Supporting @Leon on post #3 was probably the nail in the coffin though 😉
Seriously, why do these trolls *always* big up Leon? If I was constantly getting glazed by paid Putinist propaganda bots I'd probably be taking a good hard look at myself.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
They are replacing the Tories for some proportion of voters - for other voters they are the current none of the above / reason to go out and vote party.
Reform are absorbing the Conservative vote, but also pulling in votes from Labour, and former non-voters.
Big overlap with the Leave identity, I'd have thought. So mainly Tories plus Boris19 Labourites plus disaffected 'rock in the pond' apoliticals.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
"Starmer is letting out his four-bedroom property in north London, thought to be worth about £2 million, on which he paid off the mortgage last year."
Huh, interesting.
Is he living in Lord Darzi’s place again?
I think he’s living in 10 Downing Street. You might have heard of it?
I’ve no idea if he’s living in Downing Street or not, but I did hear he had used Darzi’s place from time to time.
Its been widely reported that Mrs Starmer and the children are rarely seen in Downing Street. It was presumed they still lived in the family home. Maybe for security reasons they rented / have bought another home after they had the eco loons and Free Palestine lot outside their home.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
Sounded vaguely plausible, until Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards. Nobody sane ever carries their political party membership cards with them, surely? Mine has never left the house.
he is talking about a bunch of pretentious fannies here, I can quite believe it.
I'm sure Leon's friends are all perfectly nice people in the flesh, but he always manages to make them sound absolutely bloody awful.
It comes of excessive sobriety. My theory is
- half a bottle of bubbly per person before the meal (or cocktails) - a bottle per person per course, with Tokay for the desert and something interesting with the cheese.
I've never had problems with people talking politics at the table.
Coincidentally - someone - I’m not sure who - has just sent me TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES of English artisanal gin, vodka and rye whisky
I’m not joking
I’m guessing it is a gazette reader who knows I like a tipple and hopes I will talk about them and publicise them?
TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES
Look!
How did they know where to send them?
A very good question I just asked myself. And I’ve worked out who it is. A fan of my writing on the gazette
Supporting @Leon on post #3 was probably the nail in the coffin though 😉
Seriously, why do these trolls *always* big up Leon? If I was constantly getting glazed by paid Putinist propaganda bots I'd probably be taking a good hard look at myself.
It’s the same one each time….
I'm planning a series of lefty-liberal bots. You'll spot each one because they'll be praising @Benpointer's posts.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
Labour have either accidentally or otherwise spent the last year figuring out what they need to do to win again.
They now have four years to do it.
If they do it, they win. Otherwise it’s Nigel’s turn.
Really as simple as that.
They have thrown the next GE away during this last disastrous week. Labour MPs and his party don’t want the excruciatingly unlikeable and deeply unpopular Starmer to lead them into the next GE, that’s become clear. If the economy continues as economists predict, he won’t make it beyond 2027.
Also need to wonder, from May 3rd 29 onwards, will there be a Labour government ever again?
By what mechanism will Starmer be removed?
Indeed - as I understand it, Labour Party rules are such that removing a sitting, unwilling, leader is close to impossible.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
Also, why do 84% of them immediately start agreeing with me, specifically - ie naming me - and yet a smaller cohort, maybe 10%, take against me from the off. I am flattered by the attention, but it is curious and makes little sense
There was one who was manically determined to expose tiny details of my private life which wee of no interest to anyone, not even me
Also, why are they so shit?!
If I really wanted to roil PB and maybe, eventually, British poltics, I'd pose as a moderately influential insider with very woke views, who is on government committees, who slowly reveals themselves to be a low-IQ imbecile, thereby driving everyone elset to angry despair at the cretins who govern us
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
"Starmer is letting out his four-bedroom property in north London, thought to be worth about £2 million, on which he paid off the mortgage last year."
Huh, interesting.
Is he living in Lord Darzi’s place again?
I think he’s living in 10 Downing Street. You might have heard of it?
I’ve no idea if he’s living in Downing Street or not, but I did hear he had used Darzi’s place from time to time.
Its been widely reported that Mrs Starmer and the children are rarely seen in Downing Street. It was presumed they still lived in the family home. Maybe for security reasons they rented / have bought another home after they had the eco loons and Free Palestine lot outside their home.
It’s ok, I am being schooled by the sites lanyard wearer in chief. The rumours around Starmer and his family are apparently not interesting to PB.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
Sounded vaguely plausible, until Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards. Nobody sane ever carries their political party membership cards with them, surely? Mine has never left the house.
he is talking about a bunch of pretentious fannies here, I can quite believe it.
I'm sure Leon's friends are all perfectly nice people in the flesh, but he always manages to make them sound absolutely bloody awful.
It comes of excessive sobriety. My theory is
- half a bottle of bubbly per person before the meal (or cocktails) - a bottle per person per course, with Tokay for the desert and something interesting with the cheese.
I've never had problems with people talking politics at the table.
Coincidentally - someone - I’m not sure who - has just sent me TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES of English artisanal gin, vodka and rye whisky
I’m not joking
I’m guessing it is a gazette reader who knows I like a tipple and hopes I will talk about them and publicise them?
TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES
Look!
How did they know where to send them?
A very good question I just asked myself. And I’ve worked out who it is. A fan of my writing on the gazette
That really does narrow down the list of suspects.
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
Also, why do 84% of them immediately start agreeing with me, specifically - ie naming me - and yet a smaller cohort, maybe 10%, take against me from the off. I am flattered by the attention, but it is curious and makes little sense
There was one who was manically determined to expose tiny details of my private life which wee of no interest to anyone, not even me
Also, why are they so shit?!
If I really wanted to roil PB and maybe, eventually, British poltics, I'd pose as a moderately influential insider with very woke views, who is on government committees, who slowly reveals themselves to be a low-IQ imbecile, thereby driving everyone elset to angry despair at the cretins who govern us
That is to say, I'd be bondegezou
There will be a list of useful... individuals at Bot HQ.
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
Also, why do 84% of them immediately start agreeing with me, specifically - ie naming me - and yet a smaller cohort, maybe 10%, take against me from the off. I am flattered by the attention, but it is curious and makes little sense
There was one who was manically determined to expose tiny details of my private life which wee of no interest to anyone, not even me
Also, why are they so shit?!
If I really wanted to roil PB and maybe, eventually, British poltics, I'd pose as a moderately influential insider with very woke views, who is on government committees, who slowly reveals themselves to be a low-IQ imbecile, thereby driving everyone elset to angry despair at the cretins who govern us
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
Supporting @Leon on post #3 was probably the nail in the coffin though 😉
Seriously, why do these trolls *always* big up Leon? If I was constantly getting glazed by paid Putinist propaganda bots I'd probably be taking a good hard look at myself.
It’s the same one each time….
I'm planning a series of lefty-liberal bots. You'll spot each one because they'll be praising @Benpointer's posts.
(And using apostrophes correctly.)
That’s a really brilliant post from PB’s best poster.
Supporting @Leon on post #3 was probably the nail in the coffin though 😉
Seriously, why do these trolls *always* big up Leon? If I was constantly getting glazed by paid Putinist propaganda bots I'd probably be taking a good hard look at myself.
It’s the same one each time….
I'm planning a series of lefty-liberal bots. You'll spot each one because they'll be praising @Benpointer's posts.
(And using apostrophes correctly.)
That’s a really brilliant post from PB’s best poster.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
Supporting @Leon on post #3 was probably the nail in the coffin though 😉
Seriously, why do these trolls *always* big up Leon? If I was constantly getting glazed by paid Putinist propaganda bots I'd probably be taking a good hard look at myself.
It’s the same one each time….
Maybe it's part of the training to look at who has the most posts in the assumption that they're the forum bigwig. Who would have thought that Leon's constant holiday snaps would thwart the forces of Russian revanchism.
Walt Goggins, currently enjoying fame and fortune after White Lotus is in the Bourne identity
He was in the The Shield, a much underrated show (at the time seen as a bit like the poor mans Wire, but with time and the crap dominating tv it was more than that), and of course Justified.
Labour have either accidentally or otherwise spent the last year figuring out what they need to do to win again.
They now have four years to do it.
If they do it, they win. Otherwise it’s Nigel’s turn.
Really as simple as that.
They have thrown the next GE away during the last week.
File in the 'ludicrous post' folder.
If the past 10 years haven't taught you that politics is subject to rapid changes at short notice, you're beyond help.
Psephological lesson from last week, a bigger trade Deal with USA cannot now happen because although Starmer has bottled taking us back into EU, the deal he is making with EU restricts scope for hoped for super trade deals with others. Labours EU wheeler dealing puts Brexit freedoms, for super big Trade agreement with USA and others, those who voted Brexit were banking on, through the shredder. Was it ever real or fantasy doesn’t matter, Starmer’s Labour owns the shredding of it. Conservatives and Reform will reap the electoral rewards.
Psephological lesson from today, in a historically disastrous speech, Starmer became the heir of Boris, Truss and Sunak, with unachievable promises of “Stop the boats” “BJ4BW” “migration in tens of thousands.” But to show just how special he truly is, he copied his lines and idea’s straight from Enoch Powell “Rivers of Blood” speech, in what is already known as “we are becoming an island of strangers” speech. Reform will mop up when this government, like the last, cannot match the vibe, and Greens, Libdems and SNP will hoover up based on the “Rivers of Blood” elements - quite rightly too as it’s utterly disgraceful to hear senior politicians stoke racial and cultural hatred. Conservatives will mop up Labour seats with their record of always being more business friendly than Labour on migration.
Psephological lesson from last week, we learnt Business Investment growth has collapsed by 50% from 3% to 1.5 - as Labours sneaky tax gamble massively backfires. even worse indicator of UK dramatically weakening economy is Export growth has gone from 3% to absolutely nothing. Zero export growth. As a result BoE have gone hawkish on future interest rate cuts - what the markets believed would happen next has been replaced by expectation of high interest rates. Sticky inflation, no growth, no interest rate cuts, no recovery of incomes is on the horizon at all, this Labour government is in huge economic trouble. Everyone else on the ballot paper mops up Labour support and takes their seats, after a term of no growth, no recovery of incomes.
Wake up Ben, the writings already going up on the wall.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
I was a huge fan of Dermot Reeve in the 1990s. Captain of Warwickshire when Lara was playing for them.
I used to like his impression of Imran Khan
Imran: "He's having a Weston" Dermot: "What's that?" Imran: "Not just a mare, but a super mare"
To be honest it's worth watching in full:
Like Botham and Imran he appears to be very keen on philanthropy. Why not give your wealth away? And then reveals at the end he now lives in supported accommodation in Portsmouth.
His ex wife and children live on a 6 acre property in Sydney with a new man.
The situation with his children does seem very sad but he doesn't complain and understands his flaws.
He was off his head on cocaine whilst commentating on test cricket without anyone noticing.
At a couple of points he starts reciting his own poetry. Not bad I thought.
For a very analytical chap he's curiously spiritual: discussing tarot cards, buddhism and mysterious co-incidences.
Completely unrecognisable from the person who once played for England in a world cup final.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
Walt Goggins, currently enjoying fame and fortune after White Lotus is in the Bourne identity
He was in the The Shield, a much underrated show (at the time seen as a bit like the poor mans Wire, but with time and the crap dominating tv it was more than that), and of course Justified.
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
I was a huge fan of Dermot Reeve in the 1990s. Captain of Warwickshire when Lara was playing for them.
I used to like his impression of Imran Khan
Imran: "He's having a Weston" Dermot: "What's that?" Imran: "Not just a mare, but a super mare"
To be honest it's worth watching in full:
Like Botham and Imran he appears to be very keen on philanthropy. Why not give your wealth away? And then reveals at the end he now lives in supported accommodation in Portsmouth.
His ex wife and children live on a 6 acre property in Sydney with a new man.
The situation with his children does seem very sad but he doesn't complain and understands his flaws.
He was off his head on cocaine whilst commentating on test cricket without anyone noticing.
At a couple of points he starts reciting his own poetry. Not bad I thought.
For a very analytical chap he's curiously spiritual: discussing tarot cards, buddhism and mysterious co-incidences.
Completely unrecognisable from the person who once played for England in a world cup final.
Rambling on for hours at a time talking nonsense with a focus on the minute detail of the teas being provided while forgetting the details of the action going on in the middle.....hard to tell who was half cut and who wasn't back in the day.
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
Also, why do 84% of them immediately start agreeing with me, specifically - ie naming me - and yet a smaller cohort, maybe 10%, take against me from the off. I am flattered by the attention, but it is curious and makes little sense
There was one who was manically determined to expose tiny details of my private life which wee of no interest to anyone, not even me
Also, why are they so shit?!
If I really wanted to roil PB and maybe, eventually, British poltics, I'd pose as a moderately influential insider with very woke views, who is on government committees, who slowly reveals themselves to be a low-IQ imbecile, thereby driving everyone elset to angry despair at the cretins who govern us
84% of them immediately start agreeing with you because, dear boy, you're echoing Putin's views. It's as simple as that.
I don't recollect seeing any that take against you but am ready to accept I just happened to miss those.
There have been a few that instantly tried to antagonise me, and one who was utterly obsessed with me and posted little else, and seemed to hae dug deep into my personal history to accrue "ammunition"
For a while I thought it might be @IanB2 but this guy didn't seem friendless and eerie and overly in love with a dog, just monomaniacal
Walt Goggins, currently enjoying fame and fortune after White Lotus is in the Bourne identity
He was in the The Shield, a much underrated show (at the time seen as a bit like the poor mans Wire, but with time and the crap dominating tv it was more than that), and of course Justified.
He has had a very successful career. He's in American Ultra, and Fatman, but I am not sure anybody noticed him in Bourne 1
Walt Goggins, currently enjoying fame and fortune after White Lotus is in the Bourne identity
He was in the The Shield, a much underrated show (at the time seen as a bit like the poor mans Wire, but with time and the crap dominating tv it was more than that), and of course Justified.
He has had a very successful career. He's in American Ultra, and Fatman, but I am not sure anybody noticed him in Bourne 1
I always used to put him in the same category of Titus Welliver. If there is a half decent tv show or movie, they are probably in it somewhere. Both were in Sons of Anarchy.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
They are replacing the Tories for some proportion of voters - for other voters they are the current none of the above / reason to go out and vote party.
Reform are absorbing the Conservative vote, but also pulling in votes from Labour, and former non-voters.
Big overlap with the Leave identity, I'd have thought. So mainly Tories plus Boris19 Labourites plus disaffected 'rock in the pond' apoliticals.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
You just have to read the reports from the Home Office during the previous administration.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
Are you asking for a view from inside, or outside, Lee Anderson's head?
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
Makes a bit more sense if you read it right-to-left. But yes; a negligible number of Labour 2019 voters went Reform in 2024.
Walt Goggins, currently enjoying fame and fortune after White Lotus is in the Bourne identity
He was in the The Shield, a much underrated show (at the time seen as a bit like the poor mans Wire, but with time and the crap dominating tv it was more than that), and of course Justified.
Justified was genuinely excellent and he was really good in it.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
My assumption is that you have to read this right to left. It looks like a graph of people who voted Reform in 24, and then who they voted for in previous elections. It looks like 1/3 were Tories in 2015, 1/3 were UKIP and 1/3 were from everyone else. What's missing is where the 2015 UKIP vote came from.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
You just have to read the reports from the Home Office during the previous administration.
Links?
It just seems like a convenient excuse for those who wish to allow the Tories to wash their hands of accountability for the mess they managed to get the country into.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
Also, and crucially, we see the first signs of white people beginning to vote as "white people" - voting for the party that will defend the interests of white people against the Woke anti-white, the Muslim sectarian vote, and so on
So far we only see the merest inklings of this, but they are depressing enough. The process is much further along in the USA, where intelligent people will vote for Trump, despite his evident calamitous flaws, because he is the "white people president"
Deeply sad, it didn't have to be like this - it should NOT be like this - but perhaps it is the inevitable endpoint of determined multiculturalism
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
And UKIP.
Its roots were sewn in the Maastricht Treaty, which never went away as an issue.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
You just have to read the reports from the Home Office during the previous administration.
To be fair, most of the immigration reform under the previous government was done by Boris Johnson. I must admit, if the Civil Service had blocked him, it might have been better.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
Also, and crucially, we see the first signs of white people beginning to vote as "white people" - voting for the party that will defend the interests of white people against the Woke anti-white, the Muslim sectarian vote, and so on
So far we only see the merest inklings of this, but they are depressing enough. The process is much further along in the USA, where intelligent people will vote for Trump, despite his evident calamitous flaws, because he is the "white people president"
Deeply sad, it didn't have to be like this - it should NOT be like this - but perhaps it is the inevitable endpoint of determined multiculturalism
If anything it’s likely to accelerate because global communications will make the “global majority” more present in the collective imagination.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
You just have to read the reports from the Home Office during the previous administration.
Links?
It just seems like a convenient excuse for those who wish to allow the Tories to wash their hands of accountability for the mess they managed to get the country into.
They even went to court to try to block government policy
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
Makes a bit more sense if you read it right-to-left. But yes; a negligible number of Labour 2019 voters went Reform in 2024.
I can't get my head round the idea that so few Reform voters have been Labour voters in the past - or at least back to 2015. The prevailing narrative is wrong, but still shapes the way I think about. Difficult to shake.
Amusing how many twitter pol commentator types are today talking about everything that 'Bowling Alone' talked about twenty (?) years ago without a name check.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
Also, and crucially, we see the first signs of white people beginning to vote as "white people" - voting for the party that will defend the interests of white people against the Woke anti-white, the Muslim sectarian vote, and so on
So far we only see the merest inklings of this, but they are depressing enough. The process is much further along in the USA, where intelligent people will vote for Trump, despite his evident calamitous flaws, because he is the "white people president"
Deeply sad, it didn't have to be like this - it should NOT be like this - but perhaps it is the inevitable endpoint of determined multiculturalism
If anything it’s likely to accelerate because global communications will make the “global majority” more present in the collective imagination.
Yes, I am sure it will accelerate
It's one reason the term "Global Majority" is such a disaster
"Wait, I'm a minority, why don't I get minority rights like everyone else? Is it coz I is white?"
And it's quite hard to argue against that, esp when you have "two tier sentencing" etc
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
I don't believe Russian uses them.
I think after the Revolution they used them to replace the hard sign ъ after prefixes but now they use ъ again.
Stalin had all the apostrophes shot.
One of my favourite TV moments that then leads to a revelation of sorts. Fawlty Towers Manuel has a Siberian hamster as a pet (it’s a rat). Basil asks ‘you must have rats in Spain, or did France have them all shot?’. The point which brought me up short is that Franco was still in power when Fawlty Towers was made. A dictator from the era of Hitler and Mussolini. In a different universe Hitler watched the 1966 Workd Cup final in disbelief as England won.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
And UKIP.
Its roots were sewn in the Maastricht Treaty, which never went away as an issue.
Maastricht was a masterpiece of UK negotiation which allowed the possibility of a multitier EU in which we could be very comfortable. It was misrepresented by some nutters on the right as indicating that we were all going to end up in the same place just at a different pace but it really did not have to be that way at all. Just look at Sweden which committed to joining the Euro 30 years ago and is no nearer to that objective than it was then.
It was Blair who deconstructed Maastricht with his delusional beliefs that we should be at the heart of Europe that set us on the inevitable path to Brexit. Had we stuck with the Maastricht framework I don't think that would ever have happened.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
Also, and crucially, we see the first signs of white people beginning to vote as "white people" - voting for the party that will defend the interests of white people against the Woke anti-white, the Muslim sectarian vote, and so on
So far we only see the merest inklings of this, but they are depressing enough. The process is much further along in the USA, where intelligent people will vote for Trump, despite his evident calamitous flaws, because he is the "white people president"
Deeply sad, it didn't have to be like this - it should NOT be like this - but perhaps it is the inevitable endpoint of determined multiculturalism
If anything it’s likely to accelerate because global communications will make the “global majority” more present in the collective imagination.
Yes, I am sure it will accelerate
It's one reason the term "Global Majority" is such a disaster
Global majority is such a dumb term to begin with, as many artificial terms are.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
And UKIP.
Its roots were sewn in the Maastricht Treaty, which never went away as an issue.
Maastricht was a masterpiece of UK negotiation which allowed the possibility of a multitier EU in which we could be very comfortable. It was misrepresented by some nutters on the right as indicating that we were all going to end up in the same place just at a different pace but it really did not have to be that way at all. Just look at Sweden which committed to joining the Euro 30 years ago and is no nearer to that objective than it was then.
It was Blair who deconstructed Maastricht with his delusional beliefs that we should be at the heart of Europe that set us on the inevitable path to Brexit. Had we stuck with the Maastricht framework I don't think that would ever have happened.
Most of all, they should have given us a referendum. Thereby obviating the need for a catastrophically lost in/out binary referendum 20 years later. An entire generation of Establishment politicians - from left to right, Lab and Con and LD - deserve historical blame for this
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
I don't believe Russian uses them.
I think after the Revolution they used them to replace the hard sign ъ after prefixes but now they use ъ again.
Stalin had all the apostrophes shot.
One of my favourite TV moments that then leads to a revelation of sorts. Fawlty Towers Manuel has a Siberian hamster as a pet (it’s a rat). Basil asks ‘you must have rats in Spain, or did France have them all shot?’. The point which brought me up short is that Franco was still in power when Fawlty Towers was made. A dictator from the era of Hitler and Mussolini. In a different universe Hitler watched the 1966 Workd Cup final in disbelief as England won.
I’m amused by the idea of France specifically targeting Spanish rats…
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
When you look at that, the Conservatives problems go way back.
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
If I had to guess, back to 1997 and Sir Jammy Fishpaste's Referendum Party. Before then, people on the right-right and centre-right may have hated each other, but they recognised that failure to hang together would lead to hanging separately. Since then, perhaps since the fall of Maggie, it hasn't been like that.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
And UKIP.
Its roots were sewn in the Maastricht Treaty, which never went away as an issue.
Maastricht was a masterpiece of UK negotiation which allowed the possibility of a multitier EU in which we could be very comfortable. It was misrepresented by some nutters on the right as indicating that we were all going to end up in the same place just at a different pace but it really did not have to be that way at all. Just look at Sweden which committed to joining the Euro 30 years ago and is no nearer to that objective than it was then.
It was Blair who deconstructed Maastricht with his delusional beliefs that we should be at the heart of Europe that set us on the inevitable path to Brexit. Had we stuck with the Maastricht framework I don't think that would ever have happened.
The opt-outs Major secured were helpful but it started the process of defining a new country called Europe with provisions for a shared European citizenship, a new political identity and common rights, for the single currency, and a common foreign and security policy, which was then built on as you say over the subsequent 15 years.
That's something that was always a minority taste here and caused political problems almost immediately.
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
I don't believe Russian uses them.
I think after the Revolution they used them to replace the hard sign ъ after prefixes but now they use ъ again.
Stalin had all the apostrophes shot.
One of my favourite TV moments that then leads to a revelation of sorts. Fawlty Towers Manuel has a Siberian hamster as a pet (it’s a rat). Basil asks ‘you must have rats in Spain, or did France have them all shot?’. The point which brought me up short is that Franco was still in power when Fawlty Towers was made. A dictator from the era of Hitler and Mussolini. In a different universe Hitler watched the 1966 Workd Cup final in disbelief as England won.
I’m amused by the idea of France specifically targeting Spanish rats…
Fecking autocorrect TWICE! I tried to correct it and it did it again. And they say AI is intelligent…
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
You just have to read the reports from the Home Office during the previous administration.
Links?
It just seems like a convenient excuse for those who wish to allow the Tories to wash their hands of accountability for the mess they managed to get the country into.
They even went to court to try to block government policy
240,000 is probably a bit too high but I’d struggle to see how Labour won’t be able to sell that as a win.
Reform are going far further though. They want them sent back. You cannot outdo the racists.
They don't want to "send them back". They want foreign criminals deported (fair enough), they want fake asylum seekers gone, along with all future fake asylum seekers, and they want anyone in the Boriswave without ILR - most of them - to go home. Looking at the fiscal impacts if we do NOT do that, they are entirely right
That's it, I believe
If you can point me to an official Reform policy where they want to deport people legally migrated and settled here, with no criminal record, then I will accept your point
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
Sounded vaguely plausible, until Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards. Nobody sane ever carries their political party membership cards with them, surely? Mine has never left the house.
he is talking about a bunch of pretentious fannies here, I can quite believe it.
I'm sure Leon's friends are all perfectly nice people in the flesh, but he always manages to make them sound absolutely bloody awful.
It comes of excessive sobriety. My theory is
- half a bottle of bubbly per person before the meal (or cocktails) - a bottle per person per course, with Tokay for the desert and something interesting with the cheese.
I've never had problems with people talking politics at the table.
Coincidentally - someone - I’m not sure who - has just sent me TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES of English artisanal gin, vodka and rye whisky
I’m not joking
I’m guessing it is a gazette reader who knows I like a tipple and hopes I will talk about them and publicise them?
TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES
Look!
How did they know where to send them?
A very good question I just asked myself. And I’ve worked out who it is. A fan of my writing on the gazette
But was it sent via the Gazette? Otherwise you may have been doxed or whatever young people call it.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
Makes a bit more sense if you read it right-to-left. But yes; a negligible number of Labour 2019 voters went Reform in 2024.
I can't get my head round the idea that so few Reform voters have been Labour voters in the past - or at least back to 2015. The prevailing narrative is wrong, but still shapes the way I think about. Difficult to shake.
It was 2015 UKIP did well but did not dent the Tories relative to Labour. Taking that chart back to 2010 might give a somewhat bigger red tab, though I doubt anywhere near parity.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
Makes a bit more sense if you read it right-to-left. But yes; a negligible number of Labour 2019 voters went Reform in 2024.
I can't get my head round the idea that so few Reform voters have been Labour voters in the past - or at least back to 2015. The prevailing narrative is wrong, but still shapes the way I think about. Difficult to shake.
Yougov suggest about 900,000 switchers from Labour, and 1.7m from the Conservatives, to Reform, since 2024.
What Reform does is unite the right wing vote, in Labour-held seats.
240,000 is probably a bit too high but I’d struggle to see how Labour won’t be able to sell that as a win.
Reform are going far further though. They want them sent back. You cannot outdo the racists.
They don't want to "send them back". They want foreign criminals deported (fair enough), they want fake asylum seekers gone, along with all future fake asylum seekers, and they want anyone in the Boriswave without ILR - most of them - to go home. Looking at the fiscal impacts if we do NOT do that, they are entirely right
That's it, I believe
If you can point me to an official Reform policy where they want to deport people legally migrated and settled here, with no criminal record, then I will accept your point
You’ve described it there - the fake asylum seekers to most Reform voters is ALL asylum seekers, and definitely any who fled (safe) France by dinghy. And the Boriswave gone. So yes, they do want to send them back, just as you have said yourself.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
It’s an imported MAGA conspiracy theory. The Conservatives botched their own rhetoric on immigration by introducing contradictory policies.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
Sounded vaguely plausible, until Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards. Nobody sane ever carries their political party membership cards with them, surely? Mine has never left the house.
he is talking about a bunch of pretentious fannies here, I can quite believe it.
I'm sure Leon's friends are all perfectly nice people in the flesh, but he always manages to make them sound absolutely bloody awful.
It comes of excessive sobriety. My theory is
- half a bottle of bubbly per person before the meal (or cocktails) - a bottle per person per course, with Tokay for the desert and something interesting with the cheese.
I've never had problems with people talking politics at the table.
Coincidentally - someone - I’m not sure who - has just sent me TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES of English artisanal gin, vodka and rye whisky
I’m not joking
I’m guessing it is a gazette reader who knows I like a tipple and hopes I will talk about them and publicise them?
TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES
Look!
How did they know where to send them?
A very good question I just asked myself. And I’ve worked out who it is. A fan of my writing on the gazette
But was it sent via the Gazette? Otherwise you may have been doxed or whatever young people call it.
Of course one of the many skills of our resident high-IQ travel editor is the ability to interpret dreams. Presumably extending beyond those about small boat migrants.
On Saturday night I dreamt I had been unexpectedly chosen by the conclave to be the new pope. It was both an honour, and a fearsome responsibility. I took a while to get over the shock, but was reassured when I was greeted by a huge cheer stepping out on to the balcony on St Peter’s square.
Thenceforth I seemed to be dreaming in Latin. But my Latin vocabulary isn’t sufficient to dream in, so it was probably largely choral texts and gobbledygook.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
Sounded vaguely plausible, until Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards. Nobody sane ever carries their political party membership cards with them, surely? Mine has never left the house.
he is talking about a bunch of pretentious fannies here, I can quite believe it.
I'm sure Leon's friends are all perfectly nice people in the flesh, but he always manages to make them sound absolutely bloody awful.
It comes of excessive sobriety. My theory is
- half a bottle of bubbly per person before the meal (or cocktails) - a bottle per person per course, with Tokay for the desert and something interesting with the cheese.
I've never had problems with people talking politics at the table.
Coincidentally - someone - I’m not sure who - has just sent me TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES of English artisanal gin, vodka and rye whisky
I’m not joking
I’m guessing it is a gazette reader who knows I like a tipple and hopes I will talk about them and publicise them?
TWENTY FIVE BOTTLES
Look!
How did they know where to send them?
A very good question I just asked myself. And I’ve worked out who it is. A fan of my writing on the gazette
But was it sent via the Gazette? Otherwise you may have been doxed or whatever young people call it.
About a week ago the deputy head of the Gazette's Basalt Butt Plug Supplement told me "Leon, there's a reader who really likes your writing, wants to send you something, can I give him your address?"
I said Sure, because I quite often get these requests (maybe I am foolish to hand my address out?). Usually it's someone who wants to send me a posh, stiff, formal invite to some function, which is nice - even if I rarely go to them
I did not expect £2k's worth of hard English liquor, but - now, in retrospect, going back to the reader concerned - I can see it is indeed that person
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
It’s an imported MAGA conspiracy theory. The Conservatives botched their own rhetoric on immigration by introducing contradictory policies.
The idea of institutional blockage goes back a long way, just look at Yes Minister, but I really don't buy the extent of it from a party in power for more than a decade.
Is there any evidence that there's a deep state of civil servants blocking immigration reform? This idea seems to be getting a lot of airtime. The civil servants I know are professionals who implement government policy without reference to their personal values or beliefs.
It’s an imported MAGA conspiracy theory. The Conservatives botched their own rhetoric on immigration by introducing contradictory policies.
It’s not a conspiracy theory that the Home Office employs at least some people who are ideologically committed to facilitating immigration.
Just had meeting with an old friend. Movie agent. Extremely well connected - personally knows half the Cabinet and has supper parties with ex prime ministers etc
Lives in a big house in Notting Hill
She’s unusually right wing for her posh liberal arty social circle. And getting more right wing
She and her husband threw a big dinner party the other day and it got quite drunken and she and her husband decided to shock everyone by saying “we voted Reform and we’re thinking of joining them”
They didn’t get the shock value they hoped. Why? Three people around the table got out their Reform membership cards - they’d already joined. Almost everyone else said Yeah we’re thinking of doing the same
This is posh west london. If THEY are going Reform then
1. The Tories are in desperate trouble and
2. Reform are doing even better than we thought. They’re not just winning Clacton they’re winning the chattering classes in W11
I think the Reform surge is real.
The Reform surge is real. Leon's multiple stories of his friends aren't though.
I did get quite a surprise the other day. I live in one of the poshest bits of the Guildford constituency. It will also have a much older demographic. When the ballot boxes for here were opened up the spot checks gave us this ward just. That really was a clincher that we had won, because this was one of the harder wards to pick up compared to say the town.
However I have only just found out that the Reform tally was higher here than most of Guildford. If asked I would have guessed we would have been one of the lowest.
Isn't it simply that Reform are replacing the Tories, for a significant lump of their voters ?
A number I'd be interested in is what % of RUK support is from people who voted for Boris and Get Brexit Done in 2019.
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I'm struggling to interpret that. Are we really suggesting that a negligible number of 2019 Labour voters went Reform in 2024? Or those that did, didn't vote in 2015?
Makes a bit more sense if you read it right-to-left. But yes; a negligible number of Labour 2019 voters went Reform in 2024.
I can't get my head round the idea that so few Reform voters have been Labour voters in the past - or at least back to 2015. The prevailing narrative is wrong, but still shapes the way I think about. Difficult to shake.
Yougov suggest about 900,000 switchers from Labour, and 1.7m from the Conservatives, to Reform, since 2024.
What Reform does is unite the right wing vote, in Labour-held seats.
The findoutnow poll was even starker, with very few Labour voters switching to Reform.
(sub-samples, but that's the one with Reform on 33%).
240,000 is probably a bit too high but I’d struggle to see how Labour won’t be able to sell that as a win.
Reform are going far further though. They want them sent back. You cannot outdo the racists.
They don't want to "send them back". They want foreign criminals deported (fair enough), they want fake asylum seekers gone, along with all future fake asylum seekers, and they want anyone in the Boriswave without ILR - most of them - to go home. Looking at the fiscal impacts if we do NOT do that, they are entirely right
That's it, I believe
If you can point me to an official Reform policy where they want to deport people legally migrated and settled here, with no criminal record, then I will accept your point
You’ve described it there - the fake asylum seekers to most Reform voters is ALL asylum seekers, and definitely any who fled (safe) France by dinghy. And the Boriswave gone. So yes, they do want to send them back, just as you have said yourself.
Try and write that in lucid English, and I will respond
Comments
Why do these Russian bots not have an apostrophe key on their keyboards?
For all the 1990s England cricket fans on pb - here is an interview with Dermot Reeve. I would never have recognised him and it's a shock to hear at the end where he is now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0S-kHkLHMU
(And using apostrophes correctly.)
* as in this one off bat with rare signature...oh look I found another the next week.
There was one who was manically determined to expose tiny details of my private life which wee of no interest to anyone, not even me
Also, why are they so shit?!
If I really wanted to roil PB and maybe, eventually, British poltics, I'd pose as a moderately influential insider with very woke views, who is on government committees, who slowly reveals themselves to be a low-IQ imbecile, thereby driving everyone elset to angry despair at the cretins who govern us
That is to say, I'd be @bondegezou
https://bsky.app/profile/profjanegreen.bsky.social/post/3lonqdzu4u22m
A few voters have gone Lab-Ref over the years, but the main flow that matters is UKIP - Con - Ref.
I don't recollect seeing any that take against you but am ready to accept I just happened to miss those.
Dermot: "What's that?"
Imran: "Not just a mare, but a super mare"
Which means it'll fall from 700k to 600k. Not enough for Ref voters
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/keir-starmer-immigration-reform-new-visa-rules-rxpg7wc05
Forget Brexit, they started in the 2010 parliament, and probably before.
Psephological lesson from today, in a historically disastrous speech, Starmer became the heir of Boris, Truss and Sunak, with unachievable promises of “Stop the boats” “BJ4BW” “migration in tens of thousands.” But to show just how special he truly is, he copied his lines and idea’s straight from Enoch Powell “Rivers of Blood” speech, in what is already known as “we are becoming an island of strangers” speech. Reform will mop up when this government, like the last, cannot match the vibe, and Greens, Libdems and SNP will hoover up based on the “Rivers of Blood” elements - quite rightly too as it’s utterly disgraceful to hear senior politicians stoke racial and cultural hatred. Conservatives will mop up Labour seats with their record of always being more business friendly than Labour on migration.
Psephological lesson from last week, we learnt Business Investment growth has collapsed by 50% from 3% to 1.5 - as Labours sneaky tax gamble massively backfires. even worse indicator of UK dramatically weakening economy is Export growth has gone from 3% to absolutely nothing. Zero export growth. As a result BoE have gone hawkish on future interest rate cuts - what the markets believed would happen next has been replaced by expectation of high interest rates. Sticky inflation, no growth, no interest rate cuts, no recovery of incomes is on the horizon at all, this Labour government is in huge economic trouble. Everyone else on the ballot paper mops up Labour support and takes their seats, after a term of no growth, no recovery of incomes.
Wake up Ben, the writings already going up on the wall.
The crumpled tissue on a table with Macron, Merz et al which the American right and trolls are taking to be a bag of coke?
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2025/may/12/france-derides-russia-false-claim-drug-use-macron-merz-starmer
He has, inevitably, a vodka brand:
https://mulhollanddistilling.com/our-story/
Like Botham and Imran he appears to be very keen on philanthropy. Why not give your wealth away? And then reveals at the end he now lives in supported accommodation in Portsmouth.
His ex wife and children live on a 6 acre property in Sydney with a new man.
The situation with his children does seem very sad but he doesn't complain and understands his flaws.
He was off his head on cocaine whilst commentating on test cricket without anyone noticing.
At a couple of points he starts reciting his own poetry. Not bad I thought.
For a very analytical chap he's curiously spiritual: discussing tarot cards, buddhism and mysterious co-incidences.
Completely unrecognisable from the person who once played for England in a world cup final.
But yes, Brexit was just the final explosion of something that had been building for ages.
For a while I thought it might be @IanB2 but this guy didn't seem friendless and eerie and overly in love with a dog, just monomaniacal
A thunderstorm flooded roads and shut London’s cable car on Monday"
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/london/met-office-flooding-cable-car-tfl-thunderstorms-weather-b1227342.html
How 2019 Labour voters 'voted' in 2024:
Stayed Labour: 6.0m (59%)
Didn't vote: 1.4m (13%)
Green: 0.8m (8%)
Lib Dem: 0.7m (7%)
Died: 0.4m (4%)
Others: 0.3m (3%)
Reform: 0.3m (2%)
Conservative: 0.2m (2%)
https://bsky.app/profile/dylandifford.bsky.social/post/3l47ijljw7n2t
(Various other crosstabs in that thread.)
I think after the Revolution they used them to replace the hard sign ъ after prefixes but now they use ъ again.
It just seems like a convenient excuse for those who wish to allow the Tories to wash their hands of accountability for the mess they managed to get the country into.
So far we only see the merest inklings of this, but they are depressing enough. The process is much further along in the USA, where intelligent people will vote for Trump, despite his evident calamitous flaws, because he is the "white people president"
Deeply sad, it didn't have to be like this - it should NOT be like this - but perhaps it is the inevitable endpoint of determined multiculturalism
Its roots were sewn in the Maastricht Treaty, which never went away as an issue.
Which is pretty much the average we had pre-Brexit.
https://www.civilserviceworld.com/professions/article/high-court-rejects-civil-service-unions-rwanda-scheme-challenge
It's one reason the term "Global Majority" is such a disaster
"Wait, I'm a minority, why don't I get minority rights like everyone else? Is it coz I is white?"
And it's quite hard to argue against that, esp when you have "two tier sentencing" etc
It was Blair who deconstructed Maastricht with his delusional beliefs that we should be at the heart of Europe that set us on the inevitable path to Brexit. Had we stuck with the Maastricht framework I don't think that would ever have happened.
That's something that was always a minority taste here and caused political problems almost immediately.
That's it, I believe
If you can point me to an official Reform policy where they want to deport people legally migrated and settled here, with no criminal record, then I will accept your point
What Reform does is unite the right wing vote, in Labour-held seats.
On Saturday night I dreamt I had been unexpectedly chosen by the conclave to be the new pope. It was both an honour, and a fearsome responsibility. I took a while to get over the shock, but was reassured when I was greeted by a huge cheer stepping out on to the balcony on St Peter’s square.
Thenceforth I seemed to be dreaming in Latin. But my Latin vocabulary isn’t sufficient to dream in, so it was probably largely choral texts and gobbledygook.
Interpretation please.
I said Sure, because I quite often get these requests (maybe I am foolish to hand my address out?). Usually it's someone who wants to send me a posh, stiff, formal invite to some function, which is nice - even if I rarely go to them
I did not expect £2k's worth of hard English liquor, but - now, in retrospect, going back to the reader concerned - I can see it is indeed that person
WTF am I gonna do with it?!
(sub-samples, but that's the one with Reform on 33%).