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Despite all the fury fewer than a third oppose the Chagos Islands deal – politicalbetting.com
Despite all the fury fewer than a third oppose the Chagos Islands deal – politicalbetting.com
From everything you have seen and heard about the issue, do you support or oppose the government's proposals to give sovereignty of the Chagos Islands to Mauritius?Support: 23% (no change from 6 Feb)Oppose: 29% (+2)Don't know: 47% (-3)yougov.co.uk/topics/inter…
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£3.4b for Labour voters
£20b-30b for Tory voters
and £50b+ for Reform voters
It's no wonder the Reform voters are most angry.
It'll be worth every penny that DLA Piper pay him.
Regarding the header, this is simply a measure of awareness. There is no such thing as being aware of this deal and liking it. It's not like welfare where some are in receipt and some are paying, or a tax increase, assisted dying, or the NHS - there are no winners and losers or ideological fault lines. There are just losers.
Those who are in favour are just being reflexively pro-Labour (it's about equal with their poll rating) and are either ignorant about the deal or are acting from partisan loyalty.
They haven't given a stuff about future costs up to now.
Result - Lab -1 Con -2 Refuk +3
Don't exaggerate.
Though it's hardly the a great argument either way.
And why?
Cameron is clearly an interesting speaker, and if I was still at Uni I'd trek to the Union to hear him speak. But he's not going to reveal the great solution to alchemy is he?
So something else must be going on.
He’s very passionate on Alzheimer’s, both the care and the potential cure/mitigation.
Also what's striking here is the virtual lockstep between LAB/LD and CON/REF supporters. Perhaps we're on the way to a binary struggle for the soul of the nation, a la GOP v DEM in the last presidential election. Fine by me - so long as it's a different result this time.
But Tongue you muppet….
“Seriously, go ahead, look around,” he told the crowd. “You’re probably sitting next to some of your people right now. These are friends you will have for your whole life, and there will be many others to collect along the way.”'
source$: https://www.washingtonpost.com/education/2025/05/22/kermit-the-frog-university-maryland-commencement/
The largest domestic problem in the US is the breakdown of families; the second largest is the breakdown of communities.
Brown believed his own genius - hence 'ending (Tory) boom and bust'. The reality is that he inherited a booming economy and then decided to open the taps for reasons. Of course the sale of the gold is more complicated than it is sometimes portrayed, but his financial negligence around his OWN fiscal rules was shocking. And then you have the vast expansion of PFI (yes the Tories started it, but Brown went BIG). PFI took spending off the annual returns and inter the perpetual future. All those lightbulbs changed for 300 quid...
There are plenty of examples of poor PFI deals, but there are always plenty of examples of poor infrastructure projects. We know from the story of HS2, nuclear power and multiple other infrastructure fails in recent decades that a problem postponed is a problem doubled. PFI was a rare example of JFDI.
I get a call for 100 kilowatts of electrical power..I give you 100kW & you give me 70kW of heat back..You can’t dump the heat overboard on these new advanced systems..because it attracts too much attention, so they give it back to me & I have to absorb it
https://x.com/AirPowerNEW1/status/1925936389046084095
Radar invisibility isn't everything.
However this one does play nicely into RUK's core message - that we're always prioritising foreign people and places over own decent, hard working folk.
PFI was, in many instances, an unnecessary and expensive complication.
That's not hindsight; it was clear at the time.
And we failed on the big infrastructure stuff - nuclear and rail, for example - where putting off decisions cost an immense amount of money, and in the case of HS2, complete failure.
I'm not sure that works with a single issue which isn't at the forefront of public consciousness.
PFI agreements were not wise.
To me it illustrates well one of the golden rules of trading. If you can deal with a counterparty who is doing the trade for reasons other than pure £££ you're likely to be the winner.
In this case the counterparty driven by non £££ considerations (being to keep debt off the books) was the government. So the other side - the private sector providers - were able to make hay.
The alternative (telling everybody to eff off and keep them) would have cost us nothing in terms of money, but would have upset the Americans and UK governments don't want to do that because [rudewords].
If it's a BPC poll the tables will be published and in that published document there will be a statement somewhere telling you how big is the margin of error. Which is another guess, but that's a story for another day.
There are many good PFI schemes that have worked out well for everyone concerned. There are many bad. and even disastrous, ones as well; often because the contract was ineptly written, or the parties involved do not work in good faith or with common sense, or because it was simply the wrong tool for the job.
PFI=style schemes should not have been used as much as they were. But that does not mean all PFI schemes were bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jj8iwJx9-AU
But on "opening the taps" well there were reasons. The public realm needed investment and they'd stuck to tight Con spending plans for the first two years - a promise deemed necessary to get elected. Ming vase and all that. Since the GE 1992 shocker Labour have always been paranoid about losing elections because the public don't trust them with the money.
So we had a bit of the old 'famine to feast' - which isn't the ideal way to manage things.
For those that haven't heard, or are almost completely unaware, "give sovereignty" is a loaded enough phrase to draw out opinions anyway.
I vaguely remember some polling where the parties proposing something were swapped, and people still voted along party lines. You could probably poll now, suggesting any number of made up policies for Labour, and find plenty of people that have not just "heard" about them, but also have an opinion.
The idea that we can trust our electoral representatives, who focus on a 3-4 year time horizon, are often not particularly numerate and will be long gone from their department by the time problems arise, to get a fair deal from seasoned corporates in 20-30 year multi billion pound deals......well that is far less plausible.
Perhaps someone should explain that shields are not made from gold as it is too expensive, too heavy and too soft.
Or maybe Trump wants the 'golden dome' to be an all show and no use ceremonial piece of bling.
Graham would certainly know.
Elizabeth Warren lost Silicon Valley for the Democrats. She asked Biden for several powerful appointments as the price of her support. She hates the tech world, so her network of appointees then set out to undermine it. Especially Gensler at the SEC.
https://x.com/paulg/status/1925948930463826238
If we hadn't 'allowed' the Septics to build the airbase the ownership/nationality of the Chagos Islands would have been of little concern to anyone.
That's at least three so far this year.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dus8r5l5cys
In reality few can explain it, and those who do are only regurgitating what they have seen on Twitter.
And I'm glad I did because, as well as having 5 years when I worked to my schedule, not anyone else's, I had about a dozen years where I was beholden to no-one, except of course, my wife.
https://www.ipsos.com/en-uk/just-one-three-britons-can-correctly-identify-location-chagos-islands
33% not particularly suggesting knowledge more than educated guesses.
1. A number of PFI contractors went bust. They didn’t negotiate a very good deal with government
2. The super-profits attributable to some of them came from a wheeze - a bad wheeze in hindsight - that had nothing to do with government contracting, but was a benefit of falling interest rates and refinancing
3. Sure, we didn’t PFI some of our most pressing infrastructure projects, but nor did we build them, which brings me on to
4. Those decrying PFI need to describe the realistic alternative history. And that alternative history is that the investment wasn’t made. Precisely because of the Treasury accounting that PFI circumvented.
To have a credible alternative path for PFI you have to argue that government would have thrown out the usual bean counting orthodoxy and thought “to hell with it, let’s build those things”.
I suspect the others were uneducated guesses, where people didn't want to say they didn't know. If they'd already been asked about Mauritius, then that makes it easier for some people too.
D is the pretty obvious "educated guess".
If you gave people a blank map, I bet that 33% would be more than halved, even if you allowed a 2000k radius.
Numbers vs. Intensity. Always the problem when gauging the mood of the nation.
https://games.oec.world/en/tradle/
Tests your knowledge of national economy size and level of development (how large exports, how diversified), mineral resources, climate zone (are they exporting wheat or cotton, beer or wine), industrial base (pharmaceuticals or cars?), coastal geography (do they export fish), tourism (especially for islands, do they re-export yachts or scuba diving equipment) and
culture and religion (racehorses, pork, artworks?)
Centrist politicians and political obsessives are ‘meh it’s probably fine’
Non centrist’s say “it’s a humiliation”
Centrist journalists say “it’s a terrible deal”
And congratulations @BartholomewRoberts
EXCL: Nigel Farage claimed with great fanfare last year to have “bought a house” in Clacton – but it turns out the property is owned in the name of his girlfriend @rowenamason reports 👇
https://x.com/pippacrerar/status/1925946792253800926?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Congrats!
Some won't care but those that hate this deal REALLY hate it.
Exactly what this poll shows. Support is more likely lukewarm, opposition much fiercer with overall opposition more likely.
Polling on issues does not of course give the full picture. In the aftermath of Truss budget the measures were almost all more supported than opposed and within a week and a half the Tories were 35 points adrift in the polls.
After a day of coverage 1 in 5 strongly oppose the deal. Another scab to be picked at. One of many.
Harman briefing openly against Starmer/WFA U turn, the Lab MP supporting Rupert over Lucy C, the obvious briefing war between Starmer and his own Chief of Staff. His desperate bonfire of deals, u turns, press releases, begging for support.......
It's coming to a head. He's out soon. He'll make a year as PM (just)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chagos–Laccadive_Ridge
Not that I'm a fan of UC in general but process wise not bad