Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
In a 3 seat ward, there are 3 Reform, 3 Labour, no Lib Dems (what happened?) and 3 "Independents", one of whom is a former Labour councillor ejected due to drug offences. There's 1 Tory candidate and 1 Green and neither are up to much.
I have no idea how to vote. The Labour lot are useless and interactions with them have not been good.
I think I shall have to practice drawing phalluses. Reform will win anyway.
Please be careful. If your cock is drawn neatly inside the box next to my candidate and I am asked to verify it at the count, I'm arguing that it's a clear vote as its the only mark on the paper...
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Wife-beater, violent thug, anti-semite, and hypocrite. The only good thing about him was telling his deadbeat father to piss off, when he tried to renew his relationship with the family he'd abandoned, once Lennon became famous.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
The England football team (sorry Scotland, and Wales & NI) has done more for race relations than any politician. And next year England will win the World Cup in Canada, the United States and Mexico, or the 52 states of America as they will be known by then.
That's a thought. Do America's border guards know there will be millions of football fans invading the country from the south?
Up to a point. But I'd say things are only really good for race relations if they are good at race relations without ever really mentioning or drawing attention to race relations. You can't fully build harmonious race relations if you are forever pointing out racial differences, even if you are only doing so to point out how harmonious everyone is being. Because the implication is that you are being harmonious despite having different skin colours, implying that skin colours are therefore something to fall out about.
I can think of some good examples of things which are good for race relations without really mentioning it. But, getting a bit Heisenberg here, those examples would then be slightly less good as a result (inasmuch as Cookie-off-the-internet has any sort of impact on these matters, which is fairly infitesimally).
But that is what football does. That's the point. When you were on the march with Ally's army, did anyone mention sectarian divisions between Rangers and Celtic?
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
It's just one of the classic four members (Graham Gouldman).
Trigger's broom/Ship of Theseus/10cc
(And just about every other band of yesteryear touring today - and as people will know, because I mention it regularly, there is barely a band of yesteryear not touring today.)
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
Funny I used to know them particularly Graham. He wrote some good songs. I just looked them up and they're hardly recognisable. This was then.....
You can see him in Hampton Court in June if you fancy it.
So what's with Dreadlock Holiday - wonder if they will be playing that.
It was in their 2024 sets.
I don't like cricket.....I love it.....
sings a white bloke in some kind of faux Caribbean accent about the natives.
Presumably moving on from ripping off the blues and soul, there was a bit of a thing for white British acts doing their tributes to reggae in the 70s which I guess was a sort of compliment. I’m woke as fuck but the Stones’ Black and Blue is still one of my favourite albums.
I've been trying mightily to cancel Under My Thumb but with only limited success.
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Rochdale and Oldham in particular are horror-shows of ethnic ghettoisation. Both towns have suffered race riots repeatedly in the past. Rochdale even calls (or called) its mostly white Pennine settlements "townships".
Very easy for white wards to vote Reform, building on decades of resentment for the supposed cash spent in the asian wards. Rochdale, Oldham, Burnley etc have shown their willingness to change their vote to express their anger - BNP, Lab, Con, LD, Galloway etc
In a 3 seat ward, there are 3 Reform, 3 Labour, no Lib Dems (what happened?) and 3 "Independents", one of whom is a former Labour councillor ejected due to drug offences. There's 1 Tory candidate and 1 Green and neither are up to much.
I have no idea how to vote. The Labour lot are useless and interactions with them have not been good.
I think I shall have to practice drawing phalluses. Reform will win anyway.
Please be careful. If your cock is drawn neatly inside the box next to my candidate and I am asked to verify it at the count, I'm arguing that it's a clear vote as its the only mark on the paper...
Point of order, m'lud. Doesn't it have to be *in* the box? If memory serves, there is a precedent (apocryphal?) for this.
O/t, but, just appeared on the BBC News site: "Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women's football in England from 1 June, the Football Association has announced. English football's governing body amended its rules last month, applying stricter eligibility criteria for transgender women to continue playing in women's football."
I don't know.... does anyone ...... how many transgender men/women ARE playing football, but will we soon see Mens, Women's, and Transgender leagues?
The approach usually goes Male/Female/Trans categories, then nobody turns up, so then the Female category remains single-sex and excludes trans women and trans men as per the SC ruling, and the Male category becomes a mixed-sex category where anybody can play. That's how it worked out in darts.
Doesn't the men's category just become an open category for men and any kind of trans person?
I thought that's what I said? See bit in bold?
Yep - The male category doesn't need protection in sports. It could be jettisoned for "Open" everywhere and boom there's trans inclusion sorted.
Dunno, in due course we might be getting allegations of poor old blokes being made uncomfortable by trans people walking about naked in the changing rooms.
Some have suggested that eventually women will out perform men in ultra long distance running. But generally being male gives you an advantage in almost all sports.
In a 3 seat ward, there are 3 Reform, 3 Labour, no Lib Dems (what happened?) and 3 "Independents", one of whom is a former Labour councillor ejected due to drug offences. There's 1 Tory candidate and 1 Green and neither are up to much.
I have no idea how to vote. The Labour lot are useless and interactions with them have not been good.
I think I shall have to practice drawing phalluses. Reform will win anyway.
Please be careful. If your cock is drawn neatly inside the box next to my candidate and I am asked to verify it at the count, I'm arguing that it's a clear vote as its the only mark on the paper...
I rather liked one spoilt ballot, when I stood against a Labour candidate, and the voter wrote "I can't stand either of them." There's a certain raw honesty about that.
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
I'd assume unlikely to actually get anywhere close to taking control of a council hopefully.
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
In a 3 seat ward, there are 3 Reform, 3 Labour, no Lib Dems (what happened?) and 3 "Independents", one of whom is a former Labour councillor ejected due to drug offences. There's 1 Tory candidate and 1 Green and neither are up to much.
I have no idea how to vote. The Labour lot are useless and interactions with them have not been good.
I think I shall have to practice drawing phalluses. Reform will win anyway.
Please be careful. If your cock is drawn neatly inside the box next to my candidate and I am asked to verify it at the count, I'm arguing that it's a clear vote as its the only mark on the paper...
Yup. Ballots explicitly must not be rejected solely for the reason of a cross not being drawn. Any mark you like, if its in the box and it isn't disqualified for multiple marks or generally defaced or your name, then I'd count it.
Did once see one where the cock was in one box and the ejaculate was in another box. Rejected...
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
In a 3 seat ward, there are 3 Reform, 3 Labour, no Lib Dems (what happened?) and 3 "Independents", one of whom is a former Labour councillor ejected due to drug offences. There's 1 Tory candidate and 1 Green and neither are up to much.
I have no idea how to vote. The Labour lot are useless and interactions with them have not been good.
I think I shall have to practice drawing phalluses. Reform will win anyway.
Please be careful. If your cock is drawn neatly inside the box next to my candidate and I am asked to verify it at the count, I'm arguing that it's a clear vote as its the only mark on the paper...
I have actually seen that* at a count, and the ballot paper wasn't counted. [* I mean a drawing of a penis on a ballot paper, not a counting agent arguing that it must mean a vote for her/his candidate.]
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
That's a myth caused by their contrasting personal brands post the split. The edgy vs soppy Beatles catalogue is evenly split between John and Paul.
Hm. I've just looked up the list of Beatles songs on Wikipedia, and unhelpfully (but probably accurately) it lists the majority of songs as written by both of them. You're probably right. And actually, on reflection, their post-Beatles careers suggests my point is nonsense. "Merry Christmas War is Over" is the most drivelly sanctimonious pap and one of the few Christmas songs guaranteed to make me switch the radio off. In my defence, I'm telling you what my Beatles-loving friend told me to try to convince me that actually I do like John Lennon.
Going back to the airport issue: I lamented at the time Liverpool's decision to name its airport after John Lennon, but at the time I could see why: the other three were still alive, and it's not really on to name an airport after alive people. I had hoped when George Harrison died they would rename it to 'Liverpool Dead Beatles Airport', but alas, no.
In a 3 seat ward, there are 3 Reform, 3 Labour, no Lib Dems (what happened?) and 3 "Independents", one of whom is a former Labour councillor ejected due to drug offences. There's 1 Tory candidate and 1 Green and neither are up to much.
I have no idea how to vote. The Labour lot are useless and interactions with them have not been good.
I think I shall have to practice drawing phalluses. Reform will win anyway.
Please be careful. If your cock is drawn neatly inside the box next to my candidate and I am asked to verify it at the count, I'm arguing that it's a clear vote as its the only mark on the paper...
That might not be a bad idea. It would make the point without ducking responsibility.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Wife-beater, violent thug, anti-semite, and hypocrite. The only good thing about him was telling his deadbeat father to piss off, when he tried to renew his relationship with the family he'd abandoned, once Lennon became famous.
The attainment of wisdom, for me, is the realisation George Harrison is the best of the Beatles.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Lady Nugee, for one.
Is there any actual proof that she despised the flag of England? All she did was post a picture of one on somebody's house. Everything else seemed rather implied by her political opponents to me.
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
I'd assume unlikely to actually get anywhere close to taking control of a council hopefully.
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
I'm expecting Reform to win majorities on Doncaster and Durham, and a couple of mayoralties. Perhaps Kent, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire, too.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Spiky, angry, sarky does suggest he perhaps wasn't much fun to be around. Reputedly he was also quite individually unpleasant - vindictive and bullying. The historian Dominic Sandbrook rather lightly identifies him as one of the two most objectionable people of sixties popular culture - the other one being that fella from the Rolling Stones (possibly Brian Jones? Can't remember OTTOMH)
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
That's a myth caused by their contrasting personal brands post the split. The edgy vs soppy Beatles catalogue is evenly split between John and Paul.
Hm. I've just looked up the list of Beatles songs on Wikipedia, and unhelpfully (but probably accurately) it lists the majority of songs as written by both of them. You're probably right. And actually, on reflection, their post-Beatles careers suggests my point is nonsense. "Merry Christmas War is Over" is the most drivelly sanctimonious pap and one of the few Christmas songs guaranteed to make me switch the radio off. In my defence, I'm telling you what my Beatles-loving friend told me to try to convince me that actually I do like John Lennon.
Going back to the airport issue: I lamented at the time Liverpool's decision to name its airport after John Lennon, but at the time I could see why: the other three were still alive, and it's not really on to name an airport after alive people. I had hoped when George Harrison died they would rename it to 'Liverpool Dead Beatles Airport', but alas, no.
Sadly they didn’t really use a lot of the songs George wrote. Isn’t it a Pity. All Things Must Pass is an exceptional album.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Wife-beater, violent thug, anti-semite, and hypocrite. The only good thing about him was telling his deadbeat father to piss off, when he tried to renew his relationship with the family he'd abandoned, once Lennon became famous.
The attainment of wisdom, for me, is the realisation George Harrison is the best of the Beatles.
You are overlooking one of the main cultural contributions any individual from Liverpool has given popular culture... "Thomas the Tank Engine rolled into the station..."
The best I've seen was a "NO!" against one name but it was in the box and the only mark on the ballot so it got counted.
When standing as a Pirate Party candidate I got a vote from someone who simply drew the Anarchist symbol in the box next to my name - got me the vote whilst also making the point about the voter's perspective.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Lady Nugee, for one.
Is there any actual proof that she despised the flag of England? All she did was post a picture of one on somebody's house. Everything else seemed rather implied by her political opponents to me.
I'm pretty sure she wasn't posting about it to show how much she liked it.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Lady Nugee, for one.
Is there any actual proof that she despised the flag of England? All she did was post a picture of one on somebody's house. Everything else seemed rather implied by her political opponents to me.
And when the owner of the flag was interviewed he unfortunately fitted the stereotype of someone you wouldn’t want to live next door to . There tends to be a difference between those sticking up flags during the football and ones who have them adorning their houses outside of those times .
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
That's a myth caused by their contrasting personal brands post the split. The edgy vs soppy Beatles catalogue is evenly split between John and Paul.
Hm. I've just looked up the list of Beatles songs on Wikipedia, and unhelpfully (but probably accurately) it lists the majority of songs as written by both of them. You're probably right. And actually, on reflection, their post-Beatles careers suggests my point is nonsense. "Merry Christmas War is Over" is the most drivelly sanctimonious pap and one of the few Christmas songs guaranteed to make me switch the radio off. In my defence, I'm telling you what my Beatles-loving friend told me to try to convince me that actually I do like John Lennon.
Going back to the airport issue: I lamented at the time Liverpool's decision to name its airport after John Lennon, but at the time I could see why: the other three were still alive, and it's not really on to name an airport after alive people. I had hoped when George Harrison died they would rename it to 'Liverpool Dead Beatles Airport', but alas, no.
Yes they're all credited jointly but most of the stuff in their mid to late 60s creative pomp was by one or the other.
I (rather sadly) know which is which for almost all of them so you can ask me for any you're particularly curious about. If I'm around I'll answer straightaway.
Couple for free off Pepper. Getting Better is Paul, Lucy in the Sky is John.
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
I'd assume unlikely to actually get anywhere close to taking control of a council hopefully.
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
I'm expecting Reform to win majorities on Doncaster and Durham, and a couple of mayoralties. Perhaps Kent, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire, too.
Doncaster is predicted to be a bloodbath for Labour.
Reform's mayoral candidate is a "male model" and "FOREX trading" gym bunny who looks about as bright as that profile suggests and whose main moans so far have been about money spent on cycling and biodiversity.
The mayoralty races used to be by ranked choice . The Tories changed that as they thought it would be easier for them to win . Without the change to FPTP Reform wouldn’t be favourites in several races .
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Wife-beater, violent thug, anti-semite, and hypocrite. The only good thing about him was telling his deadbeat father to piss off, when he tried to renew his relationship with the family he'd abandoned, once Lennon became famous.
The attainment of wisdom, for me, is the realisation George Harrison is the best of the Beatles.
You are overlooking one of the main cultural contributions any individual from Liverpool has given popular culture... "Thomas the Tank Engine rolled into the station..."
Wasn’t quite the same when Lucien, from the liver birds, took over was it.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Spiky, angry, sarky does suggest he perhaps wasn't much fun to be around. Reputedly he was also quite individually unpleasant - vindictive and bullying. The historian Dominic Sandbrook rather lightly identifies him as one of the two most objectionable people of sixties popular culture - the other one being that fella from the Rolling Stones (possibly Brian Jones? Can't remember OTTOMH)
I’m afraid I wouldn’t find Sandbrook very persuasive, he’s a Starkey or Heffer for right of centrist dads. Also a regular column in the Mail another black mark.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
That's a myth caused by their contrasting personal brands post the split. The edgy vs soppy Beatles catalogue is evenly split between John and Paul.
Hm. I've just looked up the list of Beatles songs on Wikipedia, and unhelpfully (but probably accurately) it lists the majority of songs as written by both of them. You're probably right. And actually, on reflection, their post-Beatles careers suggests my point is nonsense. "Merry Christmas War is Over" is the most drivelly sanctimonious pap and one of the few Christmas songs guaranteed to make me switch the radio off. In my defence, I'm telling you what my Beatles-loving friend told me to try to convince me that actually I do like John Lennon.
Going back to the airport issue: I lamented at the time Liverpool's decision to name its airport after John Lennon, but at the time I could see why: the other three were still alive, and it's not really on to name an airport after alive people. I had hoped when George Harrison died they would rename it to 'Liverpool Dead Beatles Airport', but alas, no.
Yes they're all credited jointly but most of the stuff in their mid to late 60s creative pomp was by one or the other.
I (rather sadly) know which is which for almost all of them so you can ask me for any you're particularly curious about. If I'm around I'll answer straightaway.
Couple for free off Pepper. Getting Better is Paul, Lucy in the Sky is John.
Didn't John do rather well financially from the joint accreditation, as Paul's compositions tended to be the biggest money spinners?
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Lady Nugee, for one.
Is there any actual proof that she despised the flag of England? All she did was post a picture of one on somebody's house. Everything else seemed rather implied by her political opponents to me.
I'm pretty sure she wasn't posting about it to show how much she liked it.
Getting sacked for it was definitely overreaction so i assumed the leader was looking for an excuse, but her surprised reaction to the flags was pretty understandably seen as snobbish and mocking.
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
It's just one of the classic four members (Graham Gouldman).
Trigger's broom/Ship of Theseus/10cc
(And just about every other band of yesteryear touring today - and as people will know, because I mention it regularly, there is barely a band of yesteryear not touring today.)
Oh, absolutely. I'm a big Yes fan. The band today has no original members and just one classic member, and I go see every tour.
The mayoralty races used to be by ranked choice . The Tories changed that as they thought it would be easier for them to win . Without the change to FPTP Reform wouldn’t be favourites in several races .
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
I think today is about ganging up on Reform, just like July 4th last year was. Conservatives against Reform gives Labour Runcorn. And, considering what number of votes Reform will get across the picture, not many mayors or councillors either.
Labour and Conservatives won’t get their vote out, will poll low, and that will be the headlines media will run with.
But for Reform or Greens to claim they are building all the time to something special will be classic fools gold. The era of politics before this one had libs/libdems having good times going up a few lines on snakes and ladders board, then always the snake that takes them back to square one. In the case of Reform, with 70% of voters motivated to come out just to vote against you, you’re going nowhere. You have a glass ceiling.
Tory voters are not “motivated to vote against Reform”. Polls show they rather like Farage
I totally disagree. A sizeable number of conservatives hate Farages Populism. Trump style Populism is not UK conservatism for one reason. It’s the enemy of their life long conservatism.
Farage more likelihood of mopping up Corbyn voters in Labour areas. than One Nation Conservatives.
The psephological reading of July 4th 24 supports what I am saying. What didn’t happen at the last election was Ref and Con lending each other votes efficiently to give the other seats, in the same way Labour, LibDem, Green, voters voted to stop Ref and Con gaining seats. It’s the only conclusion from this > Voting Block 1 Lab 33.7% - 412 seats; LibDem 12.2% - 72 seats; Green 6.7% - 4 seats. Voting Block 2 Conservatives 23.7% - 121 seats. Voting Block 3 Reform 14.3% - 5 seats.
Today will produce the same thing. Gang up on Reform. Reform vote showing what we psephologists call large inefficiency.
A Conservative voter in Godalming might vote Lib Dem to keep out Reform. A Conservative voter in Burnley or Doncaster will vote Reform to unseat Labour.
No.
Simple fact number 1: 100 years of UK politics largely dominated by the Conservative Party, was always a coalition party between those who saw the UK monarch ruling over one nation, and those who could see just how monarch was ruling over two nations.
Simple fact number 2: there is a big difference between Conservative ideology and right wing populism ideology, it’s people poles apart. Enemies. Right wing Populism pushes the idea of popular sovereignty above the independence of democratic institutions, and the professionalism of the representatives of those institutions, conservatism does not - Conservatism is the standard bearer for democratic institutions, and the professionalism of the representatives. Populism like Trump and Farage are fascist opportunism, masquerading as values and agenda for government, a crusading ideology pretending it is the voice of all the people, undemocratically deaf to anyone with a different view. They hi jack conservatism and, through their attack on all the counterbalances of power and undermining of professionalism in the civil sector, trash Conservatism.
O/t, but, just appeared on the BBC News site: "Transgender women will no longer be able to play in women's football in England from 1 June, the Football Association has announced. English football's governing body amended its rules last month, applying stricter eligibility criteria for transgender women to continue playing in women's football."
I don't know.... does anyone ...... how many transgender men/women ARE playing football, but will we soon see Mens, Women's, and Transgender leagues?
The approach usually goes Male/Female/Trans categories, then nobody turns up, so then the Female category remains single-sex and excludes trans women and trans men as per the SC ruling, and the Male category becomes a mixed-sex category where anybody can play. That's how it worked out in darts.
Doesn't the men's category just become an open category for men and any kind of trans person?
I thought that's what I said? See bit in bold?
Yep - The male category doesn't need protection in sports. It could be jettisoned for "Open" everywhere and boom there's trans inclusion sorted.
Dunno, in due course we might be getting allegations of poor old blokes being made uncomfortable by trans people walking about naked in the changing rooms.
Some have suggested that eventually women will out perform men in ultra long distance running. But generally being male gives you an advantage in almost all sports.
Including sports where sex should make no difference. As previously discussed, opportunity and practice might play large parts, hence my suggestion of darts boards in every girls school.
This bank holiday weekend sees the World Snooker final. Snooker halls have closed down, snooker tables have been removed from pubs by the corporate chains, which makes it hard for new players. World snooker is dominated by three 50-year-old Britons who learned their trade in the last century, and some younger Chinese players because snooker is popular there.
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
I'd assume unlikely to actually get anywhere close to taking control of a council hopefully.
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
I'm expecting Reform to win majorities on Doncaster and Durham, and a couple of mayoralties. Perhaps Kent, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire, too.
Doncaster is predicted to be a bloodbath for Labour.
Reform's mayoral candidate is a "male model" and "FOREX trading" gym bunny who looks about as bright as that profile suggests and whose main moans so far have been about money spent on cycling and biodiversity.
Ho hum.
I used to get targetted ads from some forex fuckwit, Learn to Trade. I suspect the people who make money from it do so from selling courses to mugs.
Still, sounds like he will wind the right people up, so all is well.
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
It's just one of the classic four members (Graham Gouldman).
Trigger's broom/Ship of Theseus/10cc
(And just about every other band of yesteryear touring today - and as people will know, because I mention it regularly, there is barely a band of yesteryear not touring today.)
Oh, absolutely. I'm a big Yes fan. The band today has no original members and just one classic member, and I go see every tour.
Owner of a Lonely Heart is, not only, a great track but has a superb music video.
I really liked Jon Anderson’s work with Vangelis too.
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
Funny I used to know them particularly Graham. He wrote some good songs. I just looked them up and they're hardly recognisable. This was then.....
You can see him in Hampton Court in June if you fancy it.
So what's with Dreadlock Holiday - wonder if they will be playing that.
It was in their 2024 sets.
I don't like cricket.....I love it.....
sings a white bloke in some kind of faux Caribbean accent about the natives.
It’s also a song about being mugged in the West Indies, no? Arguably some stereotyping there
It's not as bad as Cliff Richard keeping a young girl in a box.
I've not forgiven Cliff for rigging the charts to get Christmas number one over Kylie and Jason, for whose record there was mysteriously no capacity in pressing plants.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Wife-beater, violent thug, anti-semite, and hypocrite. The only good thing about him was telling his deadbeat father to piss off, when he tried to renew his relationship with the family he'd abandoned, once Lennon became famous.
The attainment of wisdom, for me, is the realisation George Harrison is the best of the Beatles.
Paul for me. But I do think George is underrated. He'd have written more if he wasn't the youngest and least mouthy, hence getting suppressed a little bit by the other two. And his Beatles songs (imo) have only improved with time. Course JPG&R are all great. I'm not about to diss any of them.
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
I'd assume unlikely to actually get anywhere close to taking control of a council hopefully.
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
I'm expecting Reform to win majorities on Doncaster and Durham, and a couple of mayoralties. Perhaps Kent, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire, too.
Doncaster is predicted to be a bloodbath for Labour.
Reform's mayoral candidate is a "male model" and "FOREX trading" gym bunny who looks about as bright as that profile suggests and whose main moans so far have been about money spent on cycling and biodiversity.
Ho hum.
I used to get targetted ads from some forex fuckwit, Learn to Trade. I suspect the people who make money from it do so from selling courses to mugs.
Still, sounds like he will wind the right people up, so all is well.
Are you going wild swimming with Greg Secker this weekend ?
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
Funny I used to know them particularly Graham. He wrote some good songs. I just looked them up and they're hardly recognisable. This was then.....
You can see him in Hampton Court in June if you fancy it.
So what's with Dreadlock Holiday - wonder if they will be playing that.
It was in their 2024 sets.
I don't like cricket.....I love it.....
sings a white bloke in some kind of faux Caribbean accent about the natives.
It’s also a song about being mugged in the West Indies, no? Arguably some stereotyping there
It's not as bad as Cliff Richard keeping a young girl in a box.
I've not forgiven Cliff for rigging the charts to get Christmas number one over Kylie and Jason, for whose record there was mysteriously no capacity in pressing plants.
The mayoralty races used to be by ranked choice . The Tories changed that as they thought it would be easier for them to win . Without the change to FPTP Reform wouldn’t be favourites in several races .
Do Labour have any plans to change things back, or do they reckon the mayors just not important enough to bother for, or do they (not unreasonably) want the parliamentary time and attention for more significant work?
The mayoralty races used to be by ranked choice . The Tories changed that as they thought it would be easier for them to win . Without the change to FPTP Reform wouldn’t be favourites in several races .
Do Labour have any plans to change things back, or do they reckon the mayors just not important enough to bother for, or do they (not unreasonably) want the parliamentary time and attention for more significant work?
Or do they think the Reform/Tory vote being split is on balance better for them than the alternative.
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
It's just one of the classic four members (Graham Gouldman).
Trigger's broom/Ship of Theseus/10cc
(And just about every other band of yesteryear touring today - and as people will know, because I mention it regularly, there is barely a band of yesteryear not touring today.)
Oh, absolutely. I'm a big Yes fan. The band today has no original members and just one classic member, and I go see every tour.
But does being an original lend legitimacy. I mean the band Marmalade have no original members now, Graham Knight having retired. However Sandy Newman has been with them since the mid seventies. He has been a member far longer than the likes of Dean Ford and Junior Campbell.
At the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (Don Henley reckons it should be achievement not fame, he has a point) look at Blondies acceptance. Debbie Harry was steadfastly against any of the classic line up no longer members playing
The best I've seen was a "NO!" against one name but it was in the box and the only mark on the ballot so it got counted.
I hope it wasn't pivotal, as there's a very strong argument the returning officers shouldn't have allowed it, and I doubt it would survive the election court.
Although I have to say that I think the election courts have gone awry on this and lost sight of the intention of the legislation. Many years ago, there was a very pivotal decision (not only decided a division but also control of I think Dorset County Council at the time). It involved someone putting a smiley face and "yes please!" next to the Lib Dem name. The courts allowed it, handing them the ward.
Now I'm a Lib Dem, so this isn't a partisan point... but legally I don't think they should've allowed it. The purpose of the legislation is to guard against corruption by not enabling a corrupt political campaigner to link an individual to a vote. So if you offer me a tenner to vote for you, that only works if you know I've done it. Leaving aside postal votes which we all know are open to that (and I'd argue should be more limited) you can't realistically do that at the count with a tick or a cross. But you could say "draw a smiley face on the ballot and write 'yes please' so I know it's you").
Courts have long interpreted the law as being whether the casual observer could identify the person casting the ballot (through writing their name) but I really don't think that's the legal intention - the person who needs to be able to identify whether their corrupt inducement has worked it is the politician/campaigner dishing out the bribe.
The mayoralty races used to be by ranked choice . The Tories changed that as they thought it would be easier for them to win . Without the change to FPTP Reform wouldn’t be favourites in several races .
Do Labour have any plans to change things back, or do they reckon the mayors just not important enough to bother for, or do they (not unreasonably) want the parliamentary time and attention for more significant work?
Perhaps it might highlight the fact that FPTP is a poor way of electing people .
I’d back some form of PR even though it would give some more extreme parties more representation .
Those ward-level projections for Politics UK are very interesting.
The Conservatives are in the most trouble. They're getting hit by the Lib Dems in posh heartland areas, and by Reform in poorer heartland areas. The Lib Dems have a clear core vote of posh people. Reform are winning working, and lower-middle class people outside Core Cities. Labour have university seats, seats with lots of professional public sector workers, and areas with big BAME populations. It's honestly hard to see what section of the population the Conservatives are now appealing to. The 2019-24 government's approach, of focusing their appeal on retired people who favour high levels of immigration, has killed off their base.
Labour are also in trouble. Reform are sweeping through their old heartlands (Durham, industrial Northumberland, Doncaster, Burnley, the Lancashire, Derbyshire, Nottinghamshire, Staffordshire, ex-mining, industrial areas). That in turn, suggests they'll sweep through South Wales, Greater Manchester, South Yorkshire, next year. Labour are saved by their new heartlands (see above). Reform are simply sweeping up more support than UKIP ever did, and since nothing succeeds like success, they are coming over as a lot more professional.
IMHO, Reform will take Runcorn fairly easily. People kick the government in by-elections.
Thanks. Two questions (highlighted above):
1 - Did you actually mean -"retired people who favour high levels of immigration". I have them as having pivoted to reactionaries under Sunak.
2 - I see Greater Manchester as having become more like London in recent years - resurgence and media / tech industries and so on. So I see it as less fruitful ground for RefUK than say Liverpool or Oldham.
The government pitched all its policies in favour of the retired, and that actually included the Boriswave of immigration. They wanted to admit a load of poorly-paid careworkers, among others.
Manchester proper will remain solid for Labour, and the commuter belt will remain Conservative v Lib Dem, but places like Oldham (as you say), Bolton, Rochdale, Bury, Wigan should be very fertile ground for Reform.
Yes, agree. There's very much a N/S divide in GM. South of the city centre is as MattW describes, and Reform are very thin on the ground. They get a bit of a hearing in Wythenshawe, but its only very slight. Northern GM a very different story. Rochdale, Oldham and Tameside in particular I expect to be fertile ground for Reform.
Aren't the seats they won some of the "whitest" in England?
I'd have thought Rochdale and Oldham have too ethnically diverse a population for Reform to do very well. They're not likely to attract much of the non-white population, so would need to be doing extraordinarily well to make up for that (unless Labour are absolutely hammered by pro-Gaza candidates - but we don't know how that will play out at all at the next election).
Ah, I was thinking more of council elections: Rochdale and Oldham are racially mixed but at ward level some wards are whiter than others. But at constituency level, I'd have thought Heywood (Rochdale), Oldham West and Royton (Oldham), Failsworth and Droylsden (Oldham/Tameside), Ashton (Tameside) and Denton and Hyde (Tameside) are all seats Reform might fancy.
I'd assume unlikely to actually get anywhere close to taking control of a council hopefully.
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
I'm expecting Reform to win majorities on Doncaster and Durham, and a couple of mayoralties. Perhaps Kent, Lincolnshire, and Derbyshire, too.
Doncaster is predicted to be a bloodbath for Labour.
Reform's mayoral candidate is a "male model" and "FOREX trading" gym bunny who looks about as bright as that profile suggests and whose main moans so far have been about money spent on cycling and biodiversity.
Ho hum.
I used to get targetted ads from some forex fuckwit, Learn to Trade. I suspect the people who make money from it do so from selling courses to mugs.
Still, sounds like he will wind the right people up, so all is well.
Are you going wild swimming with Greg Secker this weekend ?
That’s the one !! Literally three or four ads a day.
The best I've seen was a "NO!" against one name but it was in the box and the only mark on the ballot so it got counted.
I hope it wasn't pivotal, as there's a very strong argument the returning officers shouldn't have allowed it, and I doubt it would survive the election court.
Although I have to say that I think the election courts have gone awry on this and lost sight of the intention of the legislation. Many years ago, there was a very pivotal decision (not only decided a division but also control of I think Dorset County Council at the time). It involved someone putting a smiley face and "yes please!" next to the Lib Dem name. The courts allowed it, handing them the ward.
Now I'm a Lib Dem, so this isn't a partisan point... but legally I don't think they should've allowed it. The purpose of the legislation is to guard against corruption by not enabling a corrupt political campaigner to link an individual to a vote. So if you offer me a tenner to vote for you, that only works if you know I've done it. Leaving aside postal votes which we all know are open to that (and I'd argue should be more limited) you can't realistically do that at the count with a tick or a cross. But you could say "draw a smiley face on the ballot and write 'yes please' so I know it's you").
Courts have long interpreted the law as being whether the casual observer could identify the person casting the ballot (through writing their name) but I really don't think that's the legal intention - the person who needs to be able to identify whether their corrupt inducement has worked it is the politician/campaigner dishing out the bribe.
Which is also why polling stations need to enforce the rules against selfies which can be used to prove how one voted.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Me.
I'm fine with (indeed I like to see) the English flag at and around big national sporting events. Outside of that I'd rather not see it. It engenders a certain suspicion about the displayers which in my experience usually turns out to be well founded.
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Me.
I'm fine with (indeed I like to see) the English flag at and around big national sporting events. Outside of that I'd rather not see it. It engenders a certain suspicion about the displayers which in my experience usually turns out to be well founded.
Would you say the same about the Scottish or Welsh flags?
What on earth is going on with 10cc's Dreadlock Holiday.
How is it that this song hasn't been cancelled. Or the band. Are 10cc still a thing/alive/playing at the Shepherds Bush Empire next Friday?
What the hell is going on.
Edit: bloody hell they are playing Molesey in June as part of their UK tour.
It's just one of the classic four members (Graham Gouldman).
Trigger's broom/Ship of Theseus/10cc
(And just about every other band of yesteryear touring today - and as people will know, because I mention it regularly, there is barely a band of yesteryear not touring today.)
Oh, absolutely. I'm a big Yes fan. The band today has no original members and just one classic member, and I go see every tour.
But does being an original lend legitimacy. I mean the band Marmalade have no original members now, Graham Knight having retired. However Sandy Newman has been with them since the mid seventies. He has been a member far longer than the likes of Dean Ford and Junior Campbell.
At the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (Don Henley reckons it should be achievement not fame, he has a point) look at Blondies acceptance. Debbie Harry was steadfastly against any of the classic line up no longer members playing
I once read an unmemorable crime thriller set around the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame. By Chris someone-or-other iirc.
ETA Copilot AI says: That sounds like Chris Formant! He wrote Bright Midnight, a rock-and-roll murder mystery that delves into the mysterious deaths of famous musicians. Formant himself has been deeply involved in the music world, even serving on the Board of Trustees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The best I've seen was a "NO!" against one name but it was in the box and the only mark on the ballot so it got counted.
I hope it wasn't pivotal, as there's a very strong argument the returning officers shouldn't have allowed it, and I doubt it would survive the election court.
Although I have to say that I think the election courts have gone awry on this and lost sight of the intention of the legislation. Many years ago, there was a very pivotal decision (not only decided a division but also control of I think Dorset County Council at the time). It involved someone putting a smiley face and "yes please!" next to the Lib Dem name. The courts allowed it, handing them the ward.
Now I'm a Lib Dem, so this isn't a partisan point... but legally I don't think they should've allowed it. The purpose of the legislation is to guard against corruption by not enabling a corrupt political campaigner to link an individual to a vote. So if you offer me a tenner to vote for you, that only works if you know I've done it. Leaving aside postal votes which we all know are open to that (and I'd argue should be more limited) you can't realistically do that at the count with a tick or a cross. But you could say "draw a smiley face on the ballot and write 'yes please' so I know it's you").
Courts have long interpreted the law as being whether the casual observer could identify the person casting the ballot (through writing their name) but I really don't think that's the legal intention - the person who needs to be able to identify whether their corrupt inducement has worked it is the politician/campaigner dishing out the bribe.
No, it wasn't pivotal, if it was then the other agents would have complained.
I get the argument, but really to swing even a council seat you're going to have to bribe a couple of hundred voters and if there were even half a dozen strange ballots all for the same candidate something odd is happening.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Spiky, angry, sarky does suggest he perhaps wasn't much fun to be around. Reputedly he was also quite individually unpleasant - vindictive and bullying. The historian Dominic Sandbrook rather lightly identifies him as one of the two most objectionable people of sixties popular culture - the other one being that fella from the Rolling Stones (possibly Brian Jones? Can't remember OTTOMH)
I’m afraid I wouldn’t find Sandbrook very persuasive, he’s a Starkey or Heffer for right of centrist dads. Also a regular column in the Mail another black mark.
I don't think the objectionability or otherwise of Lennon and Jones is really a left/right issue.
The best I've seen was a "NO!" against one name but it was in the box and the only mark on the ballot so it got counted.
I hope it wasn't pivotal, as there's a very strong argument the returning officers shouldn't have allowed it, and I doubt it would survive the election court.
Although I have to say that I think the election courts have gone awry on this and lost sight of the intention of the legislation. Many years ago, there was a very pivotal decision (not only decided a division but also control of I think Dorset County Council at the time). It involved someone putting a smiley face and "yes please!" next to the Lib Dem name. The courts allowed it, handing them the ward.
Now I'm a Lib Dem, so this isn't a partisan point... but legally I don't think they should've allowed it. The purpose of the legislation is to guard against corruption by not enabling a corrupt political campaigner to link an individual to a vote. So if you offer me a tenner to vote for you, that only works if you know I've done it. Leaving aside postal votes which we all know are open to that (and I'd argue should be more limited) you can't realistically do that at the count with a tick or a cross. But you could say "draw a smiley face on the ballot and write 'yes please' so I know it's you").
Courts have long interpreted the law as being whether the casual observer could identify the person casting the ballot (through writing their name) but I really don't think that's the legal intention - the person who needs to be able to identify whether their corrupt inducement has worked it is the politician/campaigner dishing out the bribe.
Which is also why polling stations need to enforce the rules against selfies which can be used to prove how one voted.
"A mark or indication whereby the voter could be identified" - spoil ballot; in theory. But on the other hand not readily identifiable, so probably would be allowed. "All the other candidates are a waist of space [sic]" was allowed for the candidate in whose box that verbiage was against even though potentially such an elector could be identified just as per the example given. If there were sufficient marked ballots that is appeared to be organised then they would all be ruled as spoilt. "This ballot from Joe Bloggs 3 Arcadia Mews" clearly spoilt.
The comedy over the England flag and St George is that we ripped them off from somewhere else.
Bring back England's true patron saint - St Edmund!
Was he not shot with arrows by nasty chaps from Denmark?
Defending this great land against the northmen. Unlike George who was poncing around with dragons in Far Far Away
George was an immigrant, working illegally (no paperwork) making native fictional beasts extinct.
Probably chopped down oak trees by Hadrians wall as relaxation.
Re the Hadrian's wall case, I know that legal matters take time, but surely with the mobile phone evidence, could not the trial have lasted about 10 minutes?
English, Muslim, European – and Proud of Every Part of My Identity, writes Sir Sadiq Khan ... Growing up, I wasn’t always comfortable around the St George’s flag.
It was a time when, first, the National Front, and then the BNP were on the march, and it sometimes felt our flag had been co-opted by them.
But for me, everything changed one glorious summer during Euro '96. I’ll never forget watching England dismantle the Dutch 4-1 at Wembley.
It was an exhilarating performance that led to an outpouring of joy and euphoria. And after the final whistle, tens of thousands of us waved the red cross with gusto and embraced while chanting ‘football’s coming home’.
Not a view shared by all on the left. Lady Nugee for one.
Why on earth would it be? It is his personal story of identity.
The view of the England Flag, specifically.
Why would everyones on the lefts view of the England flag have been negative until Shearer and Sheringham scored a couple of goals which flipped it to positive? Some weren't even born then. Others didnt watch it or don't care. Others were positive about the flag long before 1996.
Are you deliberately missing the point or is my posting that bad? Many on the left despise the England flag. That is the point I am making.
Do you know anyone on the left that despises the England flag?
Me.
I'm fine with (indeed I like to see) the English flag at and around big national sporting events. Outside of that I'd rather not see it. It engenders a certain suspicion about the displayers which in my experience usually turns out to be well founded.
Would you say the same about the Scottish or Welsh flags?
Good question. I think if I were Welsh or Scottish I'd still recoil from seeing 'my' flag all over the place. As to the personal characteristics of those doing it, I'm not sure because my experience runs mainly to the English variety.
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
Strangely Lennon’s massive objectionableness (is this a word?) seems to have passed me by. He seemed quite a spiky, angry, sarky bastard, but for me that was largely a positive.
Wife-beater, violent thug, anti-semite, and hypocrite. The only good thing about him was telling his deadbeat father to piss off, when he tried to renew his relationship with the family he'd abandoned, once Lennon became famous.
"anti-semite"? I know it's a low bar on here but i haven't heard that one before
Any place that votes for Reform should be nuked from orbit !
The country doesn’t need the bunch of whining , everything is always someone else’s fault bunch of angry thick voters .
The main satisfaction I draw from Reforms inevitable success is winding up window lickers like you 😂😂😂😂
I’m just saying what many people think.
It’s like during the EU ref a lot of people moaning about all those EU migrants taking the jobs they would never dream of doing .
It’s always some one else’s fault for their crap life .
You seem to be the angry one here.
People in these parts have been let down by many governments of both colours.
It shouldn't be a surprise that they give up voting for more of the same, even if the alternative is not a solution either.
So they’re going to vote for a party who couldn’t give a fig about improving their lives and whose answer to every problem is it’s all the fault of immigration.
Re; John Lennon. My parents used to live in Esher and from time to time they had workmen at their house, who had worked for Lennon, when he lived in Weybridge. I heard plenty of stories of how objectional he was to workmen (Despite him singing about Working Class Hero ) He wouldn't let them used the loo. He stopped his then wife Cynthia from making tea or coffee for them and said they could use the nearest cafe. I heard only nice things about Cynthia.
Minder, series 5, episode 8 can be downstreamed from ITVx for your viewing pleasure.
When Arthur decides to stand as an independent candidate in the local council by-election, his rivals are prepared to try anything to unsteady him. https://www.itv.com/watch/minder/29175/696955
Any place that votes for Reform should be nuked from orbit !
The country doesn’t need the bunch of whining , everything is always someone else’s fault bunch of angry thick voters .
The main satisfaction I draw from Reforms inevitable success is winding up window lickers like you 😂😂😂😂
I’m just saying what many people think.
It’s like during the EU ref a lot of people moaning about all those EU migrants taking the jobs they would never dream of doing .
It’s always some one else’s fault for their crap life .
You seem to be the angry one here.
People in these parts have been let down by many governments of both colours.
It shouldn't be a surprise that they give up voting for more of the same, even if the alternative is not a solution either.
So they’re going to vote for a party who couldn’t give a fig about improving their lives and whose answer to every problem is it’s all the fault of immigration.
The best I've seen was a "NO!" against one name but it was in the box and the only mark on the ballot so it got counted.
I hope it wasn't pivotal, as there's a very strong argument the returning officers shouldn't have allowed it, and I doubt it would survive the election court.
Although I have to say that I think the election courts have gone awry on this and lost sight of the intention of the legislation. Many years ago, there was a very pivotal decision (not only decided a division but also control of I think Dorset County Council at the time). It involved someone putting a smiley face and "yes please!" next to the Lib Dem name. The courts allowed it, handing them the ward.
Now I'm a Lib Dem, so this isn't a partisan point... but legally I don't think they should've allowed it. The purpose of the legislation is to guard against corruption by not enabling a corrupt political campaigner to link an individual to a vote. So if you offer me a tenner to vote for you, that only works if you know I've done it. Leaving aside postal votes which we all know are open to that (and I'd argue should be more limited) you can't realistically do that at the count with a tick or a cross. But you could say "draw a smiley face on the ballot and write 'yes please' so I know it's you").
Courts have long interpreted the law as being whether the casual observer could identify the person casting the ballot (through writing their name) but I really don't think that's the legal intention - the person who needs to be able to identify whether their corrupt inducement has worked it is the politician/campaigner dishing out the bribe.
Seems strange to go to such lengths to prevent politicians bribing individual voters, considering how integral bribery of groups is to the political process.
The problem in this country is people being sold the idea that you can get better public services and not have to pay more for them . The UK still has low taxes compared to most of Europe. So Reform are allegedly going to find loads of cuts to make and yet somehow local services won’t suffer .
Councils have suffered because of governments slashing of central funding , an aging population, more demands for social care etc mean it’s only going to get worse .
What's the PB consensus on who will win the Runcorn by-election? I'm undecided.
It depends whether Runcornians consider themselves Liverpudlians or not. Having John Lennon Airport in a Faragist constituency would surely be an unbearable shame that few Liverpudlians would find tolerable.
Having an airport named after John Lennon is a mark of shame, all of its own.
Why? Liverpool's second most famous son.
He was, but also a piece of shit.
Love the art, not the artist. I have a lovely postcard from 1912 Vienna for sale...
Even for a pop star, John Lennon was objectionable to an extent where it mars my enjoyment of almost anything he's done. See also: Oasis. A pity, because objectively, John's slightly acerbic Beatles songwriting is much more to my taste than the much nicer Paul's straightforward melodic stuff.
That's a myth caused by their contrasting personal brands post the split. The edgy vs soppy Beatles catalogue is evenly split between John and Paul.
Hm. I've just looked up the list of Beatles songs on Wikipedia, and unhelpfully (but probably accurately) it lists the majority of songs as written by both of them. You're probably right. And actually, on reflection, their post-Beatles careers suggests my point is nonsense. "Merry Christmas War is Over" is the most drivelly sanctimonious pap and one of the few Christmas songs guaranteed to make me switch the radio off. In my defence, I'm telling you what my Beatles-loving friend told me to try to convince me that actually I do like John Lennon.
Going back to the airport issue: I lamented at the time Liverpool's decision to name its airport after John Lennon, but at the time I could see why: the other three were still alive, and it's not really on to name an airport after alive people. I had hoped when George Harrison died they would rename it to 'Liverpool Dead Beatles Airport', but alas, no.
Yes they're all credited jointly but most of the stuff in their mid to late 60s creative pomp was by one or the other.
I (rather sadly) know which is which for almost all of them so you can ask me for any you're particularly curious about. If I'm around I'll answer straightaway.
Couple for free off Pepper. Getting Better is Paul, Lucy in the Sky is John.
Great, I'll take advantage of that. Favourite Beatles songs off the top of my head are:
I am the Walrus Hard Day's Night Helter Skelter Come Together Taxman
Strikes me that while I admire them, I don't actually like the Beatles that much (of the 6,000-odd songs on my ipod the number by the Beatles is 0) and I'm struggling now to think of other songs I'd be keen to listen to if they came on right now. I'll add:
Got to get you into my life Day Tripper Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
And finally, while they're not much fun, they're clearly works of absolute genius:
Re; John Lennon. My parents used to live in Esher and from time to time they had workmen at their house, who had worked for Lennon, when he lived in Weybridge. I heard plenty of stories of how objectional he was to workmen (Despite him singing about Working Class Hero ) He wouldn't let them used the loo. He stopped his then wife Cynthia from making tea or coffee for them and said they could use the nearest cafe. I heard only nice things about Cynthia.
So stupid.
I had this Italian guy doing building work for us, a while back.
I gave his some of my espresso. Which he liked. By the end of the first day, he was on about 8 of the them and moving at speed….
The comedy over the England flag and St George is that we ripped them off from somewhere else.
Bring back England's true patron saint - St Edmund!
St Edmund can work for East Anglia, how about St Cuthbert for the North, St Chad for Mercia and St Swithun for Wessex?
St Margaret of Scotland would do. Not only a saint and a generally good egg, she was descended from the Alfred the Great line, the wife of the King of Scotland and her daughter's marriage to Henry I brought the Alfred line back into the English kingship.
Comments
Very easy for white wards to vote Reform, building on decades of resentment for the supposed cash spent in the asian wards. Rochdale, Oldham, Burnley etc have shown their willingness to change their vote to express their anger - BNP, Lab, Con, LD, Galloway etc
Still - being a local councillor with limited power is probably the best way to put off a lot of Reform's more active members
Did once see one where the cock was in one box and the ejaculate was in another box. Rejected...
https://andrewspreviews.substack.com/p/a-bridge-too-far-previewing-the-runcorn
[* I mean a drawing of a penis on a ballot paper, not a counting agent arguing that it must mean a vote for her/his candidate.]
And actually, on reflection, their post-Beatles careers suggests my point is nonsense. "Merry Christmas War is Over" is the most drivelly sanctimonious pap and one of the few Christmas songs guaranteed to make me switch the radio off.
In my defence, I'm telling you what my Beatles-loving friend told me to try to convince me that actually I do like John Lennon.
Going back to the airport issue: I lamented at the time Liverpool's decision to name its airport after John Lennon, but at the time I could see why: the other three were still alive, and it's not really on to name an airport after alive people. I had hoped when George Harrison died they would rename it to 'Liverpool Dead Beatles Airport', but alas, no.
Bring back England's true patron saint - St Edmund!
"Thomas the Tank Engine rolled into the station..."
I (rather sadly) know which is which for almost all of them so you can ask me for any you're particularly curious about. If I'm around I'll answer straightaway.
Couple for free off Pepper. Getting Better is Paul, Lucy in the Sky is John.
Reform's mayoral candidate is a "male model" and "FOREX trading" gym bunny who looks about as bright as that profile suggests and whose main moans so far have been about money spent on cycling and biodiversity.
Ho hum.
Simple fact number 1: 100 years of UK politics largely dominated by the Conservative Party, was always a coalition party between those who saw the UK monarch ruling over one nation, and those who could see just how monarch was ruling over two nations.
Simple fact number 2: there is a big difference between Conservative ideology and right wing populism ideology, it’s people poles apart. Enemies.
Right wing Populism pushes the idea of popular sovereignty above the independence of democratic institutions, and the professionalism of the representatives of those institutions, conservatism does not - Conservatism is the standard bearer for democratic institutions, and the professionalism of the representatives. Populism like Trump and Farage are fascist opportunism, masquerading as values and agenda for government, a crusading ideology pretending it is the voice of all the people, undemocratically deaf to anyone with a different view. They hi jack conservatism and, through their attack on all the counterbalances of power and undermining of professionalism in the civil sector, trash Conservatism.
This bank holiday weekend sees the World Snooker final. Snooker halls have closed down, snooker tables have been removed from pubs by the corporate chains, which makes it hard for new players. World snooker is dominated by three 50-year-old Britons who learned their trade in the last century, and some younger Chinese players because snooker is popular there.
Still, sounds like he will wind the right people up, so all is well.
The country doesn’t need the bunch of whining , everything is always someone else’s fault bunch of angry thick voters .
I really liked Jon Anderson’s work with Vangelis too.
At the Rock N Roll Hall of Fame (Don Henley reckons it should be achievement not fame, he has a point) look at Blondies acceptance. Debbie Harry was steadfastly against any of the classic line up no longer members playing
Although I have to say that I think the election courts have gone awry on this and lost sight of the intention of the legislation. Many years ago, there was a very pivotal decision (not only decided a division but also control of I think Dorset County Council at the time). It involved someone putting a smiley face and "yes please!" next to the Lib Dem name. The courts allowed it, handing them the ward.
Now I'm a Lib Dem, so this isn't a partisan point... but legally I don't think they should've allowed it. The purpose of the legislation is to guard against corruption by not enabling a corrupt political campaigner to link an individual to a vote. So if you offer me a tenner to vote for you, that only works if you know I've done it. Leaving aside postal votes which we all know are open to that (and I'd argue should be more limited) you can't realistically do that at the count with a tick or a cross. But you could say "draw a smiley face on the ballot and write 'yes please' so I know it's you").
Courts have long interpreted the law as being whether the casual observer could identify the person casting the ballot (through writing their name) but I really don't think that's the legal intention - the person who needs to be able to identify whether their corrupt inducement has worked it is the politician/campaigner dishing out the bribe.
I’d back some form of PR even though it would give some more extreme parties more representation .
ETA Copilot AI says: That sounds like Chris Formant! He wrote Bright Midnight, a rock-and-roll murder mystery that delves into the mysterious deaths of famous musicians. Formant himself has been deeply involved in the music world, even serving on the Board of Trustees of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
I wouldn't want to rain on your parade...
I get the argument, but really to swing even a council seat you're going to have to bribe a couple of hundred voters and if there were even half a dozen strange ballots all for the same candidate something odd is happening.
It’s like during the EU ref a lot of people moaning about all those EU migrants taking the jobs they would never dream of doing .
It’s always some one else’s fault for their crap life .
Probably chopped down oak trees by Hadrians wall as relaxation.
People in these parts have been let down by many governments of both colours.
It shouldn't be a surprise that they give up voting for more of the same, even if the alternative is not a solution either.
Runcorn: ReFuk
Hull & EY: ReFuk
Lincs: ReFuk
Most council sets won: ReFuk
Ahead on NEV: ReFuk
Who will be next in line for the scapegoating?
When Arthur decides to stand as an independent candidate in the local council by-election, his rivals are prepared to try anything to unsteady him.
https://www.itv.com/watch/minder/29175/696955
8/1
Nice.
Councils have suffered because of governments slashing of central funding , an aging population, more demands for social care etc mean it’s only going to get worse .
Runcorn and Helsby does not include anything north of the river, the airport is in Liverpool Garston.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/04/30/labour-allows-councils-to-sell-off-school-playing-fields/ (£££)
Labour solves the problem of trans kids in sport. Well done Ange!
I am the Walrus
Hard Day's Night
Helter Skelter
Come Together
Taxman
Strikes me that while I admire them, I don't actually like the Beatles that much (of the 6,000-odd songs on my ipod the number by the Beatles is 0) and I'm struggling now to think of other songs I'd be keen to listen to if they came on right now. I'll add:
Got to get you into my life
Day Tripper
Everybody's got something to hide except for me and my monkey
Sargeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band
And finally, while they're not much fun, they're clearly works of absolute genius:
Eleanor Rigby
A day in the life
How have I done for Lennon/McCartney split?
Otherwise, probably going to stay out of this one.
I had this Italian guy doing building work for us, a while back.
I gave his some of my espresso. Which he liked. By the end of the first day, he was on about 8 of the them and moving at speed….