What’s this betting market going to look like tomorrow afternoon? – politicalbetting.com
I am expecting a very good night for Reform tonight and an equally bad night for the Tories and the market will respond, which might make the Tories and Labour a bit of value if their prices crater.
Sorry if it’s already been done, but what are our benchmarks for a good, meh, bad and disastrous night for each of the parties?
Seems the best the Tories can hope for is “avoided the wipeout some were predicting” and for Labour it’s probably “could have been worse”.
I know the Lib Dems will want to get close to winning the most seats. I think that’s a push given the Reform surge and it will require some Green tactical voting for them which I’m not sure exists at the moment, at council level at least.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Sorry, that’s unfair and no reflection at all on @TSE’s efforts to keep this excellent site running.
I just have so little enthusiasm or even patience with any of our alternatives right now. I am reminded (again) of this magnificent song sang by Joan Baez https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9iYBifsOPI
The last line “My President sang Amazing Grace.”
When did we last have a leader you would call “my”?
I really don't think it's possible to compare the 1920's Labour Party with Reform.
For a start Ramsay Mac wasn't anywhere the ranter that Farage is.
And Labour’s ascendancy was an inevitability from the expansion of the franchise to the working class. The equivalent now would be something like boosting Lib Dems by giving double votes to graduates, or allowing self-identifying Scots in the US to vote in Holyrood elections.
When I was still at school, late 81, used to go most evenings in the week to a mates house and a few of us played snooker all night while listnening to the red and the blue albums.
The progression in the style and the complexity of the songs was marvellous.
BREAKING: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts, multiple sources familiar with the situation tell me. @CBSNews
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
BREAKING: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts, multiple sources familiar with the situation tell me. @CBSNews
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
Those two things aren't necessarily contradictory... time to lump on the Tories for an unexpected 'through the middle' win...
I think the battle for second place overall in terms of council seats is more uncertain . I’m really hoping the Lib Dem’s can push the Tories into 3rd place .
BREAKING: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts, multiple sources familiar with the situation tell me. @CBSNews
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
Sorry, that’s unfair and no reflection at all on @TSE’s efforts to keep this excellent site running.
I just have so little enthusiasm or even patience with any of our alternatives right now. I am reminded (again) of this magnificent song sang by Joan Baez https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9iYBifsOPI
The last line “My President sang Amazing Grace.”
When did we last have a leader you would call “my”?
John Major, his PM broadcast on the eve of Desert Storm, 1991. His closing words 'Goodnight, and God bless'.
If Reform really does look like it will break through, will we see lots of former Tories (and some Labour) stream in as candidates in search of a ministerial post?
I think that’s the point where the Tories vanish isn’t it?
It will get very nasty between Labour and Reform when it sinks in that Labour have lost the native working class. Labour took them for granted for too long and thought that ranting about the Tories and 'our NHS' was good enough.
I have a very different view in that, when Conservatives had Westminster majorities, about half the working class voted for them. And in Conservative defeats, 35-45% of the working class voted Conservative.
If it was Tory’s challenging Labour, the by election would have had a lower turnout. The fact it is Reform challenging will have boosted turnout out. The more educated and well off Tory, Lab, Green and Libdems the voters are, the more likely they are ganging up on Reform out there right now, across the country.
To some extent Reform have a NOTA attraction, but for 70% of regular voters, Farage is responsible for Brexit, and they loath his populist policy offering too. So even as NOTA, Reform from now till it’s disbanded, will always have a glass ceiling and vote inefficiency.
I think I'm right in saying that the only election in modern history which the Tories were ahead of Labour among DE voters was 2019. They were otherwise comfortably ahead even when Thatcher won big majorities by flipping the C2 skilled working class.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
Cui bono?
Reform are expected to win this. The problem for Reform is their voters taking this for granted and not showing up
For Labour the problem is different but similar, they run the risk of Labour voters thinking What's the point, and not showing up
Reform benefit from the voters being told it's close, as do Labour, for opposite reasons
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I remember driving one damp-ish night in, IIRC November 1962, along a road in Oldham and seeing a long, long queue of what seemed to be very young women queueing for the theatre, which in those days was in the middle of the town. Later I discovered that a new band, The Beatles, were performing in the theatre that night. The queue seemed to have been the best part of a mile long!
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
the first one Labour would know about the second one Labour DONT know about sounds good for reform
Why are we talking about politics when the relative merits of the Beatles and their songs are far more important
Well, it's an actual election betting day when there is an actual election so it would be rude not to post the odd missive.
Yes, but there's a time and a place. This is essentially a site for dicussing cheese, popular music, urban transport, the gendering of toilets, the best airlines for Business Class, and biscuits
If we HAVE to discuss politics let's keep it brief and to the point. Perhaps the mods can introduce a rule where politics is allowed between 3-4am, GMT
BREAKING: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts, multiple sources familiar with the situation tell me. @CBSNews
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
Cui bono?
Reform are expected to win this. The problem for Reform is their voters taking this for granted and not showing up
For Labour the problem is different but similar, they run the risk of Labour voters thinking What's the point, and not showing up
Reform benefit from the voters being told it's close, as do Labour, for opposite reasons
In short: mistrust the rumours
IF REFORM voters are angry (and I expect they are) it doesn’t matter how close or not it is, they will turn out.
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
Cui bono?
Reform are expected to win this. The problem for Reform is their voters taking this for granted and not showing up
For Labour the problem is different but similar, they run the risk of Labour voters thinking What's the point, and not showing up
Reform benefit from the voters being told it's close, as do Labour, for opposite reasons
In short: mistrust the rumours
IF REFORM voters are angry (and I expect they are) it doesn’t matter how close or not it is, they will turn out.
Fair. Anger is a much better motivator for voting than, say, contentment or irritation
Shashank Joshi @shashj.bsky.social · 36s CBS reports NSA Mike Waltz & NSC's Alex Wong are leaving. This is bad news for European allies—many have been concerned that Waltz's firing would expand influence of MAGA types. The loss of Wong, who was subject to racist conspiracy theories by Laura Loomer, will also concern China hawks.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
I did not know that Ferrero = Nutella. But it figures. I like neither, but appear to be an outlier in my family.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
Sorry, that’s unfair and no reflection at all on @TSE’s efforts to keep this excellent site running.
I just have so little enthusiasm or even patience with any of our alternatives right now. I am reminded (again) of this magnificent song sang by Joan Baez https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9iYBifsOPI
The last line “My President sang Amazing Grace.”
When did we last have a leader you would call “my”?
John Major, his PM broadcast on the eve of Desert Storm, 1991. His closing words 'Goodnight, and God bless'.
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Why on earth would I vote Labour especially Starmers Labour
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
Both could be true.
I cleave (cleave? is that how you use the word?) to my position that Reform voters are not actually that good at turning out to vote at all. The problem with smash-the-system anger is that it is a very close neighbour of why-even-bother-one-vote-won't-make-a-difference-and-in-any-case-nothing-will-change ennui. Reform voters feel more strongly, but this doesn't translate into being more likely to vote.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
The scapegoats for failure to solve Ukr war on day one?
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
Some people suggest video games (eg GTA V sold 12 million copies in 24 hours, and 10% of UK households had a copy within 5 days), but they still don't have the broad exposure music did back then. We're much more heterogeneous now, so I doubt it will be ever replicated.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Why do people always LURCH to the right? Why can't they swerve, tilt, steer, tack, curve, nudge, shift, bend, ageplay, slutshame, ABDL, snuggle, bukkake, shibari, shunt, nod, anolagnia, move or tit-slap?
"As Reform gain Runcorn, Rory Stewart talks about the Tories tit-slapping to the right, even as the Lib Dems are prostate milked by the Greens"
The English language is a marvellous thing; it saddnes me that we resort to cliches
On topic, lay Reform tomorrow afternoon. The reaction will be massively overdone for a party that is one Farage health event from folding like a Southern belle's fan...
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
Anyone of my kids, that would have been enough to have them bouncing off the walls. We had to be very careful with the Nutella.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
We have to assume The Mad King is going to nominate an even bigger clown as replacement
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Why do people always LURCH to the right? Why can't they swerve, tilt, steer, tack, curve, nudge, shift, bend, ageplay, slutshame, ABDL, snuggle, bukkake, shibari, shunt, nod, anolagnia, move or tit-slap?
"As Reform gain Runcorn, Rory Stewart talks about the Tories tit-slapping to the right, even as the Lib Dems are prostate milked by the Greens"
The English language is a marvellous thing; it saddnes me that we resort to cliches
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
Some people suggest video games (eg GTA V sold 12 million copies in 24 hours, and 10% of UK households had a copy within 5 days), but they still don't have the broad exposure music did back then. We're much more heterogeneous now, so I doubt it will be ever replicated.
As I say, I reckon it's technology. Do you remember the day when they dropped that model? etc
And in future we will look back and think: I was alive at that amazing time
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
Nutella is vegetable oil and sugar, with some flavourings added.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
We have to assume The Mad King is going to nominate an even bigger clown as replacement
Sorry if it’s already been done, but what are our benchmarks for a good, meh, bad and disastrous night for each of the parties?
Seems the best the Tories can hope for is “avoided the wipeout some were predicting” and for Labour it’s probably “could have been worse”.
I know the Lib Dems will want to get close to winning the most seats. I think that’s a push given the Reform surge and it will require some Green tactical voting for them which I’m not sure exists at the moment, at council level at least.
A good night for Reform would be winning most seats (and I think that's likely). A bad night would be trailing the LibDems. A good night for Labour would be holding onto 75% of their seats. A good night for the Greens would be getting close to 100 councillors.
There are no good nights for the Conservatives, because they were at such a high point last time these seats were contested, and they've been mullered since.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
We have to assume The Mad King is going to nominate an even bigger clown as replacement
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
TIming is presumably because Trump didn't want anything to overshadow his "100 Days of Wonders" celebration...
They could have gone at any time in the last three weeks.
When I was still at school, late 81, used to go most evenings in the week to a mates house and a few of us played snooker all night while listnening to the red and the blue albums.
The progression in the style and the complexity of the songs was marvellous.
Always had a soft spot for Norwegian Wood.
Personally, I always find the fact that he torched her place a bit off putting.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
I did not know that Ferrero = Nutella. But it figures. I like neither, but appear to be an outlier in my family.
I didn’t until a fascinating little project years ago when Ferrero were attempting an ill-fated white knight takeover of Cadburys by teaming up with Hersheys (in the end, as we know, Kraft got Cadburys).
I spent a week at their HQ in Alba, during white truffle season. A more Euro multinational it would be hard to find. One key deal meeting was held up by an hour because they were finishing lunch at a local trattoria. The factory in Alba was a protected historic monument.
Nutella is their core, original product. Invented during the war to make use of local Piedmontese hazelnuts as a chocolate substitute while access to West African cocoa was blocked by the allies. Over time it spawned the two partner products: Rocher, and Kinder surprise, with its plastic toy R&D centre deep in Wallonia.
Only Lindt and its immaculately coiffed Swiss master chocolatiers comes close in sheer unadulterated Euro-ness.
Trump initially picked 3 House Republicans to serve in his administration—Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, and Mike Waltz—moves that narrowed the GOP's already tight majority. Two never made it, and the third is on the way out after 100 days.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
The Beatles occurred at a magic time, when technology, fashion, management and societal trends all converged to allow a breakthrough act. They were massively talented, but the timing was perfect.
Those times felt, from a modern perspective, like a relative vacuum. People got their media from the radio, cinema, papers, and for a tiny minority, clubs. Now we have so much more going on, and so many sources of media. We will not have people saying: "Can you remember when the iPhone was released? My God, that was a queue!" Because it is tosserific.
I also wonder if we over-exaggerate the impact. As I've said previously, my parents got married and had two kids in the 1960s. He says he was too busy trying to make money to bother with the swinging sixties or the music scene. Events that we may see as epochal with hindsight may have been pretty much ignored by the majority. It was just a new tune on the radio.
Sorry if it’s already been done, but what are our benchmarks for a good, meh, bad and disastrous night for each of the parties?
Seems the best the Tories can hope for is “avoided the wipeout some were predicting” and for Labour it’s probably “could have been worse”.
I know the Lib Dems will want to get close to winning the most seats. I think that’s a push given the Reform surge and it will require some Green tactical voting for them which I’m not sure exists at the moment, at council level at least.
A good night for Reform would be winning most seats (and I think that's likely). A bad night would be trailing the LibDems. A good night for Labour would be holding onto 75% of their seats. A good night for the Greens would be getting close to 100 councillors.
There are no good nights for the Conservatives, because they were at such a high point last time these seats were contested, and they've been mullered since.
Surely every party has a good night benchmark. For the conservatives I assume we’ll find out by what their media people are putting out there as expectation management. Something short of total wipeout.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
The Beatles occurred at a magic time, when technology, fashion, management and societal trends all converged to allow a breakthrough act. They were massively talented, but the timing was perfect.
Those times felt, from a modern perspective, like a relative vacuum. People got their media from the radio, cinema, papers, and for a tiny minority, clubs. Now we have so much more going on, and so many sources of media. We will not have people saying: "Can you remember when the iPhone was released? My God, that was a queue!" Because it is tosserific.
I also wonder if we over-exaggerate the impact. As I've said previously, my parents got married and had two kids in the 1960s. He says he was too busy trying to make money to bother with the swinging sixties or the music scene. Events that we may see as epochal with hindsight may have been pretty much ignored by the majority. It was just a new tune on the radio.
Exactly what my father said when I asked him about what it was like to be young in such a magical time. As Lennon put it, “ life is what happens when you’re making other plans.”
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Agreed. In the ridiculous scenario of me being a Conservative supporter and (an even more outlandish notion) living in Runcorn I'd be voting Labour in this by-election.
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Why do people always LURCH to the right? Why can't they swerve, tilt, steer, tack, curve, nudge, shift, bend, ageplay, slutshame, ABDL, snuggle, bukkake, shibari, shunt, nod, anolagnia, move or tit-slap?
"As Reform gain Runcorn, Rory Stewart talks about the Tories tit-slapping to the right, even as the Lib Dems are prostate milked by the Greens"
The English language is a marvellous thing; it saddnes me that we resort to cliches
People lurch to the left because it is alliterative, but also because left wingers are typically creatures of action. I expect the lurch to the right is simply a mirror image in the heads of slightly lazy writers.
Though I would suggest the following are better descriptors:
Shuffle to the right (descriptive of voters between the ages of 55 and 65) Creep to the right (to do so while trying not to be spotted doing so) Stumble to the right (to do so without really definitely intending to) Settled to the right (like middle age spread).
Mind you, not all left-wingers are lurchers. I can't imagine @kinabalu got where he is today by lurching, mind. He doesn't strike me as a lurcher. Maybe he strolled to the left. Ambled there. Lounged. Segued.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
The Beatles occurred at a magic time, when technology, fashion, management and societal trends all converged to allow a breakthrough act. They were massively talented, but the timing was perfect.
Those times felt, from a modern perspective, like a relative vacuum. People got their media from the radio, cinema, papers, and for a tiny minority, clubs. Now we have so much more going on, and so many sources of media. We will not have people saying: "Can you remember when the iPhone was released? My God, that was a queue!" Because it is tosserific.
I also wonder if we over-exaggerate the impact. As I've said previously, my parents got married and had two kids in the 1960s. He says he was too busy trying to make money to bother with the swinging sixties or the music scene. Events that we may see as epochal with hindsight may have been pretty much ignored by the majority. It was just a new tune on the radio.
My father definitely experienced it. He grew up on Merseyside, was a regular at the Cavern club, a Liverpool season ticket holder and watched several 1966 World Cup matches including 5:3 Portugal v North Korea epic, and the final at Wembley.
My mother’s teenage photo poses look straight out of Mary Quant, but she didn’t get the same Merseyside experience growing up in Kenilworth and Banbury.
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Agreed. In the ridiculous scenario of me being a Conservative supporter and (if anything an even more outlandish notion) living in Runcorn I'd be voting Labour in this by-election.
Breaking News: Dyed-in-the-wool Labour supporter announces that he would vote......Labour
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
We have to assume The Mad King is going to nominate an even bigger clown as replacement
I expect Congress to confirm them with ease
Maybe not. This is the time to grow a spine.
I think I've spotted a flaw in that argument. We're talking about the Senate Republicans.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
The Beatles occurred at a magic time, when technology, fashion, management and societal trends all converged to allow a breakthrough act. They were massively talented, but the timing was perfect.
Those times felt, from a modern perspective, like a relative vacuum. People got their media from the radio, cinema, papers, and for a tiny minority, clubs. Now we have so much more going on, and so many sources of media. We will not have people saying: "Can you remember when the iPhone was released? My God, that was a queue!" Because it is tosserific.
I also wonder if we over-exaggerate the impact. As I've said previously, my parents got married and had two kids in the 1960s. He says he was too busy trying to make money to bother with the swinging sixties or the music scene. Events that we may see as epochal with hindsight may have been pretty much ignored by the majority. It was just a new tune on the radio.
I am listening to Andrew Hickey's excellent "A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs". I'm on episode 20. Only 80 to go to get to The Beatles.
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
If your aim is to support the Tories against Reform, I might tentatively suggest that you vote Tory.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
Is Alex Wong going to be replaced by Alex Wright?
...and Mike Walz is being asked to dance to a different tune
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
I did not know that Ferrero = Nutella. But it figures. I like neither, but appear to be an outlier in my family.
I didn’t until a fascinating little project years ago when Ferrero were attempting an ill-fated white knight takeover of Cadburys by teaming up with Hersheys (in the end, as we know, Kraft got Cadburys).
I spent a week at their HQ in Alba, during white truffle season. A more Euro multinational it would be hard to find. One key deal meeting was held up by an hour because they were finishing lunch at a local trattoria. The factory in Alba was a protected historic monument.
Nutella is their core, original product. Invented during the war to make use of local Piedmontese hazelnuts as a chocolate substitute while access to West African cocoa was blocked by the allies. Over time it spawned the two partner products: Rocher, and Kinder surprise, with its plastic toy R&D centre deep in Wallonia.
Only Lindt and its immaculately coiffed Swiss master chocolatiers comes close in sheer unadulterated Euro-ness.
I used to shoot most of their German commercials which I believe was their biggest customer. They used to joke that the creatives first line was ....'open on desert island' but with Ferrero they actually did. Here's one from Maui....
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I envy kids who were pop music fans in about 1965 or 1967 (or indeed several years of the 70s)
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
The Beatles occurred at a magic time, when technology, fashion, management and societal trends all converged to allow a breakthrough act. They were massively talented, but the timing was perfect.
Those times felt, from a modern perspective, like a relative vacuum. People got their media from the radio, cinema, papers, and for a tiny minority, clubs. Now we have so much more going on, and so many sources of media. We will not have people saying: "Can you remember when the iPhone was released? My God, that was a queue!" Because it is tosserific.
I also wonder if we over-exaggerate the impact. As I've said previously, my parents got married and had two kids in the 1960s. He says he was too busy trying to make money to bother with the swinging sixties or the music scene. Events that we may see as epochal with hindsight may have been pretty much ignored by the majority. It was just a new tune on the radio.
My father definitely experienced it. He grew up on Merseyside, was a regular at the Cavern club, a Liverpool season ticket holder and watched several 1966 World Cup matches including 5:3 Portugal v North Korea epic, and the final at Wembley.
My mother’s teenage photo poses look straight out of Mary Quant, but she didn’t get the same Merseyside experience growing up in Kenilworth and Banbury.
I'm with JJ on this. Famously, each decade for most people was actually like the popular image of the one before. My Dad grew up in suburban Manchester in the 60s, but his main cultural touchpoint was folk music. (He was at the infamous Bob Dylan gig at the Free Trade Hall, but doesn't remember any heckling). He also watched the extra time of the 1966 world cup through a window of a TV shop in Keswick, because he'd been out for a day on the fells. Not everyone bought fully into what would later be accepted as mainstream.
I now think Labour will scrape home in the Runcorn by election and the Tories, while seeing significant losses of councillors, will still narrowly win most council seats tomorrow (helped by the cancelled local elections in Reform heavy areas like Essex and Norfolk to make way for unitaries).
To some extent the pressure is on Farage, all the media hype is for Reform to win Runcorn and a thumping win for Reform in the local elections too and for both Sir Keir and Kemi to be humiliated. So if they fail to do that it might be hamper their momentum
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
Is Alex Wong going to be replaced by Alex Wright?
Wight, surely?
If your surname was Wight, would you name your daughter Isla?
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
Is Alex Wong going to be replaced by Alex Wright?
Wight, surely?
If your surname was Wight, would you name your daughter Isla?
I’d vote Tory to keep Reform out . Needs must . It would be painful but I’d have to do it !
If the Cameron Tory voters want their party to not sink without trace then that’s what they have to do .
As a "Cameron Tory" (well more Ken Clark Tory) I noticed that the old party I used to belong to sank when the big fat Clown took the helm. I will prob reluctantly vote Tory today to vote against the Faragist/crypto-fascists of Re-fuk and against this god-awful anti-business, anti-rural government of charlatans and incompetents.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
As I've been saying, Trump's administration will be unrecognisable by the year end.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
Is Alex Wong going to be replaced by Alex Wright?
Wight, surely?
If your surname was Wight, would you name your daughter Isla?
“Waltz hired aides that his critics said didn’t appeal to Trump’s MAGA base and struggled to relay the president’s national security priorities on television—once seen as the former Florida congressman’s strength.”
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
Nutella is vegetable oil and sugar, with some flavourings added.
Quite a few things are less appealing if you separate them into ingredients- e.g. https://xkcd.com/1616/
(I'm no Nutella fan, but I am a sucker for good dark chocolate, including on toast. My kids are chocolate spread fans - interestingly it's one of those things where the supermarket own-brand stuff can contain more nuts, more cocoa and less sugar and salt, maybe due to the supermarkets subscribing to the traffic light nutrition labelling and making more effort on that.)
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Why do people always LURCH to the right? Why can't they swerve, tilt, steer, tack, curve, nudge, shift, bend, ageplay, slutshame, ABDL, snuggle, bukkake, shibari, shunt, nod, anolagnia, move or tit-slap?
"As Reform gain Runcorn, Rory Stewart talks about the Tories tit-slapping to the right, even as the Lib Dems are prostate milked by the Greens"
The English language is a marvellous thing; it saddnes me that we resort to cliches
People lurch to the left because it is alliterative, but also because left wingers are typically creatures of action. I expect the lurch to the right is simply a mirror image in the heads of slightly lazy writers.
Though I would suggest the following are better descriptors:
Shuffle to the right (descriptive of voters between the ages of 55 and 65) Creep to the right (to do so while trying not to be spotted doing so) Stumble to the right (to do so without really definitely intending to) Settled to the right (like middle age spread).
Mind you, not all left-wingers are lurchers. I can't imagine @kinabalu got where he is today by lurching, mind. He doesn't strike me as a lurcher. Maybe he strolled to the left. Ambled there. Lounged. Segued.
No, I don't lurch. As I think I've said before, I have two distinct ways of walking. Feet pointing in, pigeon style, or outwards and flat like a penguin. The first is for when my mood is springy and creative, the second for when I'm feeling taciturn and grounded. I don't have to dwell on it, deciding each time I go out which one to do, it happens naturally. Indeed my walk tells me what frame of mind I'm in, and it's often a surprise to me.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I’ve heard contradictory things from two different sources.
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
Both could be true.
I cleave (cleave? is that how you use the word?) to my position that Reform voters are not actually that good at turning out to vote at all. The problem with smash-the-system anger is that it is a very close neighbour of why-even-bother-one-vote-won't-make-a-difference-and-in-any-case-nothing-will-change ennui. Reform voters feel more strongly, but this doesn't translate into being more likely to vote.
Thing with that sort of vote is it doesn't turn out if the cause is hopeless. What's the point of voting Reform in Bootle? But then when those same people think their vote might actually change something, they suddenly show up and vote.
I think I've mentioned before one of the welders at a place I used to work. Never voted in his life. Only known interests are beer, sex and football (not necessarily in that order). Come 2016 he went to the trouble of registering to vote, so he could vote out in the EU ref. I suspect he voted either Tory or Brexit in 2019 too.
All the while the Reform polling/news cycle make it look somewhere between impossible and unlikely for them to win anything, why would he vote. Easier to go to the pub, his vote is useless anyway.
As Reform top the polling, and as all the political news is that it's a tight race, he might well be up for a bit of "my-vote-might-just-be-the-one-to-smash-the-system". We're not in Runcorn, but if we were I reckon it's at least 50-50 he'd bother to vote today, and if he did I reckon it would be nailed on for Reform.
My Mam and Dad could only afford to see one of the up-and-coming acts in Wigan. Beatles, Stones or Cliff Richard. Guess which one they chose?
Suspect it was my Dad. Mam later saw Johnny Cash at Preston Guild Hall without him. Which is awesome.
It feels like the smaller towns and cities got a lot more gigs in those days. You mention Preston, OKC mentions the Beatles in Oldham. Cheadle Hulme used to get a lot of gigs in the 60s. The only real modern equivalent I can think of is Buckley, which punches above its weight.
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
Nutella is vegetable oil and sugar, with some flavourings added.
Quite a few things are less appealing if you separate them into ingredients- e.g. https://xkcd.com/1616/
(I'm no Nutella fan, but I am a sucker for good dark chocolate, including on toast. My kids are chocolate spread fans - interestingly it's one of those things where the supermarket own-brand stuff can contain more nuts, more cocoa and less sugar and salt, maybe due to the supermarkets subscribing to the traffic light nutrition labelling and making more effort on that.)
Love the smell of Nutella. Always reminds me of skiing holidays in French Alps.
I think the battle for second place overall in terms of council seats is more uncertain . I’m really hoping the Lib Dem’s can push the Tories into 3rd place .
Unlikely, of the 23 local councils up for election today the LDs are only likely to beat the Tories in Cambridgeshire, Cornwall, Gloucestershire, Oxfordshire and Shropshire.
Labour may not win most seats or a majority on a single one of those councils, losing Doncaster and their part in the Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire administrations
I'm just gonna drop this story right here -- where me & @DashaBurns reported OVER A MONTH AGO that the plan right after Signalgate, was to fire Michael Waltz -- but at a later date...
Why? Bc Trump didn't want the libs & the media to win the news cycle.
FROM THE STORY:
"The two allies have heard some administration officials are just waiting for the right time to let him go, eager to be free of the newscycle before making changes.
One of them offered this prediction: “They’ll stick by him for now, but he’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.”
You can still get Lab at 3.75 on Skybet, if you fancy it.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
Now you’ve done pop music it’s time for sugary chocolate spreads.
I’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
I now think Labour will scrape home in the Runcorn by election and the Tories, while seeing significant losses of councillors, will still narrowly win most council seats tomorrow (helped by the cancelled local elections in Reform heavy areas like Essex and Norfolk to make way for unitaries).
To some extent the pressure is on Farage, all the media hype is for Reform to win Runcorn and a thumping win for Reform in the local elections too and for both Sir Keir and Kemi to be humiliated. So if they fail to do that it might be hamper their momentum
I don’t know about Runcorn but Reform certainly are the most at risk party here as everyone else has minimal, or achievable, expectation.
Reform don't have candidates everywhere. How much will that suppress their vote and where will Reform voters put their cross when they find out they can't vote for Reform?
If you’re a more Cameron type Tory then you really need to be voting for Labour in the by election otherwise you end up boosting Reform and the Tories will feel they need to lurch even further to the right .
Why do people always LURCH to the right? Why can't they swerve, tilt, steer, tack, curve, nudge, shift, bend, ageplay, slutshame, ABDL, snuggle, bukkake, shibari, shunt, nod, anolagnia, move or tit-slap?
"As Reform gain Runcorn, Rory Stewart talks about the Tories tit-slapping to the right, even as the Lib Dems are prostate milked by the Greens"
The English language is a marvellous thing; it saddnes me that we resort to cliches
People lurch to the left because it is alliterative, but also because left wingers are typically creatures of action. I expect the lurch to the right is simply a mirror image in the heads of slightly lazy writers.
Though I would suggest the following are better descriptors:
Shuffle to the right (descriptive of voters between the ages of 55 and 65) Creep to the right (to do so while trying not to be spotted doing so) Stumble to the right (to do so without really definitely intending to) Settled to the right (like middle age spread).
Mind you, not all left-wingers are lurchers. I can't imagine @kinabalu got where he is today by lurching, mind. He doesn't strike me as a lurcher. Maybe he strolled to the left. Ambled there. Lounged. Segued.
No, I don't lurch. As I think I've said before, I have two distinct ways of walking. Feet pointing in, pigeon style, or outwards and flat like a penguin. The first is for when my mood is springy and creative, the second for when I'm feeling taciturn and grounded. I don't have to dwell on it, deciding each time I go out which one to do, it happens naturally. Indeed my walk tells me what frame of mind I'm in, and it's often a surprise to me.
As you are a champagne socialist I suspect you "lunch to the left"
Comments
Seems the best the Tories can hope for is “avoided the wipeout some were predicting” and for Labour it’s probably “could have been worse”.
I know the Lib Dems will want to get close to winning the most seats. I think that’s a push given the Reform surge and it will require some Green tactical voting for them which I’m not sure exists at the moment, at council level at least.
For a start Ramsay Mac wasn't anywhere the ranter that Farage is.
Congratulations by the way to pb (and indeed the Beatles) for reaching a happy consensus on the previous thread that the Beatles were good at pop music. For a site which can figuratively come to blows over how good packet rice is or the desirability of sunny weather, this is no mean feat.
I just have so little enthusiasm or even patience with any of our alternatives right now.
I am reminded (again) of this magnificent song sang by Joan Baez
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m9iYBifsOPI
The last line “My President sang Amazing Grace.”
When did we last have a leader you would call “my”?
The progression in the style and the complexity of the songs was marvellous.
Always had a soft spot for Norwegian Wood.
@JenniferJJacobs
BREAKING: National Security Adviser Mike Waltz and his deputy, Alex Wong, will be leaving their posts, multiple sources familiar with the situation tell me.
@CBSNews
https://x.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1917952746063269920
1) The Labour support is splintering in several directions
And
2) Canvassing isn’t anywhere near where Reform want it to be.
"Hey there's a new Beatles album out next week" - turns out to be Sergeant Pepper, or Revolver, or Abbey Road
Immortally brilliant music, being made in real time, in your life, and you get to hear it first as you drop the stylus in the groove
What's the equivalent now? Do we even have one? Not just in music, but in anything?
Probably it is technology
I lose track of these clowns.
rimming sessioncabinet meetingI’ve just had breakfast at a “Nutella cafe”. Yes, Ferrero have decided to emulate Apple, Lego and Nespresso and open their own flagship stores to showcase the product.
But does the existence of Nutella add or subtract from the sum of global human happiness? I remain on the fence after my “Nutella Danish” which just injected 500g of concentrated sucrose into my blood stream.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAX9yuvwBx4
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/how-britain-voted-october-1974
Reform are expected to win this. The problem for Reform is their voters taking this for granted and not showing up
For Labour the problem is different but similar, they run the risk of Labour voters thinking What's the point, and not showing up
Reform benefit from the voters being told it's close, as do Labour, for opposite reasons
In short: mistrust the rumours
Later I discovered that a new band, The Beatles, were performing in the theatre that night.
The queue seemed to have been the best part of a mile long!
sounds good for reform
If we HAVE to discuss politics let's keep it brief and to the point. Perhaps the mods can introduce a rule where politics is allowed between 3-4am, GMT
Shashank Joshi
@shashj.bsky.social
· 36s
CBS reports NSA Mike Waltz & NSC's Alex Wong are leaving. This is bad news for European allies—many have been concerned that Waltz's firing would expand influence of MAGA types. The loss of Wong, who was subject to racist conspiracy theories by Laura Loomer, will also concern China hawks.
BREAKING: National Security Advisor Mike Waltz is out, along with his deputy Alex Wong. Additional names likely to come. Expect to hear from POTUS on this soon, I’m told.
I would stay loyal and vote conservative
I cleave (cleave? is that how you use the word?) to my position that Reform voters are not actually that good at turning out to vote at all. The problem with smash-the-system anger is that it is a very close neighbour of why-even-bother-one-vote-won't-make-a-difference-and-in-any-case-nothing-will-change ennui. Reform voters feel more strongly, but this doesn't translate into being more likely to vote.
Still think he will be the first to resign rather than fired.
It's etiher an abject failure by Congress in confirming their appointments - or a master class in allowing Trump's amateursim to be so brutally exposed as soon as his Clown Troupe were given a simple task to perform.
"As Reform gain Runcorn, Rory Stewart talks about the Tories tit-slapping to the right, even as the Lib Dems are prostate milked by the Greens"
The English language is a marvellous thing; it saddnes me that we resort to cliches
I expect Congress to confirm them with ease
And in future we will look back and think: I was alive at that amazing time
Anthony Scaramucci
@Scaramucci
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12m
Waltz lasts 9.2 Scaramuccis
There are no good nights for the Conservatives, because they were at such a high point last time these seats were contested, and they've been mullered since.
They could have gone at any time in the last three weeks.
I wonder if Hegseth is hitting the bourbon yet?
Oh to be a member of Pete Hegseth's group chat right now.
I spent a week at their HQ in Alba, during white truffle season. A more Euro multinational it would be hard to find. One key deal meeting was held up by an hour because they were finishing lunch at a local trattoria. The factory in Alba was a protected historic monument.
Nutella is their core, original product. Invented during the war to make use of local Piedmontese hazelnuts as a chocolate substitute while access to West African cocoa was blocked by the allies. Over time it spawned the two partner products: Rocher, and Kinder surprise, with its plastic toy R&D centre deep in Wallonia.
Only Lindt and its immaculately coiffed Swiss master chocolatiers comes close in sheer unadulterated Euro-ness.
Trump initially picked 3 House Republicans to serve in his administration—Matt Gaetz, Elise Stefanik, and Mike Waltz—moves that narrowed the GOP's already tight majority. Two never made it, and the third is on the way out after 100 days.
https://x.com/russellberman/status/1917959832356745634
Those times felt, from a modern perspective, like a relative vacuum. People got their media from the radio, cinema, papers, and for a tiny minority, clubs. Now we have so much more going on, and so many sources of media. We will not have people saying: "Can you remember when the iPhone was released? My God, that was a queue!" Because it is tosserific.
I also wonder if we over-exaggerate the impact. As I've said previously, my parents got married and had two kids in the 1960s. He says he was too busy trying to make money to bother with the swinging sixties or the music scene. Events that we may see as epochal with hindsight may have been pretty much ignored by the majority. It was just a new tune on the radio.
Mike Waltz was on Fox & Friends just hours before his firing slathering praise on Trump and Pete Hegseth
https://bsky.app/profile/atrupar.com/post/3lo4m5thty42e
Though I would suggest the following are better descriptors:
Shuffle to the right (descriptive of voters between the ages of 55 and 65)
Creep to the right (to do so while trying not to be spotted doing so)
Stumble to the right (to do so without really definitely intending to)
Settled to the right (like middle age spread).
Mind you, not all left-wingers are lurchers. I can't imagine @kinabalu got where he is today by lurching, mind. He doesn't strike me as a lurcher. Maybe he strolled to the left. Ambled there. Lounged. Segued.
My mother’s teenage photo poses look straight out of Mary Quant, but she didn’t get the same Merseyside experience growing up in Kenilworth and Banbury.
"Ms Caterham was born on 21 August 1909 and is the last surviving subject of Edward VII.
Celebrating her 115th birthday in August 2024, she said she "didn't know why there was all the fuss".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwy0zxzpdd4o
If the Cameron Tory voters want their party to not sink without trace then that’s what they have to do .
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDLGlvOav6M
My Dad grew up in suburban Manchester in the 60s, but his main cultural touchpoint was folk music. (He was at the infamous Bob Dylan gig at the Free Trade Hall, but doesn't remember any heckling).
He also watched the extra time of the 1966 world cup through a window of a TV shop in Keswick, because he'd been out for a day on the fells. Not everyone bought fully into what would later be accepted as mainstream.
Guess which one they chose?
Suspect it was my Dad. Mam later saw Johnny Cash at Preston Guild Hall without him.
Which is awesome.
To some extent the pressure is on Farage, all the media hype is for Reform to win Runcorn and a thumping win for Reform in the local elections too and for both Sir Keir and Kemi to be humiliated. So if they fail to do that it might be hamper their momentum
Things have to come to a sorry pass when one of our chief Anglophiles dgaf though.
https://bsky.app/profile/fritschner.bsky.social/post/3lo4lvcjsms2i
“Waltz hired aides that his critics said didn’t appeal to Trump’s MAGA base and struggled to relay the president’s national security priorities on television—once seen as the former Florida congressman’s strength.”
https://x.com/VeraMBergen/status/1917960113618321810
(I'm no Nutella fan, but I am a sucker for good dark chocolate, including on toast. My kids are chocolate spread fans - interestingly it's one of those things where the supermarket own-brand stuff can contain more nuts, more cocoa and less sugar and salt, maybe due to the supermarkets subscribing to the traffic light nutrition labelling and making more effort on that.)
I think I've mentioned before one of the welders at a place I used to work. Never voted in his life. Only known interests are beer, sex and football (not necessarily in that order). Come 2016 he went to the trouble of registering to vote, so he could vote out in the EU ref. I suspect he voted either Tory or Brexit in 2019 too.
All the while the Reform polling/news cycle make it look somewhere between impossible and unlikely for them to win anything, why would he vote. Easier to go to the pub, his vote is useless anyway.
As Reform top the polling, and as all the political news is that it's a tight race, he might well be up for a bit of "my-vote-might-just-be-the-one-to-smash-the-system". We're not in Runcorn, but if we were I reckon it's at least 50-50 he'd bother to vote today, and if he did I reckon it would be nailed on for Reform.
The only real modern equivalent I can think of is Buckley, which punches above its weight.
Bugger.
Labour may not win most seats or a majority on a single one of those councils, losing Doncaster and their part in the Cambridgeshire and Oxfordshire administrations
On WALTZ news...
I'm just gonna drop this story right here -- where me &
@DashaBurns
reported OVER A MONTH AGO that the plan right after Signalgate, was to fire Michael Waltz -- but at a later date...
Why? Bc Trump didn't want the libs & the media to win the news cycle.
FROM THE STORY:
"The two allies have heard some administration officials are just waiting for the right time to let him go, eager to be free of the newscycle before making changes.
One of them offered this prediction: “They’ll stick by him for now, but he’ll be gone in a couple of weeks.”
https://x.com/rachaelmbade/status/1917962465238753338
https://www.mms.com/en-gb/explore/mms-stores/london