In February 2025 Trump had a 99% approval rating – politicalbetting.com
In February 2025 Trump had a 99% approval rating – politicalbetting.com
In light of polls showing him as the most unpopular president at the 100-day mark in 80 years, Trump this morning shared a CPAC poll from February that says he has 99% approval. Desperate stuff
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Chris Philp says Nigel Farage's spending plans are "Liz Truss on steroids".
The only snag is he was No2 in the Treasury in her government and gave the mini-Budget "9.5 out of 10".
https://x.com/KevinASchofield/status/1921817523474858254
https://metro.co.uk/2023/11/29/kim-jong-uns-grip-power-peril-just-99-91-voted-19894332/
Only potential problem for Trump is the Bond market.
https://x.com/libdems/status/1921520912571978231?s=61
I understand Starmer is about to do his best Farage impression at a press conference at 8.30am
I agree with Sam Coates who says Starmer's problem is that while he chases Reform votes he actually is running a greater risk of Labour supporters defecting to the Lib Dems and Greens and he cannot outdo Farage on this subject
Coates also says Starmer will not confirm a cap on numbers and will be asked ad infinitum why
Their "official" poll for Trump's Approval among US Registered Voters is currently 48% approval, 52% disapproval. In February 2025, they had a poll of US Likely Voters which had Trump at 51% approval, 46% disappoval.
I think the poll that Trump has posted could have been a special poll of CPAC Attendees. They would, of course, have given Trump 99% approval. It would be like doing a poll of Xi's approval among the attendees of the Communist Party Congress.
https://www.natesilver.net/p/trump-approval-ratings-nate-silver-bulletin
As for the cap, you'd hope that journalists would have learnt after the last 14 years that having a cap means nothing. That haven't of course.
Smashing the gangs, even if it were operationally viable, is self-evidently not going to be enough.
What’s needed is someone with the political vision, will and empathy to instinctively grasp the concern of working people over the ongoing migrant influx.
Someone who is prepared to introduce immigration policies that are not liberal, but are – on the contrary – overtly illiberal.
Someone prepared to confront with passion and energy the human-rights industry that is itself profiting from the trafficking in human misery.
Keir Starmer is not that man. And everyone knows it.
By pretending the Government’s new White Paper is the answer to the immigration crisis, the Prime Minister is taking the British people for fools. And in the process, he is trying to fool himself.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-14700843/DAN-HODGES-biggest-problem-PM-doesnt-want-stop-boats.html
Things that make you go "Hmmmm......".
Starmer's problem, as ever, is that he is a crummy communicator. So are most of his front bench.
https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/scotland/2025/05/the-snp-has-reinvented-itself-yet-again
The interesting thing to me is that the presumably SNP-aligned anonymous pollster is admitting that people aren't "particularly impressed by the SNP either". And also admitting that he's finding significant support for Reform in his focus groups.
If Scottish voters are really angry at Labour & not impressed with nearly two decades of SNP rule, then they could turn to Reform in significant numbers.
Otherwise we are 4 years away from the GE.
But Trump having 99% approval rating in February makes his fall to the mid to low 40s since the most calamitous collapse in history.
Are our bots getting offended by getting so regularly banned?
@SpencerHakimian
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42m
*BESSENT SAYS NEITHER US NOR CHINA WANT TO DECOUPLE
This pretend trade war is over.
Just going to be background noise for the next 3.5 years.
A pointless gimmick.
But at least it’s over.
https://x.com/SpencerHakimian
With the data they have provided it could be “members of the Trump family”. Although I suspect their disapproval rate would have been higher…
But it illustrates the glaring difficulty of not having a plan, and not leading on issues.
@DPJHodges
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7m
Strong, powerful speech from Keir Starmer. And a speech that is politically insane. None of the measures announced today can possibly match the rhetoric. Every single small boat that arrives and every new migrant that arrives will be set against these words. Madness.
Immigration is going to fall due to the reforms of the last government and Starmer’s going to get the credit.
The public don’t do post hoc ergo proptor hoc..
I've barely got out of bed but alarm clock Britain, who this is aimed at, will have been at work for an hour at least already surely?
Maybe it's to hit the morning talk radio phone-in shows?
A reminder of what he said he believed when he was running for Labour leader.
https://x.com/adambienkov/status/1921836260097658901?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
However, are we so sure that this "poll fixing" is not a feature in Britain too? By which I do not mean to question the methodology of the pollsters, which we definitely should do in the US- this example is only the most egregious-but rather how even independent polls could be manipulated by inside information as to where and how the polls get taken.
Polls have acquired a dangerous significance in our system: with alleged popularity taking precedence over principles, and we have certainly seen that political decision taking is often based on polls alone. I can not be alone in finding this uncomfortable- good policy is subordinated to poll driven political expediency. Certainly it is not beyond the subversion teams of Russia to put out talking points through allied or "useful idiot" media and then back this up with manipulated poll findings. Indeed I would be surprised if this had *not* happened. Therefore I tend to be a bit more sceptical on polls in general. After all, even with the best will in the world, they can often be wildly out of line with the real world results.
Meanwhile, more and more desperate people will die beneath the cold waters of the Channel. And the social fabric of the nation will continue to be rent asunder as another establishment politician’s promise turns to dust.
...
An economic strategy that doesn’t rely on the failed model of globalisation that has seen hundreds of thousands of those workers thrown to the wolves. Instead, the people of Britain must brace themselves for another stab in the back.
Do Mr Hodges and the Mail have a alternative economic strategy?
https://x.com/jackelsom/status/1921831425424175562?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Shows how far the public has moved - and how late the political class has been to waking up to it - that just a year or two ago any minister using the phrase “island of strangers” would be accused of being racist, a throwback, fascist etc… with Labour MPs hurling the insults.
https://x.com/mrharrycole/status/1921832289094283546?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Better than giving them a red carpet welcome and putting them up in hotels for months on end.
1 - The 6-8 week delay on the impacts of Trump's "choke off China trade" tariffs causing goods not to arrive (plus there are stockpiles, and warhouses in the USA are full.) Trump's China tariffs went to 145% in April week 2. We don't know the impact yet.
2 - The impact when that hits the US consumer.
3 - President Chump's belief in tariffs is what we could call theological, in political parlance.
4 - He has a couple of weeks to resolve it, and is currently backing off in stages. But everything is a random walk.
Their lived experience right now is of watching a continuous & increasing stream of boats crossing the Channel, with the boat arrivals then being put up in hotels.
The Dan Hodges article mentions that boat arrivals are up 40% year-on-year. This trend of exponential growth will continue as long as the people thinking of crossing feel that there is some chance that they will be granted a refugee visa.
It doesn't matter if Starmer slightly tightens the rules, and now 40% will be accepted instead of 60%. As long as people have a significantly higher than non-zero chance of being given a refugee visa then they will gamble on making a crossing.
And so, Starmer can point at official migration statistics as much as he wants. It won't do him any good as long people can see a stream of boat arrivals on their TV screens.
A fall in the rate of inflation did no favours for Sunak as prices were still high and rising, even if they were rising at a slower rate.
How many people who are concerned by the number of immigrants in the country are going to be grateful that they're still increasing, but at a slower rate?
I seem to be able to access the thread through the primary site.
A $564m cargo ended up with $416m of tariffs on it, much imposed whilst it was in transit.
https://youtu.be/nogrwLsbh6U?t=734
I expect the scheme will end up being only for 1 year which means it won’t end up in the immigration figures . Also rumours that the UK might go back into the Erasmus scheme.
It’s possible that the UK might go further with the trade aspects of the EU reset as this would help growth which gets calculated in the ONS forecasts and help Reeves .
Its a bad idea, we should be seeking to attract, net, high-skilled migrants (not unskilled ones) - but its absolutely workable.
easygoing48
@easygoing48
54m
UK Special Forces committed war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan.
"They handcuffed a young boy and shot him," recalled one veteran who served with the SAS in Afghanistan. "He was clearly a child, not even close to fighting age."
David Cameron was aware.
https://x.com/easygoing48/status/1921831704622236005
Britons have been feeling progressively more positive about the economy for almost two years now, but at no point did that feed into an increase in support for the government.
Voters had already made their mind up for the reasons shown below.
https://x.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1811369479231721634?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
The problem with immigration isn't immigration, it's the immigrants (or some of them). We all know this, we don't say it out loud because we don't want to be called names but that's the fundamental issue.
People like People like Themselves - once you get that, social, cultural and immigration politics falls into place. It cuts across economic politics which doesn't care about any of that and sees people as drones and that's the battleground between those who prefer if not a uniculturalist Britain then a Britain in which they feel comfortable and those for whom economic growth is the prerequisite for prosperity and are if not blind to then indifferent to the social and cultural impact of unrestricted immigration.
Trying to square that circle is at the core of modern politics - if you can get some of the nine million economically inactive into work perhaps you can generate growth but that also means making work economically advantageous or at the very least not making it disadvantageous and that in turn means taking a long hard work at the tax and benefit system but also incentivising or cajoling firms to employ carers or those with long term physical and mental disabilities.
That's the "internal" solution - the "external" solution is about importing more labour to fill shortages and generate more wealth. The quick and dirty response (arguably) is the latter - the former means doing the hard yards but is probably more sustainable in the medium and longer term.
Rather, their experience of boat crossings is vicarious: it's from the media and social media. Those coming over in boats are convenient scapegoats for whatever they are unhappy about.
Official government statistics will be reported in the media and have some penetration on social media, so they can have some impact.
20 years too late, but hey ho.
Quite how that’s the fault of SKS and Labour I don’t know.
So France is a failed state, with oil.
We all know how that one goes, don't we, children?
*Despite the sexualised desires of some, the UK has consistently treated the boat people well. Including huge orders of pizza when they are taken off the boats that have rescued them. That some of the pizza has a certain topping....
What is your lived experience of people who came over in small boats?
Immigrants don't just add supply to the labour market, they add demand too. They don't have as much demand for dependencies as not typically retired (but may have/breed kids), but do increase demand for infrastructure, so its roughly balances.
All it does is ensure that firms can today fill a vacancy at a lower wage, but since demand goes up it just creates new vacancies and the circle continues. If it were possible to 'fill' vacancies with migration we'd have done it already, but its not possible.
The only thing that can make supply and demand balance is prices adjusting. If there's too many job vacancies then wages are too low - increase them, and let inefficient ones die unfilled. Productivity rises, and we reach equilibrium.
Your analogy holds, though, as far as it goes.
I've made those numbers up, but that's what it feels like, so people are understandably frustrated when they hear the cost of living crisis is abating.
Not for them.
The public don't understand second order derivatives and don't care to - but then again the politicians aren't much better, see talk on deficit/debt.
If net migration is still going up by hundreds of thousands per annum then I doubt many who are bothered by migration are going to say "yay, its going up at a slower rate, well done Starmer!"
People won't cross by boat, if they know they have zero chance of getting to stay in their destination country.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czel3ry9x1do
It's in the nature of government to keep avoiding this fact. Take social care for example, now hanging fire since Dilnot in 2013. Policy on this is ultimately for government. No-one else has the power to do so. What have they done? Put it out for consultation, 12 years after Dilnot, to report in 2028 and, crucially, they stop mentioning it and hope we will do the same. That is the opposite of proper government.
https://x.com/Jabaluck/status/1921728990454165898
It's not a bad take, but misses a few points.
It fails to note that U.S. generic prices (which are about 90% of prescriptions) are actually lower than European prices.
If Trump is saying that generic prices have to come down to the lowest levels available in Africa, then several things will happen.
First, African countries will lose most the special (effectively subsidised) deals they get on cheap generics; manufacturers will simply raise their cheapest prices. Coming on top of the halt in USAID, that will have devastating effects.
Secondly, it will further increase the market share of the very lowest cost producers - China and India.
Who will probably be tariffed on what they ship to the US.
People won't cross by boat, if they know they have zero chance of getting to stay in their destination country.
REPLY:
That's not what @SandyRentool was suggesting and I was responding to Sandy's suggestion.
As we have discussed many, many times, the Australian situation is rather different to the UK's: a longer sea crossing, so you have more time to intercept boats and can do so in international waters; some nearby places willing to take people for money, or a convenient offshore island you control; lower numbers. Moreover, Australia did not do the equivalent of "tak[ing] them back to France".
Venison as well, probably.