There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
There are only two ways it can be resolved:
1) The Senate & the House find a backbone & take away Trump's power to set tariffs.
OR
2) The courts step in & issue an injunction blocking the tariffs.
(A conservative group funded by Charles Koch is suing Trump over the tariffs. The fact that the plaintiffs are conservatives leads me to think that they must have pretty solid legal grounds for suing. Also, when the case reaches the Supreme Court, there is a high likelihood that at least Thomas & possibly also Alito might rule in favour, if Charles Koch is one of the parties to the dispute.)
The really interesting thing will be if the Supreme Court rules against Trump and he refuses to accept it, as he has the judgments of other courts.
Donald vs. Devon: lady in the local garage as I was paying for fuel.
"Oh - I'm not sure we should be buying American Coca Cola now should we?"
She put it back.
Swapped it for Pepsi? Or Sprite?
Mountain Dew
Factoid - Fanta was only created because Coke Cola stopped supplying their German distributor, so they made their own fizzy drink with surplus / waste proudcts.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
Sorry, Elon, you're too late. You're associated with it now.
And even more importantly, Musk is associated with himself. It wasn't anyone else doing Nazi salutes at the inauguration and he has said and done what he said and did.
"Lloyds Bank business customers and whistleblowers have accused it of failing small firms as it tried to reduce lending after the financial crash of 2008.
Business owners who borrowed from Lloyds around that time have told the BBC their firms collapsed after the bank introduced them to its Business Support Unit (BSU), intended for clients it considered were struggling.
A whistleblower told Panorama there was a "pattern" of "pigeonholing" small businesses as "distressed" when they were "salvageable".
Lloyds said it "categorically denied" the allegations and its BSU "supported many thousands of customers".
"See that Starmer? He's just like Stalin, yeah? Orwell wrote Animal Farm, so they must be the same!"
(narrator: Trump has overriden the courts, purged his competitors, installed loyalists in crucial posts (and killing people in the process) and is deporting people without trial to external exile)
The Senate appear to be, tentatively, growing some balls, but it will mean nothing if the House Speaker continues to block anything.
The House Speaker is not invulnerable
The Democrats can use a Discharge Petition to bring it to a floor vote, even if Johnson is trying to block it.
They used it just last week to force a successful vote on proxy voting for Congresspersons who are new parents. Johnson was trying to block it, but couldn't do anything other than sulking & then putting the House into recess for a few days.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Isn't it more likely to be LD 1st, Reform 2nd, Lab 3rd and Tories 4th?
Nope, Labour London and the big city councils are not having local elections this year and nor are Scotland and Wales.
Only provincial England is having local elections this May for county and unitary councils and the English shires, from farmers to pensioners to small business owners and now the disabled too absolutely despise this Labour government
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Isn't it more likely to be LD 1st, Reform 2nd, Lab 3rd and Tories 4th?
Nope, Labour London and the big city councils are not having local elections this year and nor are Scotland and Wales.
Only provincial England is having local elections this May for county and unitary councils and the English shires, from farmers to pensioners to small business owners and now the disabled too absolutely despise this Labour government
This pensioner, and user of care services, doesn't. Fair point about Tories being 3rd though.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Elon probably praying to be dumped now tbh.
Bit late for him to have a rethink. It's like with those German magnates who thought they could control Hitler.
I was reading somewhere that during WWI when the Germans retreated from a trench they left someone with a machine-gun to fire at the Allied troops when they came into the trench. He had limited ammunition and was expected to surrender when it ran out. Unfortunately for him the general response to his surrender was "too late, mate." Bang!
According to my grandfather's diary (and Robert Graves), it was "too late, chum." and a bayonet.
There were stories that it was a punishment thing, by the Germans and that in some cases the machine gunners were *chained* to the gun. Though this was almost certainly misunderstanding of the way that the Germans carried their heavy machine guns - it involved a kind of harness to carry the load of the gun, which ended with a chain attached to the gun.
FTSE now down 4.5% Dax 7% - less bad than Asia - maybe stabilising. Could be worse....
It will be! Another 10-15% to come in my mind.
Not sure. Got to be people with cash looking at the cheap prices ..
Market crashes overshoot and then bounce back fairly quickly. My best guess would be the Dow bottoms out around 30-33k and ends the year around 40k. Buying now for long term is not terrible imo, but is really bad if any chance of getting spooked and selling in next few weeks.
Trump will surely change course well before the DOW gets down to 30,000. Although the US was arguably due a correction anyway, making one your own fault isn't smart for any politician.
What does Trump changing course look like?
Not increasing China tariffs to 76% perhaps? He can't just row them back completely and quickly.
He's done so once already.
Congress is getting its act together to challenge his legal ability to act using emergency powers that were designed for a wartime situation.
They could repeal the act by which they handed power over tariffs to the President... That was created originally so that the Roosevelt could undo Smoot–Hawley piecemeal by executive order.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
Not to mention that Trump is 79 in a couple of months and the VP is a heartbeat from the presidency.
That's the desperate Plan C. Shock and enrage Trump with a very public display of disloyalty (Vance starts 25th Amendment process) that Trump has a heart attack/stroke and dies or is disabled.
It's not so much a plan as a known unknown. Vance took the Actuaries Gambit when he signed on last year. Frankly, the odds were pretty attractive from his point of view. Whether the price was worth it is something time will tell.
OTT headline and a long whinge from the labour left wing about the most successful Labour PM since Tony Blair.
It's the 3 am knock on the door, the arrest, the taking away to unknown destination, the brief show trial, the bullet, all those things we have got used to so painfully in the past few months in formerly peaceful England.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
There are only two ways it can be resolved:
1) The Senate & the House find a backbone & take away Trump's power to set tariffs.
OR
2) The courts step in & issue an injunction blocking the tariffs.
(A conservative group funded by Charles Koch is suing Trump over the tariffs. The fact that the plaintiffs are conservatives leads me to think that they must have pretty solid legal grounds for suing. Also, when the case reaches the Supreme Court, there is a high likelihood that at least Thomas & possibly also Alito might rule in favour, if Charles Koch is one of the parties to the dispute.)
The really interesting thing will be if the Supreme Court rules against Trump and he refuses to accept it, as he has the judgments of other courts.
But neither thing will solve the fundamental issues that the markets have which is
1) the USA is no longer the reliable market everyone thought it was regardless of what congress / courts do 2) its likely that the world is going to be cautious going forward so the previous gung ho market viewpoint isn’t valid
Donald vs. Devon: lady in the local garage as I was paying for fuel.
"Oh - I'm not sure we should be buying American Coca Cola now should we?"
She put it back.
This Trumpy thing has cut through to loads of people in the UK who take no interest in news, don't engage at all with politics, and especially take no interest in news or politics in abroadland. There are millions of these.
I think a precipitating feature is the threat to Canada. Non political types like Canada. They know someone who has an aunt there. It is an icon of harmlessness and generalised decency.
More locally, in Cumbria, where I have lived for decades, there is a strong quiet aversion to people who big themselves up and draw attention to themselves. Trump scores a bit sub-optimally there too. He is begining to get a quiet mention here and there as not altogether a satisfactory person. It's even been mentioned in church, ('he isn't always very nice is he?') though not yet to the extent of knocking the coffee rota off prime spot.
OTT headline and a long whinge from the labour left wing about the most successful Labour PM since Tony Blair.
It's the 3 am knock on the door, the arrest, the taking away to unknown destination, the brief show trial, the bullet, all those things we have got used to so painfully in the past few months in formerly peaceful England.
As to New England however......
They are still not likely to shoot you but you may wake up in El Salvador with a less than gracious cell mate.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
I suspect @Roger is right. Done in-house, probably in a hurry by someone who was told to do 'something ..... anything' but has never really thought about advertising before.
Is it not just a basic failure to understand ones' opponents that so many on the left exhibit? Clearly Labour staffers/agencies believe that everyone who votes for Reform is a flat out racist, and would be appalled at the idea that Nigel is similar to an uppity Nigerian woman or would 'let her in' somehow by the back door. How can you possibly hope to reach a group with messaging if your understanding of their concerns is limited to a two-dimensional caricature?
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Isn't it more likely to be LD 1st, Reform 2nd, Lab 3rd and Tories 4th?
Nope, Labour London and the big city councils are not having local elections this year and nor are Scotland and Wales.
Only provincial England is having local elections this May for county and unitary councils and the English shires, from farmers to pensioners to small business owners and now the disabled too absolutely despise this Labour government
This pensioner, and user of care services, doesn't. Fair point about Tories being 3rd though.
Of the councils having elections the Tories are forecast to come first and win most councillors (though Reform would have won most seats had Essex, Norfolk and Suffolk not delayed their elections the forecast projects)
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Isn't it more likely to be LD 1st, Reform 2nd, Lab 3rd and Tories 4th?
4th also being their starting position ... and the fieldwork on that poll having been done between the 1st and the 10th of March.
No, in the 2021 local elections when these seats were last up Labour were second behind the Tories but still winning more county and unitary councillors than the LDs. Now Labour are forecast to collapse to 4th with even fewer county and unitary councillors than the LDs and Reform and the Tories still top
Follow FTSE 250 - there is a company in the green!
It's called Ruffer Investment.
Its website says: "Ruffer Investment Company Limited has a simple but unusual aim – to generate consistent positive returns, however financial markets are performing."
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
I suspect @Roger is right. Done in-house, probably in a hurry by someone who was told to do 'something ..... anything' but has never really thought about advertising before.
Ever watched the Apprentice? As bad as that is, it is far more polished than a total newbies work.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
Cant we just create a reality show for him where he pretends to be president complete with cheering crowds and a golf course adjacent to the whitehouse.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
They shouldn't really be independent - it's a very murky state of affairs.
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 · 57m This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Isn't it more likely to be LD 1st, Reform 2nd, Lab 3rd and Tories 4th?
4th also being their starting position ... and the fieldwork on that poll having been done between the 1st and the 10th of March.
No, in the 2021 local elections when these seats were last up Labour were second behind the Tories but still winning more county and unitary councillors than the LDs. Now Labour are forecast to collapse to 4th with even fewer county and unitary councillors than the LDs and Reform and the Tories still top
Mainly because the Tories have 100s of spare seats to lose to raise Reform and LD and keep themselves above Labour even if Labour seats stay fairly static from 2021.
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
A coup is taking place in the USA. Is a counter-coup out of the question?
President Vance might be worse.
That's an interesting question
Although Vance is arguably more dangerous than Trump, he has none of the personal support
Truss was more dangerous than BoZo, but the Tories had no qualms about ditching her compared to him
I think if trump falls, the GOP try and claim a return to sanity which they won't let Vance mess up
Vance is part of the regime, and has (publicly at least) been in lock-step with Trump over the tariffs. The poison us on his hands, too.
There are quite a few true believers like that in the administration. I don't think this resolves itself quickly.
I don't think Vance is a true believer. But he's very canny and he wants to be President. So he is cynically out Trumping Trump to keep Trump's goodwill.
I suspect that his preferred route to the Presidency is to win in 2028 with Trump's endorsement, which he hasn't yet got.
But if it looks as if the GOP is wrecked by Trump and will lose in 2028, Vance will have to move to Plan B, 25th Amendment, and an "Adult in Charge" campaign running up to Nov 2028.
Not to mention that Trump is 79 in a couple of months and the VP is a heartbeat from the presidency.
That's the desperate Plan C. Shock and enrage Trump with a very public display of disloyalty (Vance starts 25th Amendment process) that Trump has a heart attack/stroke and dies or is disabled.
It's not so much a plan as a known unknown. Vance took the Actuaries Gambit when he signed on last year. Frankly, the odds were pretty attractive from his point of view. Whether the price was worth it is something time will tell.
As a good(?) Catholic, I'm sure he's aware of Matthew 16:26
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
They shouldn't really be independent - it's a very murky state of affairs.
Oh yes, let's have Donald Trump setting interest rates as well.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
They shouldn't really be independent - it's a very murky state of affairs.
Ah, you're getting ready to blame the Fed in the same way you blamed the OBR for Truss. Powell's assertion of his independence is one of the few things holding the US economy together at the moment.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Elon probably praying to be dumped now tbh.
Bit late for him to have a rethink. It's like with those German magnates who thought they could control Hitler.
I was reading somewhere that during WWI when the Germans retreated from a trench they left someone with a machine-gun to fire at the Allied troops when they came into the trench. He had limited ammunition and was expected to surrender when it ran out. Unfortunately for him the general response to his surrender was "too late, mate." Bang!
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 · 57m This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
Yep, to be fair though thoughts like "maybe he is the next Hitler?" are a tad disturbing and something you can easily understand people wanting to disregard.
Donald vs. Devon: lady in the local garage as I was paying for fuel.
"Oh - I'm not sure we should be buying American Coca Cola now should we?"
She put it back.
This Trumpy thing has cut through to loads of people in the UK who take no interest in news, don't engage at all with politics, and especially take no interest in news or politics in abroadland. There are millions of these.
I think a precipitating feature is the threat to Canada. Non political types like Canada. They know someone who has an aunt there. It is an icon of harmlessness and generalised decency.
More locally, in Cumbria, where I have lived for decades, there is a strong quiet aversion to people who big themselves up and draw attention to themselves. Trump scores a bit sub-optimally there too. He is begining to get a quiet mention here and there as not altogether a satisfactory person. It's even been mentioned in church, ('he isn't always very nice is he?') though not yet to the extent of knocking the coffee rota off prime spot.
The one that really stood out for me was with the UK military community, when Vance deprecated (I'm being polite) all those who had served alongside USA service people in Iraq and Afghanistan - of whom from this country there were more than 250k.
You can say a lot of things around the operations. Pouring vitriol on the graves of their 800+ dead colleagues is not one of them.
That covers quite a chunk of the Reform UK support.
Looks like Elon is off the Trump train, he has just posted a video from Milton Friedman explaining the power of free trade to make pencils as an example of how free trade is the best for everybody.
I noted this too
Can't be long until....Elon, i never like him, tiny man, everybody calls him Elon the idiot, playing with his little toy rockets....
Elon probably praying to be dumped now tbh.
Bit late for him to have a rethink. It's like with those German magnates who thought they could control Hitler.
I was reading somewhere that during WWI when the Germans retreated from a trench they left someone with a machine-gun to fire at the Allied troops when they came into the trench. He had limited ammunition and was expected to surrender when it ran out. Unfortunately for him the general response to his surrender was "too late, mate." Bang!
Machine guns were sited so as to have wide fields of fire. So that multiple guns could be brought be bear on a particular spot. This wasn't about shooting down the trench, but keeping the area in front of the trenches swept with bullets.
Hence the Race To The Parapet during an attack - the attackers, waiting in No Mans Land, behind the artillery barrage, vs the soldiers in the deep bunkers waiting for the barrage to finish. When it did, the attackers would charge, and the bunker occupants would race back to the surface to get their machine guns set up.
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 · 57m This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
Yep, to be fair though thoughts like "maybe he is the next Hitler?" are a tad disturbing and something you can easily understand people wanting to disregard.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
They shouldn't really be independent - it's a very murky state of affairs.
Oh yes, let's have Donald Trump setting interest rates as well.
"Do the rates have to be positive? Why don't we make them negative? Then the banks give people who take loans out, extra cash to spend. Why has no one thought of this before? I am a bigly genius."
If Len Deighton had written a novel about a Soviet asset who was elected President of the USA and subsequently crashed the West to allow a Soviet invasion of Western Europe, no one would have read such ridiculous nonsense.
Everyone would have stopped reading at the point where a former stock broker from Dulwich assisted by an old Etonian Foreign Secretary who dresses like a clown and attends KGB run parties in Italy, engineers Britain out of the World 's largest friction free trade organisation.
While Putin may want to rebuild the USSR even he has said he does not want to invade Western Europe
You believe him?
Maybe he doesn't need to if he can get Special Agent Donald to do it for him.
He won't, for starters as France and the UK have nuclear weapons and if he invaded a NATO nation it would be WW3 even if the US stayed neutral
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 · 57m This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
Yep, to be fair though thoughts like "maybe he is the next Hitler?" are a tad disturbing and something you can easily understand people wanting to disregard.
You cant have politics as a gameshow no matter how entertaining it is. But we are all guilty. If you want to have a properly functioning democracy you have to take time to undetstand the issues . If you are unable to do that you shouldnt vote.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
They shouldn't really be independent - it's a very murky state of affairs.
Oh yes, let's have Donald Trump setting interest rates as well.
Think of Donald Trump as doing gods work. Making people like you poorer to reduce inequality.
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 · 57m This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
Yep, to be fair though thoughts like "maybe he is the next Hitler?" are a tad disturbing and something you can easily understand people wanting to disregard.
We're not talking about Joe Public here though: these are highly-paid financial operatives whose job is to understand, predict and react in anticipation of this stuff.
Well if the tariffs are creating inflation, increased interest rates aren’t going to solve the issue as the prices are being driven by supply issues not demand.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
Can't see Trump allowing the Fed to remain independent much longer.
They shouldn't really be independent - it's a very murky state of affairs.
Oh yes, let's have Donald Trump setting interest rates as well.
Because that sort of thing has worked out so well for Erdogan.
There comes a point when even low information voters who take their cue from social media will look at their own bank accounts and say "WTF???"
"Low information voters".....Is that the polite way of referring to Faragists?
It's an impolite way, but accurate.
Roger, I was interested in your views on that awful Labour ad featuring Kemi and, I think, Farage. Has it been pulled?
I don't know but I don't believe it was genuine. No Ad agency would produce something that couldn't work. Even the most junior trainee put down artist would have spotted the problem. It's possible they did it in-house and if so it'll teach them a useful lesson.
Thanks Roger.
It might actually have worked with Trump/Farage, but I guess it's in the round filing basket now, where it belongs.
It’s still on their Twitter feed
If the Tories or Reform mocked up a photo of a black, female lefty with a straight white man there would be calls for resignations of party leaders, and much ‘pearl clutching’ as @stuartinromford says. Two-tier moral stances to add to the rest of the double standards
Current EC forecast for May 1st local elections is for Labour to come 4th in terms of councillors won, behind the Tories and Reform (and LDs) which would be little more than they deserve after that poster and their recent policies
Isn't it more likely to be LD 1st, Reform 2nd, Lab 3rd and Tories 4th?
4th also being their starting position ... and the fieldwork on that poll having been done between the 1st and the 10th of March.
No, in the 2021 local elections when these seats were last up Labour were second behind the Tories but still winning more county and unitary councillors than the LDs. Now Labour are forecast to collapse to 4th with even fewer county and unitary councillors than the LDs and Reform and the Tories still top
Mainly because the Tories have 100s of spare seats to lose to raise Reform and LD and keep themselves above Labour even if Labour seats stay fairly static from 2021.
Though even accounting for that Electoral Calculus still forecasts Labour will lose in May 56 of the council seats they won even in 2021 (which was the last set of local elections Labour failed to win)
For those that still believe that Trump's playing 4D chess (or those just looking for silver linings) - these lower oil prices will be hurting Russia bigly
I didn’t follow the news around what Trump said he was going to do regarding tariffs, but if it was known that he intended to hit every country with them, why didn’t the world and his wife short the companies that were likely to be affected, o as well as the FTSE etc?
Follow FTSE 250 - there is a company in the green!
It's called Ruffer Investment.
Its website says: "Ruffer Investment Company Limited has a simple but unusual aim – to generate consistent positive returns, however financial markets are performing."
I met Mr Ruffer once, and had a very interesting conversation with him. He’s n interesting, if unusual, guy, and I’ve had a decent holding in his trust since then. I too noticed it is the only thing going up today. He’s been expecting some sort of crash for some time, and holds a fair bit of gold.
He does a lot of philanthropy, as well, although sadly much of it is religious
For those that still believe that Trump's playing 4D chess (or those just looking for silver linings) - these lower oil prices will be hurting Russia bigly
It's not great for the US oil industry, either. And they are a net exporter.
I don't think anything Trump has done (or not done) so far is going to significantly alter his level of support with the people who voted for him in November.
I don't think anything Trump has done (or not done) so far is going to significantly alter his level of support with the people who voted for him in November.
His Maga core no, if the Independent swing voters who voted for him see their cost of living rise significantly though they could easily swing back to the Democrats ie the voters who voted for him or went third party in 2016, for Biden in 2020 and back to Trump again in 2024
I didn’t follow the news around what Trump said he was going to do regarding tariffs, but if it was known that he intended to hit every country with them, why didn’t the world and his wife short the companies that were likely to be affected, o as well as the FTSE etc?
I don't think anything Trump has done (or not done) so far is going to significantly alter his level of support with the people who voted for him in November.
I didn’t follow the news around what Trump said he was going to do regarding tariffs, but if it was known that he intended to hit every country with them, why didn’t the world and his wife short the companies that were likely to be affected, o as well as the FTSE etc?
Yes, I pointed out the same last week!
The issue is of course the credibility gap between what Trump says and what Trump does
In his first term, Trump said he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue
Nobody thought he would really do it
Now when trump said we would kill the US economy, nobody thought he would really do it...
I didn’t follow the news around what Trump said he was going to do regarding tariffs, but if it was known that he intended to hit every country with them, why didn’t the world and his wife short the companies that were likely to be affected, o as well as the FTSE etc?
I don't think even the pessimists expected anything quite as bananas as what Trump came up with. And the "I regard any trade deficit as a loss" is so batshit it makes any realistic negotiation with him impossible.
A 10% tariff across the board, for example, might have encouraged, over time, onshoring of production at the margin, and would have raised a shitload of tax, while provoking only a fraction of the current response. While a lot of people (including me) would have argued against it, it wouldn't have been regarded as utterly irrational.
As it is, we're dealing with a man who has completely lost what little sense he had.
(FWIW, I did actually predict that he might crater the world economy with tariffs, before the election. Which was labelled TDS by some.)
Follow FTSE 250 - there is a company in the green!
It's called Ruffer Investment.
Its website says: "Ruffer Investment Company Limited has a simple but unusual aim – to generate consistent positive returns, however financial markets are performing."
I met Mr Ruffer once, and had a very interesting conversation with him. He’s n interesting, if unusual, guy, and I’ve had a decent holding in his trust since then. I too noticed it is the only thing going up today. He’s been expecting some sort of crash for some time, and holds a fair bit of gold.
He does a lot of philanthropy, as well, although sadly much of it is religious
I wouldn’t say what he is doing in Bishop Auckland is particularly religious - but it focuses on the Bishop’s palace so it’s not surprising that it has a museum that focuses on faith there.
The fact he’s continuing to keep things going when I don’t think it’s working that well is something that I highly respect
I didn’t follow the news around what Trump said he was going to do regarding tariffs, but if it was known that he intended to hit every country with them, why didn’t the world and his wife short the companies that were likely to be affected, o as well as the FTSE etc?
I’ve been withdrawing so much cash from my spread betting account late last week that they’re now asking me for bank statements and a stack of ID.
The one thing that fooled me is that on the first day the US sunk but the UK didn’t, hence I closed out the UK position, only to see the UK indices sinking the day after.
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies @SteveDavies365 · 57m This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
Yep, to be fair though thoughts like "maybe he is the next Hitler?" are a tad disturbing and something you can easily understand people wanting to disregard.
We're not talking about Joe Public here though: these are highly-paid financial operatives whose job is to understand, predict and react in anticipation of this stuff.
I've got to be honest I've not seen a lot of evidence in the last couple of decades for their being much correlation between high-pay and prescience.
Comments
https://x.com/twlldun/status/1909144910655013027
Business owners who borrowed from Lloyds around that time have told the BBC their firms collapsed after the bank introduced them to its Business Support Unit (BSU), intended for clients it considered were struggling.
A whistleblower told Panorama there was a "pattern" of "pigeonholing" small businesses as "distressed" when they were "salvageable".
Lloyds said it "categorically denied" the allegations and its BSU "supported many thousands of customers".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy70d2vgempo
(narrator: Trump has overriden the courts, purged his competitors, installed loyalists in crucial posts (and killing people in the process) and is deporting people without trial to external exile)
They used it just last week to force a successful vote on proxy voting for Congresspersons who are new parents. Johnson was trying to block it, but couldn't do anything other than sulking & then putting the House into recess for a few days.
https://www.axios.com/2025/04/02/mike-johnson-anna-paulina-luna-proxy-voting
Only provincial England is having local elections this May for county and unitary councils and the English shires, from farmers to pensioners to small business owners and now the disabled too absolutely despise this Labour government
There were stories that it was a punishment thing, by the Germans and that in some cases the machine gunners were *chained* to the gun. Though this was almost certainly misunderstanding of the way that the Germans carried their heavy machine guns - it involved a kind of harness to carry the load of the gun, which ended with a chain attached to the gun.
Republican Senator Keith Self quotes Joseph Goebbels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRBUrk_8jZ4
Not his first time.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keith_Self
As to New England however......
1) the USA is no longer the reliable market everyone thought it was regardless of what congress / courts do
2) its likely that the world is going to be cautious going forward so the previous gung ho market viewpoint isn’t valid
@NicholasABrown_
* TRUMP: FED SHOULD CUT RATES
* TRUMP: THERE IS NO INFLATION
https://x.com/NicholasABrown_/status/1909197843576799419
I think a precipitating feature is the threat to Canada. Non political types like Canada. They know someone who has an aunt there. It is an icon of harmlessness and generalised decency.
More locally, in Cumbria, where I have lived for decades, there is a strong quiet aversion to people who big themselves up and draw attention to themselves. Trump scores a bit sub-optimally there too. He is begining to get a quiet mention here and there as not altogether a satisfactory person. It's even been mentioned in church, ('he isn't always very nice is he?') though not yet to the extent of knocking the coffee rota off prime spot.
So Trump is actually right there reducing interest rates may help.
He’s also right that today there is no inflation because the announcement was less than a week ago. The view in a months time (and especially is 3 months time) may be very different
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
Threads is to be remade as a TV series.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2021_United_Kingdom_local_elections
@bruceandy.bsky.social
Follow
FTSE 250 - there is a company in the green!
It's called Ruffer Investment.
Its website says: "Ruffer Investment Company Limited has a simple but unusual aim – to generate consistent positive returns, however financial markets are performing."
https://bsky.app/profile/bruceandy.bsky.social/post/3lm7lmahsnk2s
http://downfall.urbanup.com/4538376
@SteveDavies365
Reading the reactions of financiers today, the overwhelming impression is they don't get it. They are convince that this is just bargaining and the tariffs will be reduced or massaged. When they realise that isn't going to happen the meltdown will really start.🧵
Steve Davies
@SteveDavies365
·
57m
This is revealing of how so many players cannot imagine anything other than what they are used to, the neoliberal consensus. Also, it shows they do not take politics seriously, they see it as a form of bargaining/entertainment subordinate to economics.
https://x.com/SteveDavies365/status/1909189100311085064
Just replied.
Similarly, Denis Villeneuve has optioned[1] a similar 2024 novel[2]
[1] https://deadline.com/2024/04/nuclear-war-movie-denis-villeneuve-legendary-dune-part-two-bestselling-book-1235876114/
[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuclear_War:_A_Scenario
"Murky".
E.g. USA Training trenches 1917
https://openorangenc.org/sites/default/files/images/u18/1918trenchmap.jpg
You can say a lot of things around the operations. Pouring vitriol on the graves of their 800+ dead colleagues is not one of them.
That covers quite a chunk of the Reform UK support.
Hence the Race To The Parapet during an attack - the attackers, waiting in No Mans Land, behind the artillery barrage, vs the soldiers in the deep bunkers waiting for the barrage to finish. When it did, the attackers would charge, and the bunker occupants would race back to the surface to get their machine guns set up.
https://x.com/ryanradia/status/1909023767281426917?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Sadly unrealistic
Bitcoin is down 7%...
https://x.com/KrangTNelson/status/1909107661385130377
Something like "I want to know every investment that guy ever mentioned, and short the hell out of it..."
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/blogs/ec_lepoll_20250314.html
https://unherd.com/2025/04/will-trump-win-his-tariff-stand-off/
He does a lot of philanthropy, as well, although sadly much of it is religious
And they are a net exporter.
In his first term, Trump said he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue
Nobody thought he would really do it
Now when trump said we would kill the US economy, nobody thought he would really do it...
And the "I regard any trade deficit as a loss" is so batshit it makes any realistic negotiation with him impossible.
A 10% tariff across the board, for example, might have encouraged, over time, onshoring of production at the margin, and would have raised a shitload of tax, while provoking only a fraction of the current response.
While a lot of people (including me) would have argued against it, it wouldn't have been regarded as utterly irrational.
As it is, we're dealing with a man who has completely lost what little sense he had.
(FWIW, I did actually predict that he might crater the world economy with tariffs, before the election.
Which was labelled TDS by some.)
The fact he’s continuing to keep things going when I don’t think it’s working that well is something that I highly respect
The one thing that fooled me is that on the first day the US sunk but the UK didn’t, hence I closed out the UK position, only to see the UK indices sinking the day after.
I think Trump is closer to Hermann Goering than Hitler, except that Goering was a faithful husband and a war hero not a draft dodger.
For JD Vance, I suggest Himmler.
A suggestion with a long history.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/11/5/1687333/-Trump-s-Stephen-Miller-and-Hitler-s-Joseph-Goebbels-are-chillingly-similar