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Punters continue to think Labour will win the most seats at the next election – politicalbetting.com
Punters continue to think Labour will win the most seats at the next election – politicalbetting.com
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I agree that the principle of the executive ignoring or overriding the judiciary is dangerous, yet I can't get exercised about the why and I think if you ask average Americans they'll agree and question why there's a judge attempting to protect these gang members who aren't citizens and have been responsible for murders, rapes, assaults and many other violent crimes.
But our politics has got more volatile and Labour does not start from a strong position in terms of share of the vote. It may be that the split on the right gives them the same tactical advantage that the Labour/SDP split gave Maggie but I wouldn't count on that just yet.
They are just people Trump doesn't like (EDIT: Specifically they are not White men)
Bonus points, can you spot when Liz Truss became PM?
A kidney transplant specialist and professor at Brown University’s medical school has been deported from the U.S., even though she had a valid visa and a court order temporarily blocking her expulsion, according to her lawyer and court papers.
The question is whether the same applies today to the Reform UK/Conservative split. Can you just stick the Ref + Con vote shares together?
I dunno man, if the WH can point to people from Latin America and say "gang member," and point to people from the Arab world and say "terrorist" or "antisemite," and those designations lead directly to detention or worse, I think we have to acknowledge we're in a pretty bad place.
If these are the AEA folks, they were merely *labelled* as gang members. There was no charge, no lawyer, no evidence, no trial. No court, or judge, or jury ever heard their case. There was no appeal. Just a plane to a forced labor prison in El Salvador for whoever Trump said should go.
Good morning, everyone
So, the risk is, both on competence and policy they are outgunned.
It is certainly not as simple as putting Reform and the Tories together. I can't imagine a scenario where I would vote Reform, for example. But it did allow Labour to win a lot of seats on a very low share of the vote and greatly exaggerated the FPTP effect. All I am saying is that that might happen again and it might not.
The only way to feel relaxed about events in America is to assume that they are laser-focused on the "bad guys". And that one- or people one cares about- will never be judged to fall into that category.
The record of history shows that that's a popular comfort blanket, but also that it rarely (never?) works out that way.
As far as I can see, there's only the bald claim by the administration.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/03/16/deport-support-venezuela-el-salvador-00232379
...While Trump and other officials asserted that the men deported Saturday were all gang members, it’s unclear how the administration made those determinations. Lawyers for some deportees said they had no gang affiliation and some had no final orders of removal from a U.S. immigration judge.
Trump invoked the Alien Enemies Act — a 1798 law enacted during John Adams’ presidency and only used three times in American history and all during times of war — in an attempt to bypass federal immigration law and override asylum claims or other legal protections the alleged gang members could pursue in U.S. immigration courts or ordinary federal courts. The Justice Department argued that Trump can determine unilaterally who poses a significant risk to the United States given his inherent authority as president over national security...
If Trump has the power to do this, without legal scrutiny, what is to stop him deporting - of even disappearing, given the state of El Salvador's prisons - anyone at all ?
Very few people would argue that governments shouldn't be able to deport violent criminals, but the rhetoric here is just bullshit.
"Countless lives" were not saved by this extra-legal deportation; all of them were already in custody. Why the reluctance to clearly establish that they are what the administration says they are ?
I bet she never even bothered to check if the person on her table was a God-fearing American and just attempted to save all their lives instead.
These woke doctors saving the lives of people God has made sick are interfering with God's plan and have to be stopped or deported.
Now please pray for my brother who is currently in hospital getting the best treatment money can buy. God bless those saving his life, they are truly doing God's work.
As for top-down, why should either Con or Ref cede the opportunity to be the party of the British right?
This whole thread is good, but this is the heart of the matter;
There is no such thing, outside of some marriages, as a merger of equals: there is always a buyer and a seller. Someone is going to have to be the subordinate partner in a Conservative-Reform pact. If it happens before the election, the subordinate is bound to be Nigel Farage.
https://bsky.app/profile/stephenkb.bsky.social/post/3lif2qcaq4c2s
The best cut she could make is to her own job !
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1901511315891323051
An interesting combination.
How long would a Ref-Con coalition hold together in those circumstances?
Elected officials need to turn away
What's the point of being a political party if you don't believe in the art of the possible.
Labour need to make a left wing case for being in government. I forecast a good night for Reform, Greens and LDs in the May locals, and a bad night for both Tories and Labour.
Next year we have all-out elections due to boundary changes, so a bigger than usual chance of Labour losing control of the council.
Failing to exercise that power is what's making them unpopular.
Rachel Reeves has inherited a dire economic situation, a lunatic in the Whitehouse intent on crashing the global economy and now a consensus that the UK needs to significantly increase defence spending.
I don't like many of the choices the govt is making, but she's been willing to make tough choices.
The window is shifting only one way between now and 2029
Even if the US doesn't become a managed democracy, the actual elections are more of a formality for most of them.
If rule by fiat is the norm, those 'elections' are worthless
There was a spell where it looked like I would be commuting from up here to London every week. I wonder how many napkin-related delays I would have experienced…
It's interesting to speculate who's advising him. I might surmise that after a diabolical first 6 months he's now listening a lot more to the Blairites.
The fact is that the Liberals were doing very well at that time, following the 1979 election and the advent of Thatcher. Roy Jenkins, returning from Europe, was on the point of becoming a member of the Liberal Party, but David Steel persuaded him to found the SDP instead, and split the Labour Party. This worked very well up to a point, but the expected Conservative wets did not turn up, and so the subsequent folding of the Liberal Party into the mixture did not happen either. Not until 1989 anyway, and by then the SDP was past its glory days.
In practice, every SDP local party was different. A lot of them were dominated by the "political virgins", who were happy enough to work with the Liberals and follow their lead in campaigning. Others were dominated by ex-Labour thugs, whose primary objective was to destroy the Liberal Party. Since these tended to be in areas where they traditionally weighed the Labour vote, they did not see any need to campaign and organise, and inevitably petered out.
Farage is a 19% chance in a Grand National size field with 50 Foinavons entered, and where the only decent horse, the current PM, isn't a runner for 'next'.
Labour most seats is a 41% in a three horse race.
Value? There's a bit of value with Labour; and in the PM Handicap, value in Streeting possibly.
As for me, I am retiring hurt after Cheltenham.
https://x.com/GregWAutry/status/1901271491875934624
And how it came about:
https://tidesandtales.ie/the-waterford-proposal-ships-navigation-lights/
If Labour waste this crisis they are not very clever.
However the Conservatives and Reform could combined get a majority even if Labour won most seats.
Labour would likely need LD and SNP support to stay in power in a probable hung parliament
Our system of government, though flawed in many ways, is in this respect far superior to its French, American or Russian counterparts.
Trump's game is to try and undermine due process. "Gang members" is I think partly just what Trump is calling them (ie rhetoric) to distract from his abuse of the Presidency; that's rhetoric. If they *are* Gang members, then just like everyone else they have rights to due process according to the law.
There's a further issue that they have been sent to a third country - El Salvador.
The law Trump is trying to use is the same one by which 120k Japanese Americans, including citizens, were thrown into concentration camps in WW2. But it isn't wartime in the USA, and it isn't an emergency - other than that Trump has attempted to manufacture one.
Without testing in Court we cannot know that, which is why he's doing it this way. It's exactly the same process as Musk closing down organisations at a couple of days notice, which require in law to be closed down in Congress.
A blatant example was the removal of Inspectors General - internal regulators introduced in Departments after Nixon misused Government data to target opponents, to protect the public.
Musk just expelled them out without telling Congress, when the law requires Congress to be given 30 days notice, with identified causes for dismissal.
It is just the latest step in a process to destroy the rule of law. And that rule is indivisible; if we choose not to care about a particular case, then we have sold out the principle.
Now awaiting fittter’s attention. Which could have been called before 6 had there not been a crew issue…
Russia isn't a democracy of any sort - Presidential or otherwise. It's a dictatorship masquerading as a democracy.
Though if councils like Essex and Norfolk had not delayed elections EC projected Reform would have won most council seats.
Of course London, Scotland, Wales and the big cities aren't holding elections so the only areas that are are the shires which despise Starmer and Labour now
The only was to be relaxed about events in the USA is if you have implicit trust in both Donald Trump and Elon Musk.
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/17/us/brown-university-doctor-deported-hnk/index.html
Has anyone listened to coverage on the BBC World Service? They have the relevant experience of reporting on authoritarian and third world regimes.
But given when and where he was born, anything else would have been truly astonishing. The notion of religious tolerance barely existed in the sixteenth century, with the odd exception of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and stirrings in France towards the end, and that was only after some terrible civil wars. And people of those years had much more ingrained respect for hierarchy than we do.
More's murderous intolerance, like Julius Caesar's slaves or Churchill's ingrained racism, was entirely a product of its time. So, just as revering him excessively is ridiculous, I'm not sure if we can really call him a "nasty piece of work" on those grounds.
And of course he'd have regarded us, with our lack of respect for social hierarchy, tolerance of feminism and sodomy and secularism, with just as much uncomprehending disdain as we view him.
I suppose my point, not an original one, is that judging historical figures by today's standards is problematic.
But since I fully expect Starmer to follow Wilson into early retirement (and for much the same reason) there might not be too much time left.
Ironically the minister who has made most progress is Ed Miliband, who cost Labour the 2015 election.
constitutional monarch ie like Henry VIII, Louis XIV or Tsar Peter the Great or the King of Saudi Arabia not Charles III or the King of Sweden or Emperor of Japan
Valid visa? Check. Court order banning removal? Check. Has she been removed? Check.
The court? Likely run by traitors, best ignore.
@ashtonlattimore.bsky.social
I've been waiting all day for a single headline that states "Trump administration deports 300 in violation of court order" - the actual, undisputed facts of the situation. Instead, mainstream outlets have been twisting themselves in knots to avoid just SAYING WHAT HAPPENED.
The oligarchs that are desperate to stay on the good side of Trusk to avoid their own 'deportations' are unwilling to do so on the platforms they own...
Some of them probably do, like the vacant press secretary who doesn't appear to know which way is up
A reminder that PB exists in a bit of a climate bubble - Net Zero gets about 74% support, with 76% among Conservative voters.
There are still a few people making excuses for the Trump regime. Apparently woke / liberals are the threat to America. But it’s ok, they’re deporting the other people. Except as many have already discovered, Trump’s madness will have a direct negative impact on them.
Ignorance was one of William Beveridge’s five giants. He was referring to the lack of education many suffered. Now? People get the education that past generations aspired to. But are kept deliberately ignorant by an elite who wants them to know only what they are told, rather than an understanding of reality.
Don’t Look Up…
Obfuscation, asserted misunderstanding, "I was busy", "No one told me", "It doesn't mean that", and endless but-but-buttery and whataboutery.
They tried that with the role of DOGE - it isn't a department so the Administrative Procedures Act and all the other safeguards do not apply, Elon Musk is not the boss - he is an "adviser to the President", and so ad infinitum.
Then President Chump made a speech to Congress and described Elon Musk as "Head of DOGE".
Judges will nail that like a piece of balsa wood.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Christian_thought_on_persecution_and_tolerance#Early_Modern_Era_(1500–1715)
But it's fair to say that the concept of religious tolerance was somewhat unusual, and it took the brutal religious conflicts of the 17thC to fully embed it in the mainstream of western thought.
Labour: 13%
Conservative: 18%
Lib Dem: 11%
Green: 9%
Reform: 44%
Seems like a silly strategy to me. Facebook != voters.
It is a very difficult hand for the minority party to play, but the current leadership isn't playing it very well at all, with Schumer still committed to what now looks like complete fantasy bipartisanship.
From extreme left to extreme right (and everything in between) and ocean of ink and quite a bit of blood has been spilt on the subject.
Reeves implemented none of these policies in her budget. Increasing taxes and speaking the word "Growth" 3 (thousand) times is not a method that anyone has seriously suggested will increase growth.
An analysis by Paul Warburg (I know little about him) of why he thinks Musk will not cut Starlink in Ukraine, through the lens of Musk's self-interest. (20 mins)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kty4WRIZMNU
Perun, if anyone missed it.
European Rearmament - The ReArm Europe Plan & the Future of U.S. Weapon Sales
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0AOusajGsU&t=3290s
And a guilty pleasure - a simultaneous intelligence test for three huskies. Sometimes cats are involved on this channel.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x1wNcS8QzhQ
As an aside, wouldn’t balsa wood split in two if you nailed it?
You need to keep it running as much as possible.
So the courts became the new legislature. Which sounds nice, if you are progressive lawyer. My New York relatives thought this was great.
Then the Tea Party (and later MAGA) types realised that what you need to do is take control of the process of appointing judges from the ground up. Fill all the junior appointments with like minded people - they will filter up. Then only vote for politicians who will "Deliver Our Judges".
Even if the Democrats win a landslide in 2026 and the Presidency in 2028, they will now be fighting a system that is designed against them.
The warning for the UK is that the Executive needs to execute, the Legislature needs to legislate and the Judicial, judge. One part trying to use the courts for political cover and triangulation is a disaster.
I think the most interesting thing about renewables (if not Net Zero) is that people think it's driving economic growth in their areas. They're not wrong - in places like Hartlepool, it's already about 10% of GVA and supports 1,000 jobs. Around Aberdeen it's something like 20,000.
Both the past and ther present are highly nuanced.
You mention most seats, not gains/loses, so you may well be correct regarding the Tories because in County elections the Tories do better for obvious reasons, but they WILL lose a large number of seats, which is what the media will focus on.
You mention Essex and Norfolk, but didn't mention Surrey, Oxfordshire etc being cancelled also. They would also have seen huge losses for the Tories, but not to Reform but to the LDs. The net effect is the Tories will lose less than if these Counties had been up in May and Reform and the LDs will do well, but not as well as if these counties had been included. If they were included the Tories would have taken a huge pasting. It is difficult for instance to have seen them hanging onto more than a handful in Surrey. I assume the same for Oxford and (you will know more than me about this) I assume the same for Essex at the hands of Reform.
I agree Reform will do well, but not as well as prediction models, because the models are not set up for their appearance so are far too crude particularly as they haven't yet established a ground game (although they are getting there).
My prediction is Reform, LDs and Greens will make big gains, but because of the Counties excluded and because electoral calculus does a very crude calculation for Reform, Reform will do less well than the calculator's prediction, but it will still be a very good night for them.
Tories and Labour will make big losses, but not to the extent they would have done if the Counties that have been removed were included because many of these would have been the most profitable for LDs, Greens and Reform.
Trump is in charge and beard responsibility.
But if you want to condemn both of them then condemn both of them. Trump and Musk or Trump/Musk
Creating a silly name is like calling Tony Blair “Bliar” - utterly pointless and makes you look like an obsessive.
DOGE (the executive) are clearly overriding decisions that rightly belong to Congress.
DHS/DOJ are ignoring lawful Court orders.
Trump now seems to think he can override previous Presidential orders like pardons.
It the legislature, judiciary, and even previous executive decisions can all be ignored then the US is now functionally an autocracy.
The US is becoming like Russia, except the leader is also a moron.
The 'Interim Injunction' that Trump has reportedly ignored (and MSM are now reporting "despite Court Order") was by James Boasberg, who is the Chief Judge for the DC District Court. He was originally a Dubya appointee to his first judicial role 20 years ago.
The question then becomes will the Trump regime obey, or try and ignore, or Appeal, the ruling. Then what ultimately will the SCOTUS do, if they take the case, may be relevant. Or will Trump try and assert Executive control of the parts of the Judiciary that MAGA do not like - that is then a constitutional crisis.
If Trump's regime breaks in two, that would be an acceptable outcome for me.
The government argues, quite literally, that it cannot even be examined by the courts.
Perviously it has been invoked three times in the last couple of centuries, each time when the US was actually at war.
https://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/50/21
Whenever there is a declared war between the United States and any foreign nation or government, or any invasion or predatory incursion is perpetrated, attempted, or threatened against the territory of the United States by any foreign nation or government, and the President makes public proclamation of the event, all natives, citizens, denizens, or subjects of the hostile nation or government, being of the age of fourteen years and upward, who shall be within the United States and not actually naturalized, shall be liable to be apprehended, restrained, secured, and removed as alien enemies. The President is authorized in any such event, by his proclamation thereof, or other public act, to direct the conduct to be observed on the part of the United States, toward the aliens who become so liable; the manner and degree of the restraint to which they shall be subject and in what cases, and upon what security their residence shall be permitted, and to provide for the removal of those who, not being permitted to reside within the United States, refuse or neglect to depart therefrom; and to establish any other regulations which are found necessary in the premises and for the public safety.