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Just 2% of the public think Badenoch will be PM after the next generalelection –politicalbetting.co
Just 2% of the public think Badenoch will be PM after the next general election – politicalbetting.com
More Britons expect Nigel Farage to be prime minister after the next election than Keir StarmerNigel Farage: 22%Keir Starmer: 14%New Labour leader: 8%New Tory leader: 7%New Reform UK leader: 3%Kemi Badenoch: 2%Don't know: 40%yougov.co.uk/topics/polit…
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FPT:
F1: backing Aston Martin in three markets.
Alonso's evens (2.05 boosted) to beat Hamilton, but his car was way faster in qualifying and he starts 8 (edited to 7, but still) places higher.
I've also backed Alonso to beat the Williams/Ferraris (at 6, 6.5 boosted) in group 2. Williams are a threat but he does start ahead of them. Stroll to beat Hadjar, Gasly, and Antonelli in group 3 is my last bet, I've split a stake between the two group bets for roughly equal payout. That's 4, 4.1 with boost. Stroll isn't a good qualifier but still starts ahead of all the others in the group, and he's been solid in races for the most part this year.
https://morrisf1.blogspot.com/2025/05/imola-grand-prix-2025-pre-race.html
https://yougov.co.uk/society/articles/35979-which-animals-could-britons-beat-fight?utm_source=website_article&utm_medium=bluesky&utm_campaign=35979
https://d3nkl3psvxxpe9.cloudfront.net/documents/YouGov_-_Humans_vs_animals_UK.pdf
12oz of it sold in the Far East and Moscow would not only clear the national debt but bring an abrupt halt to the war in Ukraine and the threat to Taiwan.
Your best chance is if you can hold the jaw shut. And that's also true in a crocodile fight.
Putting the whole EU business to one side (not easy but the ramifications of departure have been overstated by both sides), it wasn't easy being in Government at the start of the 2020s.
You had the biggest public health emergency since WW2 and the outbreak of armed conflict in or near Europe - each on their own was destabilising, both together were and have been disastrous.
We can, have and no doubt will again debate the UK Government to COVID but the point was the Government put health before wealth - the economy was basically closed down for three months (the PMI graph is frightening) to protect people from the virus. I don't want to debate the rights and wrongs of that - it happened. The consequences of the dislocation were both immediate and longer lasting, indeed, well after the vaccine had been rolled out and the immediate threat ended.
Then came the Russian invasion of Ukraine which, far from being the swift decisive action Putin and Moscow might have hoped, has turned into a bloody war of attrition more like WW1 than what we think of as modern warfare.
The big problem was when the pent up demand was released - people who had spent little or nothing for months and had accumulated cash reserves wanted to spend but the struggling global supply chains meant many things were in short supply - the result, inflation. It was that which killed Governments world wide, the fact of big price rises making everyone feel worse off.
Governments took the blame and felt the anger - after 14 years leading the Government, the UK Conservatives had nowhere to run and nowhere to hide. In many ways, it did for them as the 2008 crisis had done for Governments then.
Traditional politics of what you might call "the centre" has been discredited twice and it's understandable people look elsewhere - if you want to call it nationalist, socially conservative, anti-immigrant, populist or whatever, parties like Reform, VOX, Chega, BSW and others have emerged.
I went for Starmer.
Trashing your own reputation can be problematic. Ask Ed Milliband. The problem he had was that he let the Tories rewrite the facts and then said the rewrite was true.
Here the facts are clear and unambiguous - a quick succession of terrible prime ministers doing nothing positive. What Kemi needed to do was throw them and their legacy under the bus. Claim that her own inaction on the areas she now demands action on was because of collective responsibility. And then propose The Big Thing that will make voters give them another look.
She can't. She appears to believe that their record in government was fantastic, and the Big Thing appeared to have been penis identification. Oh dear...
So who won Eurovision?
Naughty boy.
May didn't deliver either, and wouldn't have done so even with a majority, and some of the problems we face today date back to remarkably superficial and cynical political decisions taken under the Coalition.
I think the Conservatives broke their wick in the 1990s, and never got it back.
1) Swing back
2) The centre-left vote tactically
3) Labour are more coalitionable than Reform.
I distinctly remember instructing you all in the art of controlling a rampaging goose.
Worse than that, the only big win came from Farage largely stepping aside. It's not a great record.
Reform are now running 10 Councils, and are largest party in NOC councils elsewhere.
AFD did reasonably well (meaning big improvement but not as much as thought possible) at the recent German Election.
Had the AFD run any important Councils before? Did the Electorate have any indication whether they were competent?
Because not only has it - apparently - killed the Tories it may also have scuppered Labour and instead propelled a populist right wing party into the lead
Like a kind of political atom bomb with unpredictable fallout
What were they thinking?!
It may be those hoping for the death of the Conservative Party are somewhat premature. Parties change and evolve so they become unrecognisable from previous incarnations.
The problem for the Conservatives is, having been used to being either the Party of Government or the only credible alternative Government (however remote a prospect that might have seemed at some points as it did for Labour), they face the prospect of minor party status and all that doesn't flow from it.
The LDs have been a minor party for decades - they are used to being ignored and ridiculed. The Conservatives aren't - yes, they still have over 4,000 Councillors and 121 MPs so they remain a force but the trend isn't looking promising currently.
Could they re-invent? Yes, but as what? Reform's junior but more likeable partner? A more rural based grouping analogous to the Country parties you see in other democracies?
The irony is the Conservatives spent the 20th Century swallowing up disparate parts of the Liberal movement - Liberal Nationals, National Liberals etc. Perhaps the 21st Century will see the Liberal Democrats absorb the rump of Liberal Conservatives while the others end up with Reform - who knows?
The only thing of which I'm certain is nothing is certain - Keir Starmer looked the least likely of Prime Ministers in the spring of 2021 but look what happened to him. Kemi Badenoch needs a little "luck" and who knows what could happen?
Both the UK & the US had relatively high COVID death rates. The UK death rate was 3404 per million and the US one was 3493 per million. Both countries are now experiencing a rise of populist movements.
Conversely, Australia had a very low death rate of 963 per million, while Canada's was 1424 per million. In both Canada and Australia, there hasn't been any significant populist movement, and the centre has retained broad political support.
I think it's possible that the high death rates in the UK & USA led to a perception that COVID restrictions were imposed by the "elites" but that these policies "failed" because there was still a large number of deaths.
In Australia & Canada, there is a perhaps a different perception that the restrictions were worth it, in terms of saving lots of lives, and therefore that the "elites" are competent & know what they are doing.
It was clear after Boris won in Dec 2019, that he intended to do absolutely fuck all in office except make speeches and bonk Carrie.
The only real success he had was the Brexit deal, where I think Frost actually did a good job.
Meanwhile, perhaps the Tories should reflect on the merits of a fairer voting system?
Rightwing populism is driven by many things. Top of a long list is mass migration. Covid response might be in the list but it’s not top 10
This will be coming back. It's quite an American case, turning around his 'spiritual' motives as a Unitarian being a justification afaics. They had found ~3000 dead migrants in Southern Arizona's deserts in the period 2001-2019.
https://archive.is/xlqxg
Context:
On 21 November 2019, migrant rights defender Dr. Scott Warren was found not guilty by an Arizona court on two counts of “harbouring migrants” for providing them with food, water and clean clothing. The jury unanimously agreed that the human rights defender was lawfully carrying out life-saving humanitarian aid by providing assistance to two men crossing the border on foot.
On 12 November 2019, the United States authorities will prosecute migrant rights defender Dr. Scott Warren for the second time, charged with harbouring two migrants, after he provided them with humanitarian assistance in his town of Ajo, Arizona.
https://www.frontlinedefenders.org/en/case/scott-warren-facing-20-year-prison-sentence-providing-humanitarian-aid
If that all makes him more than a footnote in, history, he'd take that.
As a campaigner, with the ability to say whatever he thought the audience in front of him wanted to hear, he was brilliant and his success in December 2019, though as much a rejection of the absurd tactics of the Opposition parties under May in trying to block the implementation of the referendum result and the ludicrous policies of Corbyn, gave him a mandate.
Unfortuantely, instead of the PM role as cheerleader-in-chief for Global Britain in the 2020s, he found himself within weeks having to do things he probably hated doing in the core of his soul and he soon realised the job of Prime Minister wasn't what he wanted or hoped but something very different.
Was he unlucky? To a point - is there a counterfactual where absent Covid and war in the Ukraine, he could be Prime Minister to this day? Yes.
It’s not a great theory but at least it’s a theory. There aren’t many
I’ve also heard it argued that some Brexiteers are secret Open Borders types. They genuinely believe in this lunacy. If so they should be REDACTED
Otherwise we are left with simple but grotesque incompetence
As I have said I am ambivalent to Kemi but can understand why serious questions are being asked of her
At the Welsh Conservative Conference in Llangollen last week she referred to the Welsh conservative members of the Senedd as MSPs not MS clearly confusing the Scottish and Welsh parliament members
I expect Reform and Plaid to sweep through Wales at next year's Senedd elections leaving both labour and conservatives in a dire position
This will be the time of greatest peril to Kemi and I would not be surprised to see her resign her position
In truth, the problem is not so much Kemi but that which preceded her and as with Labour, they have several years to try to recover and to all those celebrating the demise of the conservative party be careful for what you wish for with Farage and Reform ready to turn UK into a mini Trump tribute act
Another bit, I sort of understand. After 2016, the only way the government could see of keeping the wheels turning was to import more people. Student numbers went up because we were desperate for their fees. And so on.
A third bit looks like gross incompetence. Something seems to have gone horribly wrong with the social care visa system, that wouldn't have happened in a well-run state.
But ultimately, May was right and Team 2019-24 were wrong. The Brexit landing point to aim for was to control the borders for people at minimal economic hit, so just accepting Brussels rules on everything else. But that's about as far from Uncaging the Butterfly as you can get.
There is a veneer or "too many people who look and sound different" but at its heart the migration push back is economic.
The challenge for a supposed Reform government is that if there is an abrupt freeze in migration, the economy gets worse, not better. Which is the exact opposite of what punters expect.
It was the only the revelations of the personal conduct of Conservative politicians (especially Boris) and then the Truss debacle which destroyed their support.
You also forget that Boris Johnson has always been pro-immigration prior to Brexit, he argued for an amnesty for illegals in the early 2000s.
Plus he has only ever had one principle in his life, making sure Boris Johnson becomes Prime Minister.
I was at at a meeting in September 2014 at conference where Boris Johnson privately said people who voted UKIP or backed Brexit were the sort of people who had sex with vacuum cleaners*.
18 months later he was backing Brexit.
In some ways Boris Johnson is a lot like Gordon Brown, both wanted to be PM their entire lives but once they got into Number 10 they had no bloody idea what they wanted to do.
*His public version was people who vote UKIP are people who end up in A&E with barely believable injuries involving vacuum cleaners.
Boris has many flaws and virtues. A complex man. One of his biggest flaws is a need to be noticed. To be consequential
If he personally destroys the two party system then he will definitely be seen, by history, as consequential. His country might be less positive about his legacy
I see that Austria won, we came 19th from 37 entries, and that GB News are cross about something which is all the BBC's fault. Another day !
https://www.gbnews.com/celebrity/bbc-eurovision-leaderboard-results-row-backlash-austria-israel
A very interesting and quite emotional article that provides a lot of information on Ed Davey and his family's serious and devastating health issues and how he copes
It certainly explains why he is so committed to the cause of carers and his extraordinary struggles
Cameron and Osborne then rode the unpopularity of Gordon Brown and the GFC to double-down on social and economic liberalism, with essentially the same beliefs except in slightly lower taxes.
Now, there's nothing wrong with being "liberal" as a philosophy but it was remarkably dogmatic and tone-deaf to the mood of the electorate.
There are plenty of examples of parties and PMs being extremely unpopular a year into their tenure, that have won the following election 3 or 4 years later.
Also, there are a lot of Labour MPs now that will be building up their incumbency factor.
for example the increase in student fees crippled them among young graduates.
Something which was accentuated by unaffordable housing in southern England.
The Conservatives became reliant upon the support of the over 50s and C2s.
Demographics which Farage could be attractive to.
Which is frankly stupid. It’s obvious British voters are angry about immigration and deeply allergic to the idea of more. Even Starmer gets this
Maybe Hannan is an example of that curious phenomenon, the very clever person who is bizarrely thick on certain issues
Including the current lot.
It might be that they have simply terminally damaged their brand. We can point to pendulums swinging back over time but there’s no law of the universe that this must happen. Maybe considering their myriad failings in government they’re just too far gone for a recovery, particularly when there is a competing party of the right.
I think if we are going to point to one potentially fatal wound, the Truss episode in particular did tremendous damage to them. Not only because Truss was incompetent and overpromoted, but also because removing a PM after a month just doesn’t make a party look serious about governing.
Its very possible that the Conservatives would have won (Labour only held it by 323) and if so does Keir Starmer then survive as Labour leader ?
Would we now have PM Angela Rayner or even PM Rebecca Long-Bailey ?
Now all we get is outrage - mostly confected.
Simple bad news seems like the good old days.
MAGA is different, more like Judaism or Shinto or most Hinduism. Not particularly evangelical, more identitarian and introspective.
He was born abroad, had a posho education, then a political career, was 20+ years a MEP.
I don't think he has much knowledge of, interest in or empathy towards British people.
They continue to insist they were ace.
Which they were for those two narrow groups
(Hereford has had a weird recent history as our Herefordian travel writer has noted: the old town centre has been hollowed out by a new shopping mall in the old cattle market and looks desolate. But the other bits of town remain pretty and reasonably prosperous).
A lot of recent politics seems to be about frustration that despite promises by everyone to fix things, nothing happens. Right? Well speaking to people from North Herefordshire that’s precisely the reason the greens won the seat in 2024. Chicken farmers have been dumping organic waste close to the Wye for years, and the river and groundwater are eutrophic and blighted. What used to be a clear, swimmable river brimming with salmon and trout is dead.
But nothing has been done. The previous Tory MP was an ex farmer and never made a concerted effort to get it fixed. The Green vote was a vote of frustration. Pretty much a single issue election.
I was aware of the long running issue but the whole “and nobody did anything despite years of campaigning” was interesting.
Like Brexit, they've various headlines which appeal to the electorate, some very strongly, but actually implementing them will be impossible.
There's a democratic fallacy that just because a majority vote for something, then it can be implemented in a manner which satisfies those who voted for it.
With social media algorithms you don’t even get that - you get a distorted world view and an echo chamber designed to make you angry and frustrated.
That’s where reform needs to happen to save our democracy - it’s old school demagoguery but with no escape and a much broader reach.
The Conservatives got really unlucky with the timing of that spike.
There was no realistic alternative which wasn't to the left.
They don't necessarily want it to be more right wing.
Just a lot less hedge Fundy.
If Nigel Farrage does become PM and a much diminished rump of Conservative MPs fall in behind him, my guess is that, in 100 years, people will refer to Farrage as a 'Tory PM' too. History prefers simplicity and ultimately these are just different shades of blue.
I also wonder if the London focus of Boris was a factor.
As London is far, far more dependent on immigrants for hospitality, construction, care workers etc did Boris see nothing problematic about migration of such people ?
But otherwise, rather more foresight than those who remain astonished and dismayed by the 'Boriswave' that their votes enabled.
https://x.com/aaronbastani/status/1923829928203575665?s=61
There's a reason that Boris's Vote Leave didn't permit Farage anywhere near the campaign. I suspect Remain would have won had Farage fronted the campaign.
A Conservative party that actually wants to conserve the bets things about Britain is not something that we have seen in some time. Just one that sees globalism as the future. I think the Reform leadership are much the same, but if they do wind up with 300 MPs, I suspect most would be like Lee Anderson or Grimes.
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2025/may/17/uk-government-drops-healthy-eating-push-after-lobbying-by-ultra-processed-food-firms
...The U-turn, revealed for the first time, occurred on 1 June 2023 under Rishi Sunak’s government, the Guardian found. The change remains in the current government’s guidance being issued to retailers ahead of the law change in October.
It came after the FDF waged a campaign to put pressure on the DHSC to rewrite its nutrition policy, lobbying officials to remove the push to minimally processed food in the guidance issued to retailers, according to documents and emails reviewed by the Guardian.
In response to a freedom of information request, the government released a cache of emails between the FDF and the DHSC.
Most of the correspondence was heavily redacted. The government cited section 40(2) of the Freedom of Information Act, “which provides for the protection of personal information”, and section 35(1)(a), “which provides protection for the information that relates to the formulation or development of government policy”.
The emails, sent between October 2022 and April 2023, reveal how the FDF, which represents firms with a combined annual turnover of more than £112bn, lobbied the DHSC to drop the guidance pushing retailers to promote minimally processed food...
I've already forgotten how Austria's winning Eurovision song goes