a few political drama's from the 60's to 80's this week. Thanks for asking.
Watching politics makes you cynical because of how they behave. With politics you fix it however from the head down....no point fixing westminster while we are subordinate to the eu....no point trying to fix local government while its subordinate to westminster etc.
I am, honestly ashamed to say, I am even more cynical than that. "No point trying to fix local government while I can blame central government".
PB, apologies for a lengthy post of marginal interest to most. I'd appreciate advice, particularly from any thoughtful religious types, or agnostics who respect those who believe:
My wife is a Christian, I'm firmly agnostic. We have two kids, who after discussion together we have agreed to bring up as Christians until they can choose for themselves. As a result we are often in church as a family (whenever we are at home on a Sunday).
My wife's vicar has, understandably, taken an interest in converting me, which (short of incontrovertible divine revelation) he has no hope of doing. I've made this clear to him. We've been to the pub together once and had a good chat. He has asked me to read John's gospel and for us to meet again.
My reaction to all of this is twofold: 1. I want to continue meeting and discussing with him as a way of honouring my wife's faith and to be respectful of the church I regularly attend. 2. I have quite strong skeptical reactions to the gospels (in essence my view is that of Don Cupitt's that Jesus was an insightful itinerant whose disciples over-claimed for him after his death in a form of confirmation bias).
Here's my quandry: in my own inexpert way I sense that the vicar isn't really up for a really robust discussion about this stuff; he has quite a bit of trauma in his own life (lost his first wife to cancer, relatives are mentally unwell) and the fervour with which he proclaims his own faith signals to me someone with plenty of their own demons to fight (I may be wholly inaccurate in this assessment, though he did say he found our last meeting difficult and didn't feel as though he did his faith justice in the way he responded to some of the questions I had).
I'm due to meet him for another chat in Jan. Do I (a) Politely discuss John's gospel, skirting around some of my skepticism and keeping everything surface level, which feels like it is wasting both of our time; (b) Engage fully, raising all the questions I have and arguing for my skeptical view on the basis that this respects the time he is putting into our relationship and that this is the conversation I'd find most interesting; (c) Seek to extricate myself from the next meeting entirely in some way, whilst still respecting that this is an authority-figure for my wife; (d) Do something else?
Feel free to tell me I'm being an arsehole if I have missed something important.
(b). If he can't cope with this he is in the wrong job.
Footnotes: Vicars who start off from John's gospel are often uncritical of how ancient texts work. It is a dense work rooted in a culture modern Christians can't comprehend. It's relationship to what we call history is very complicated.
The historical Jesus is substantially more than a decent itinerant. For a highly informed and critically acute view, EP Sanders 'The historical figure of Jesus' publ by Penguin is outstanding. Worth a read.
If your vicar hasn't read it then he probably hasn't read very much decent stuff. A lot just read American pop paperbacks by fundamentalists.
All Christians (including me) are agnostics, just like all the human race. Religion is not a knowable item.
Maybe get off the agnostic fence...And become an atheist..😏
All atheists are agnostics. Just like all theists (including me). Whether some subject is knowable depends on the the nature of the subject, not the opinion of the putative knower.
This is one of the trillion interesting insights of Kant's first critique.
All theists are atheists. I just believe in one fewer god than you do. When you understand why you dismiss all the other possible gods, you will understand why I dismiss yours.
Yes but there is a big difference between dismissing any specific god and dismissing god. How can you be confident that no god exists, rather than that algakirk's god doesn't exist?
It depends what you mean by "god". If you mean an omniscient omnipotent entity that created our world then it could be the creator of our simulation. A very advanced technology. But is it benevolent? Does the concept of god include benevolence?
The idea that god should be benevolent is rare among religions and belied by history. It is not for nothing that natural disasters are also termed acts of god.
And why should god (or gods) bind themselves to human ethics and morals any more than humans should bind themselves to the morals or ethics of woodlice? The notion that gods should conform to man's desires rather than the other way round seems the height of arrogance and to rather miss the point about what gods are.
Consider the impasse of a one God universe. He is all-knowing and all-powerful. He can't go anywhere since He is already everywhere. He can't do anything since the act of doing presupposes opposition. His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic having no friction by definition. So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death, To keep his dying show on the road.
Sooner or later, "Look boss we don't have enough energy left to fry an elderly woman in a flea bag hotel bar."
"Well, we'll have to start faking it."
Why do you assume god is a he....mine is a girl god and if indeed there is a god consider this argument for why a girl god is the only sensible thing
Strip...look at yourself in a mirror....you think a male god couldn't come up with a better looking design....god is definitely a she and she was feeling whimsical when she designed us guys
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It will be hybrid and publicly deniable. I'd say they won't want to get to the level of triggering Germany to get out of its circling the spot; having a sheet anchor or three dragging NATO back is priceless for Moscow.
From December 4th:
Speaking ahead of a meeting with Nato counterparts in Brussels, the Czech foreign minister, Jan Lipavský, stressed that Europe “needs to send a strong signal to Moscow that this won’t be tolerated”.
“This year there were 500 suspicious incidents in Europe. Up to 100 of them can be attributed to Russian hybrid attacks, espionage, influence operations,” Lipavský told reporters.
...
Over recent years, European nations have witnessed a spate of incidents – cyber-attacks, arson, incendiary devices, sabotage and even murder plots. The aim of such episodes, security officials believe, is to sow chaos, exacerbate social tensions among Ukraine’s allies and disrupt military supplies to Kyiv.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/04/up-to-100-suspicious-incidents-in-europe-can-be-attributed-to-russia-czech-minister-says
After all, even the Remain campaign in 2016 pretended the status quo was some sort of permanently stable end state.
Based on mitochondrial DNA, the arrival of the Beaker People was the last time migrants were properly bad news for the indigenous people of the British Isles. Somewhere north of 95% of the indigenous population were dead within a generation of the arrival of the Beaker People. Probably due to similar reasons for the Native Americans being wiped out - disease to which we had no immunity.
Trump’s policy seems to be intended to end the war on terms disadvantageous to Europe, and probably disastrous to Ukraine.
The obvious conclusion is that both Europe and the UK need to have sufficient military capacity independent of the US. Which will cost.
Then the Mongols arrived in 1221.
They said, "These people have resisted us" so they killed them all. Then Genghis Khan ordered that the dead should be counted and there were around 700,000 corpses.
A Persian historian, Juvayni, put the figure at more than 1,300,000.
And, yes, Jenkins then went off to do jingles and then converted that into a contemporary classical crossover thing, starting with Adiemus (Ratledge is also on that one) and then the very successful "Palladio".
Here's a sexed up "Palladio": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXb5UNI6nPs
In some ways I find contemporary dance easier to appreciate than 'classical' music.
But I do expect a regime that has learnt the hard way that invading your neighbours and messing in other countries democratic systems has consequences.
That requires us to grow some balls. It requires regime change in Moscow. And it requires us to set the incentives for the new government correctly.
We failed on all three of these historically.
https://youtu.be/WFdSIOWJSV4
The Anglo-Saxons also saw a pretty large replacement of the indigenous population.
The Brexiteer tendency did a great job in persuading everyone otherwise.
The problem pro-Europeans have is that they stopped telling a good convincing story. They seemed to think it was enough to dismiss the stories of their opponents.
Ratledge was the one who did all the talking. I just thought he was painfully shy and describing what you wanted with music is never easy unless you speak the language. I'd say 'maybe a bit faster at the end?' and i'd see him mumble to Ratledge 'does he want three beats or four...'. But he always wanted to use musicians and record at Abbey Road so he wasn't too popular with producers. But there wasn't anyone better in my opinion
Countries quite heavily affected are Slovakia (Putin pandering, roughly) and Austria (trying to stay resolutely neutral), and to a lesser extent Hungary (Hungary !).
And why should god (or gods) bind themselves to human ethics and morals any more than humans should bind themselves to the morals or ethics of woodlice? The notion that gods should conform to man's desires rather than the other way round seems the height of arrogance and to rather miss the point about what gods are.
This description would be common to Islam, Christianity, Judaism, Aristotle and the intuitions of billions of people throughout history who reflect on the questions posed by our happening to be here.
He describes himself as a Christian non-realist, and has been exploring different angles on that since the 1960s.
To wit:
"In his writings Cupitt sometimes describes himself as a Christian non-realist, by which he means that he follows certain spiritual practices and attempts to live by ethical standards traditionally associated with Christianity but without believing in the actual existence of the underlying metaphysical entities (such as "Christ" and "God")."
A mistake that imo some reductionists make is to pretend that it is all about the existence or not of a God or gods. Then they are uncomfortable when a freestanding set of 'logical' 'assertions' is not accepted as 'reality'. I'd say this is where some of the more tunnel-visioned Dawkins Disciples went wrong; they are stuck in a rabbit hole on one side of an artificial sacred-secular divide they have created in their own heads.
I've occasionally looked over the edge of Cupitt's speculations, but I've always felt that it is a bit far from the practical, and tend to treat it like Pope's Pierian spring.
And they have decided that it is now OK to pull the plug because the cost-benefit for them is now in favour of that decision, in addition to being the end of the contract so a good time to do so legally.
Admittedly, the 'Stronger In' campaign was shoddy, but that had mostly to do with the complacency of those leading it and their making decisions based on gaining advantages after they won. Plus the fact there was always a pretty powerful leave campaign in lots of the media Cameron in particular badly underestimated - as they'd never been on the wrong side of it.
Brexit itself rekindled a story about the positives of being in somewhat, as a case of you don't know what you've got till it's gone. You never saw many EU flags before it, with even pro-Europeans a bit apologetic in a climate that was often residually hostile, but afterwards there's a whole cottage media industry that has grown out of pro-European liberalism.
Part of the Tories problems with the working age - and the thumping they just got - now is the fact there's now quite a convincing story or 'myth' about the decision to leave being part of 14 years of reckless destructive and self-defeating policies.
But of course as we can't re-run the referendum now, you can't unscramble an egg and all that, so its unpopularity leaks out in other ways.
To be honest, from here, Ukraine seems very far away. My cynical view is American policy since 2022 has been to keep the war going by ensuring Russia can’t win and Ukraine can’t lose.
The drip feeding of weaponry has been proportionate to that aim - Washington knows, as most sensible people do, containing the conflict is the key but as we’ve seen, keeping Russia busy in the Donetsk has had implications elsewhere.
The truth is the current status of ongoing contained conflict suits everyone (apart from those doing the fighting and dying obviously) and I suspect Trump and his incoming advisers will be reminded of that in no uncertain terms. The military/industrial complex has made money from supplying weapons (the same is true for those supplying Russia).
Victory or defeat for either Russia or Ukraine will have far reaching and unpredictable consequences and no one wants that kind of uncertainty. The current relative stability of ongoing low level conflict suits most - it maintains both Putin and Zelenskyy in power and to be blunt if one or both fell, would the alternatives be any better? The strong sense is in both cases, no and the idea of either falling into civil war or anarchy and the concomitant destabilisation of neighbouring states isn’t or shouldn’t be attractive.
Perhaps Trump and his people will thread the needle but that’s more likely to lead to an 1918-style armistice than any kind of proper resolution (though that’s very hard to envisage without significant population displacement).
It all stems from thinking Wittgenstein is a proper philosopher....
The Benedictus has a lovely melody.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zc1Zoz-NUro
1) The frontend code, the bit that gets delivered to the user's web browser, can be viewed easily in a web browser, or using the inbuilt developer tools. This shows there is no manipulation of the figures on the frontend.
2) The frontend code is calling an API, something frontend code can call to update itself in realtime without refreshing the page. Again this can be seen in the web browser developer tools . That API endpoint is located at https://pro-worker.reformparty.uk/ticker/count. This endpoint simply returns the membership counter
3) The backend code, that which runs directly on the server, and the user never sees directly, is performing some work to return that membership number. Could that number be faked, yes. Is it faked, probably not, as this API is hosted by NationBuilder and seems to correlate with the screen captures taken by Reform.
4) What I think someone in Kemi's team has done, is accidentally mistake a bit of JavaScript code that animates a counter from 0 to the number that the API returns. When you view reform's counter page at https://reformparty.uk/counter you see the counter animate up to the retrieved number on every page refresh. Could it be they've mistaken this JavaScript code for manipulation.
Either way Kemi's claim is tenuous at best, there's definitely no publicly visible manipulation going on, so either she's wrong or she's got access to their backend systems.
https://x.com/richardhyland/status/1872595458532466971
Since early November the world has appeared to be going to shit.
In the dying days of December it seems at least we're going to have some pleasant side excursions down cul de sacs as we hurtle towards the abyss.
As good a reason to leave it as any.
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/german-chancellor-frontrunner-says-will-finance-military-without-more-borrowing-2024-12-11/
If pro-Europeans, even now, had a good story to tell then there would be a route back to EU membership,. It being a massive Tory mistake is not that story.
For wearing jeans.
https://www.reformparty.uk/counter
I'm not sure why they were so surprised that people took that message to heart.
Mainly I would argue that the intensity of the conflict in Ukraine is not low. A lot of people are dying every day. The continuation of the ear is bad for Western democracy, and it's weakening Western alliances, and it is not a stable state.
There is a decent chance of one side becoming exhausted before the other, and seeing the way that European and American public support for the war is draining away, that side could well be Ukraine. The consequences would be catastrophic for democracy in general. They would be very dark days indeed.
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/the-eu-is-used-to-bypass-national-democracy-home-office-minister-admits-a6680341.html
The mistake you'd say was perhaps though not calling Farage's bluff far earlier and holding a referendum on membership from more of a position of strength and surprise. If we had to have one make sure it's called on your terms. Blair maybe should've lanced the boil.
As it was, Cameron created the worst possible backdrop for a Remain campaign - giving 'Leave' an absolute age to build influential support, then having a 'renegotiation' that was never going to placate his party's eurosceptics, before you factor in the Syrian refugee crisis and its effects. But he did so on the assumption it was a fait accompli anyway and he could get away with calling it at a time that was useful to him as PM.
We're all in denial. It's not a healthy position.
Would Boris Johnson have campaigned for Remain?
Thinking about it, if Cameron had taken a back seat, Corbyn might have been tempted to do the same, which might paradoxically have meant a stronger Labour Remain campaign.
(I personally think leaving the EU was a total waste of time, not for any great love of the EU as a body, but just ... wtaf are you concretely offering instead?)
https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2024/12/22/icelands-incoming-government-says-it-will-put-eu-membership-to-referendum-by-2027
Russia drops a bizarre video claiming foreigners are flocking to occupied Crimea to "live the Russian dream."
The clip promotes the idea of people from the US & EU moving there for "a better life," even offering permanent residency.
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1872697242802634858
“..Where are you from ?
Birmingham…”
Judaism and Christianity would assert (explained in various ways) that God has an involvement with 'the creation' (I'm slightly struggling for a non-religious word for that) - asserting the principle of immanence (= present everywhere, in everything), which is a lynchpin in Celtic spirituality. *
The philosopher Charles Williams has a phrase which expresses that idea - Coinherence (“Things that exist in essential relationship with another, as innate components of the other.”), which he sees as a description of human interdependence, drawn from the idea of the relationships in the Holy Trinity. I think it was the former Head of the Russian Orthodox church in the UK, Metropolitan Anthony of Sourozh (a resistance member in Paris in WW2) who described the entire community of his tradition, going back however many thousand years, as "Comrades in the Coinherence". CS Lewis also explored the idea.
Islam would aiui assert that God is more remote and perhaps less self-revealing, which lies behind Islamic ideas such as Inshallah ('God willing'), and imo a more passive acceptance of whatever happens. It's interesting that Calvinist Evangelicals, with their doctrines of predestination and grace, often use the same phrase, and parallel Islam in some ways,
* This tradition has always been important for me, as at tough times I don't find propositional logic - whether of the atheist or evangelical variety - helpful, and want emotion and reflection.
My most recent example was when my Doctor whipped me into hospital for 3 weeks in 2023 at 2 hours notice to have nasty abscesses treated. It could not be surgical, since as diabetic I would take 2 months not 2 weeks to recover, and other urgent medical treatment could not be given whilst the skin was healing. So they put me on a 14 day course of antibiotic infusions at 8-hourly intervals around the clock, each dose taking 2-4 hours to infuse, at 6am, 2pm and 10pm. Not fun. In the event I had a bit of an emotional collapse about 4 days in, and asked for a Chaplain to listen to me, and an 11C Celtic Prayer called St Patrick's Breastplate - which did help. I still have it in my phone case.
And yes, I have been rewatching quite a few political drama's from the 60's to 80's this week. Thanks for asking.
Would I like existing EU law to be removed from the UK statute book so we could build reservoirs freely, build railway lines without bat tunnels, build houses that already have planning permission that are being held up by EU neutrality laws? Hell yes. Would I like trade with the EU to be smoother? Certainly. Would I like us to offer a low tax, lower regulation environment that is a beacon of capitalist prosperity in comparison to the sluggish organisation we've left? Yip. Would I like us to use Brexit powers over our borders to have strictly controlled immigration? Yes. But even if none of that stuff happens, the position now compared to the position then suits me absolutely fine.
Sorry you consider me catching up somewhat on inflation something I should not celebrate
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mecq-ZiR_xs
Consider the impasse of a one God universe.
He is all-knowing and all-powerful.
He can't go anywhere since He is already everywhere.
He can't do anything since the act of doing presupposes opposition.
His universe is irrevocably thermodynamic having no friction by definition.
So, He has to create friction: War, Fear, Sickness, Death,
To keep his dying show on the road.
Sooner or later, "Look boss we don't have enough energy left to fry an elderly woman in a flea bag hotel bar."
"Well, we'll have to start faking it."
Strip...look at yourself in a mirror....you think a male god couldn't come up with a better looking design....god is definitely a she and she was feeling whimsical when she designed us guys