If it is the economy stupid then Labour should sink further in the polls – politicalbetting.com
If it is the economy stupid then Labour should sink further in the polls – politicalbetting.com
With the Bank of England downgrading the UK's growth forecast yesterday, 54% of Britons expect the economy to get worse in the next yearGet worse: 54%Stay the same: 22%Get better: 17%yougov.co.uk/topics/polit…
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Has Reform hit its ceiling? Could the electorate remember the Lib Dems exist?
Edited: and for the final time (probably) F1 2025 Predictions here:
Podbean: https://undercutters.podbean.com/e/f1-2025-predictions/
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4iAoLcyCp2AdTNKpGlMISp
Amazon: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/bcfe213b-55fb-408a-a823-dc6693ee9f78/episodes/528d339c-050c-409e-bc4c-d3eec5a77152/undercutters---f1-podcast-f1-2025-predictions
Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/f1-2025-predictions/id1786574257?i=1000689601818
Transcript: https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/02/f1-2025-predictions-undercutters-ep8.html
And that seems to be what (some) voters want at the moment.
It's one thing having an old house and climate change. It's quite another knowingly building in flooding areas. [edit]
It's not just the newts. (Though where do they live in the first place?) It'll be interesting to see how the issue is handled.
All of the disappointment happened in 2024, though, so this is in no way a forecast. The forward looking bit of the BoE's actual forecast is stronger than it was in November as this levels chart we put on the FT's Monetary Policy Radar shows
on.ft.com/3CJ1paG
https://bsky.app/profile/chrisgiles.ft.com/post/3lhlpzlzhcs2p
Normally I'd say that low expectations has the potential to make distinctly meh performance look quite good in the end. But Reeves Derangement Syndrome is so intense on the RefCon side of things (look at those "a lot worse" figures) that I doubt it will affect the politics much.
Trying to prevent that is a good reason for the red tape we are trying to throw on the bonfire.
https://x.com/jzellis/status/1887838642007064700
https://bsky.app/profile/theatlantic.com/post/3lhmchnhru22q
It is even possible to feel that the current government are really quite crap but still see them as the least worst of the available options. I *think* that's where I still am. It's not that I don't want to just drive the lot of them into the sea. It's just that it seems irresponsible to join the stampede without considering what will fill the vacuum that is left afterwards.
A checjk shows that the definition in the report cited is that "Flood Zone 3 is land assessed as having a 1 in 100 or greater annual probability of river flooding or a 1 in 200 or
greater annual probability of flooding from the sea in any year, ignoring the presence of flood defences" - which covers the whole range from 1 per cent per annum upwards. Not great economically, and that doesn't cater for climate change and the nature of the normal distribution at its edges.
*stuck*
Good morning!
So it seems the markets are more optimistic too.
FWIW I am disappointed in the Government. The "no new taxes" pre election promise was absurd and unsustainable. There has been no discernable improvement in social care, crime, local authority funding and the cleanliness of our rivers. Or if there has they haven't told us about it.
For the Telegraph and PB Brexiteers to bang on about £18b squandered on the Chagos deal (surely there is some explanation other than incompetence) after their support for the £700m Rwanda debacle and the billions wasted on BREXIT they can just f*** right off.
From the figures last week, had they been delivered under a RefCon Government they would have been celebrated on here and in the media as a relief for hard pressed mortgage holders. Of course the people who would have made this assumption also deluded themselves that the Conservatives left a golden legacy.
It's strange turn of things when the USA looks more of a threat to the world order than Russia!
I am reminded of Norman Tebbit vs Brian Redhead on Radio 4.
At the start of the interview Tebbit asked why the news bulletin proceeding hadn’t included the unemployment figures. They always used to when unemployment was going up. And the monthly figures had just been released.
Politely he kept on asking, until Redhead audibly lost his temper and growled - “So what are the unemployment figures then?”
Tebbit said they were down again, as they had been going down, monthly, for the last 18 months.
Bloody hell.
That should have been front page news and the lead on every bulletin.
I'm not saying that will happen, but low expectations aren't altogether the worst thing for an incumbent.
Asset rich investors and people subsisting on low-to-middling wages live in separate universes. The economic performance figures of the United States are far better than ours, and much good that did Kamala Harris.
The Reform polling numbers are courtesy of the same trends that led to Trump 2.0. Nine-tenths of those who aren't rich enough to have a stocks and shares portfolio don't give a monkeys about the FTSE 250, even if they're aware of its existence.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LetbUCo7sE
I think the country is pretty used to the idea of long term relative decline, and we certainly don't have public or political will to make major changes (even if Reform were to win one day I don't see what would be so remarkably different about them in major policy terms) that would change that. We don't really want growth.
So I think the moral arguments are pretty peripheral, and it is about cold practical logic and transactional benefit. I'm not sold that international condemnation or whatever is sufficiently significant to go down this route, as I doubt we would gain even one iota of goodwill for it, but I can see it being arguable at least. But I think more work needs to be done selling the deal, not on the grounds of morality, but because it is, supposedly, better for the UK.
Sure the government has maintained that and many commentators dispute it, but if it is true the government needs to hammer it home, as otherwise it looks like the UK is self-flagellating (eg reports we're so keen we got talked into more concessions) for little benefit.
I think they still have a good chance of being the Opposition in the next Commons, even if they fall to third place on vote share. It all depends on how much of the remaining Tory vote in wealthier areas is willing to consider backing Farage, of course.
“Put you money where you mouth is. Reform will be looking for shoo-in candidates. A celebrity Spectator columnist? Drinks all round!”
*****
I am a tiny bit tempted, TBH
Obvs I don’t want to do any of the boring shit like actually meet constituents or care about poor people or spend much time in crappy old provincial Britain - esp November-March - but if I could find some vaguely agreeably constituency which is very easily won and where I can RFA - rule from abroad - I might be inclined
Cookie and DavidL are two whose politics I don't share but who have real world solutions to the problems we face.
Many, many others operate in the world of rage- (or more rarely hope-) filled fantasy. It's just childish. I suspect it is also not an accident - it serves the needs of populists. Anyone with a brain should resist it.
8 pictures of Farage in 28 pages may have been a bit of overkill, but the Starmer picture count was pretty high in Labour's I think).
I suspect that it's so difficult to analyse those factors that they have gtiven up. Maybe one of us knows.
I think you can credibly claim that a decent chunk of domestic economic performance is based on vibes and hope. People with good vibes about the future are more prepared to take risks, to borrow money to invest in new businesses, or simply to spend now in the belief that paying later will take care of itself.
Reeves and Starmer have talked the economy down. They have used the precious opportunity to lead a country to convince the people that it's in the shit, sinking deeper, and there's fuck-all to look forward to. The people are following this lead. They expect things to get worse. They will retrench, hunker down, and wait for better times. And so things will get worse.
I've talked down the state of Britain enough times. I can see it when it's done. But the job of a leader - which I'm decidedly not - is to show people a way to a better tomorrow. To show how the failings of yesterday can be fixed with hard work today so that there is something to look forward to tomorrow.
It feels like such a basic failure of political leadership. I haven't even bothered to renew my overseas electoral registration.
It comes across like a business transaction, so all people need to be assured of is we got an ok deal.
It can’t be the Tories, they let in 2.5m people in 3 years
So it has to be Reform. It’s as simple as that
Thanks for flagging this one up, @williamglenn : That looks to be President Musk manipulating his Chump. In this case Musk is the voice in Trump's head. The narrative in the Trump Order is, as is perhaps more common than not, fictional, and afaics on a level with Musk's lies about European politics.
The Act is basically a well-defined Compulsory Purchase Regime, replacing a 1975 one which have unfettered power to the Minister (opportunity for corruption)m with provision for no compensation in limited circs, none of which apply to the points raised in the Executive Order. The Maga Lobotomonotony community will grunt away as ever.
Reading the EO, it's another string in the US regime's assault on international law.
The law is in line with the post-Apartheid Constitution Section 25, and is subject to Court Action and checks and balances.
There is a short paper from the South Africa Roman Catholic Bishops Conference here, which is perhaps a good example of a fair examination:
https://cisp.cachefly.net/assets/articles/attachments/94306_bp_617_the_expropriation_act_–_making_mountains_out_of_molehills_by_mike_pothier.pdf
The USA is now a malign force - which TBF we knew already.
Government/parliament has decided over time that it is responsible for an ever growing proportion of the totality of the UK and our lives. I can't think of anything big they have relinquished in decades.
The last government did terribly, and the present one has so far done badly in explaining how the sub-optimal stuff it is responsible for is going to improve - where we are going and how we are going to get there and when, and how much it costs and who pays.
Social care? NHS? Green plans? Levelling up the north? Railway Liverpool to Hull? Debt and deficit? Benefit junkies and benefit and tax fraud? Inward migration? I have no idea what the plan is in a way I can describe to an 11 year old.
That you remaining PB Tories don't get this is why your party has sunk to 3rd and heading for the bottom...
The issue is the UK is now in long term ABSOLUTE decline. We are getting steadily poorer and one of the major - but not solitary - drivers of this is mass immigration
But given the current state of things that, to my mind, remains a price worth paying to get that rebalancing.
Pause
*the PB chat continues; @TSE unloads the dishwasher*
If the economy is booming due to BP and Shell making record profits on high oil prices, that is little consolation to the person struggling to pay their bills.
Equally, plenty of people get along perfectly well during a recession, their only angst being deciding where to go for their next holiday.
For them, the "Hall of Fairground Mirrors" may change if they get a policy platform out of whatever rabbit hole they are currently lost in.
I think Cameron benefited from this when the economy was pretty flat (albeit the LD collapse sure helped) and it was one reason people went too hard on how bad things were when Boris took over, as it just seemed overly gloomy.
By 2024 I think any positive economic news would not have worked as well, because things felt much worse anyway.
And right now my experience is people are pretty gloomy about the present and future.
But there is thing its opponents are in total denial about. Whatever the underlying Reform powers privately think their public documented face is thus:
Reform supports in a traditional form the 1950s post war social democratic deal: law and order, cradle to grave welfare, pensions, safety net for the unfortunate, free education to 18, NHS free at delivery, NATO, progressive taxation, regulated private enterprise, international trade, low inward migration.
If they can stick to that and put the loonies in a box and stop sympathising with violent thugs and make it clear that all law abiding people currently lawfully in the UK are us and not 'them' they can do well.
Whether they can actually run UK plc well I have no idea, butr no-one else can.
Can’t send him back to South Africa if you have declared that you will grant asylum to refugees from there
The 38 year old one is interesting. Smallest majority too. Real odd man out, I wonder how well he gets on with the others on a personal level.
Deep structural issues in our economy which easier trade with the EU did not address.
I saw that massive marginal poll and it had Labour clinging on to two mid Cornwall seats. This seems unlikely to me
The anger about Labour is visceral down there, but the Tories are still likewise hated. The usual Cornish choice in this situation is to go Lib Dem
But the mood is really not “Lib Demmy”
Planning inspectors recommended against a Hitachi-built nuclear power plant in Anglesey on the basis that it could dilute the island’s Welsh language and culture, it has emerged.
Shuttering the US universities.
Carl T. Bergstrom
@carlbergstrom.com
1. Today the NIH director issued a new directive slashing overhead rates to 15%.
Carl T. Bergstrom
@carlbergstrom.com
5. Other schools may have even higher overhead rates. Harvard's is around 69%.
This new order slashes that percentage to a maximum of 15%. This means cutting one of the most important sources of university funding nationwide by 75% or more.
Universities cannot function with this scale of cut.
Carl T. Bergstrom @carlbergstrom.com
6. The policy does not just affect funding going forward. All existing NIH grants will have their indirect rates cut to 15% as of today, the date of issuance.
For a large university, this creates a sudden and catastrophic shortfall of hundreds of millions of dollars against already budgeted funds.
https://bsky.app/profile/carlbergstrom.com/post/3lhmtolcc6s2c
We were overreliant on finance and London and we’ve still not worked out how to fix that. Mass migration has been tried again and again and again and weirdly that hasn’t worked
The only card that the US has is that the UK currently has possession
Glen O'Hara @gsoh31.bsky.social
·
14m
UK growth will be hit if the US is going to stop underwriting university science and R&D. We're so intertwined.
https://bsky.app/profile/gsoh31.bsky.social/post/3lhnxiqtkxs2r
You'll vote for anyone or anything out of sheer pique, and damn the consequences.
Even Starmer.
Farage would be no change from that.
Engineering can often mitigate, but we are a country of gormless double think where hidebound people who want dual carriageways and traffic islands everywhere throw enormous, selfish, tantrums about "Concreting Over the Countrysode" if, say, a proposal is made to upgrade a 3m wide path railway path, which previously had trains on it, to a sealed surface so everyone can use it. Or if they are asked to park their cars on the carriageway or their drives.
On the flooding, we have cross-subsidies in place (which having made sensible decisions, I do not like), and I would prefer caveat emptor and those house to be designed appropriately for flood mititgation and of a suitably lower price, or for Councils to insist on flood prevention measures. That itself would help winnow out the developments which are not sustainable.
I am not convinced this Govt would be capable of being that subtle in their policies, though whatever they do do will be an order of magnitude better than what went before.
And I did nothing...
It's exactly the same issue as Musk cancelling USAID funded clinical trials so abruptly that medical staff were banned from removing medical devices installed in patients bodies as part of the trial.
They are reckless, and they don't care the damage they do.
Basic structural problem in the economy? We stopped investing in things. The last hurrah was the post-industrial throw money at redevelopment done by Thatcher *after* she'd chosen to dismantle industry because they were unionised. After that? Investment was relabelled "subsidy" and we get these endless political whines about who will pay.
Listening to people who denounced Trump - including his VP - both joining the show and also becoming fellow travellers, Prof Niall Ferguson is a recent example I have just noticed, is illustrative and exemplary.
"A federal judge early Saturday temporarily restricted access by Elon Musk’s government efficiency program to the Treasury Department’s payment and data systems, saying there was a risk of “irreparable harm.” "
NY Times
It also shows well the problems and opportunities of the USA's politicised Judicial System, as it is now, and the strategies being used.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNRxbEsX8AM
These are issues of our own making as a nation. Trump's 'switch it all off' approach will appeal to some but clearly there is a need for some hard choices to be made if (and only if) we want to address them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c897ew0ekp4o
If you create an economic system where the most important asset class is property and investment almost guarantees returns, then you shouldn't be surprised if you regress towards a Hanoverian settlement with, in broad terms, a steadily narrowing gentry class milking a steadily broadening peasant class for rents.
Social mobility is grinding to a halt as young people's life prospects become increasingly dependent on the transmission of existing family wealth, through parental subsidy and inheritances. This is having dire consequences and the situation will continue to get worse.