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Reform’s leads falls by 5% if you exclude non-voters – politicalbetting.com
Reform’s leads falls by 5% if you exclude non-voters – politicalbetting.com
The standout feature from Reform’s performance in the polls is not how many votes they are winning from the Conservatives and Labour, but how many they are gaining from non-voters. Whether or not these voters actually turn out will shape the next election – a ?
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On driverless cars, I'm recently back from Phoenix and I took six trips in Waymo taxis.
A very pleasing and fascinating novelty indeed.
Great App, every one arrived on time to the minute, no driver to tip, I instantly became very comfortable being driven around in this way and this surprised me. But it's not long before initial interest descends into gloom. It is a soulless experience. A real gut-punch of an insight of dystopia.
What an awful future this presents: no human contact, no interaction with a local of the city you are visiting. Your cash is going to a large corporation rather than a little guy of that locality. And this is before considering what would happen in an accident. I guarantee that in an incident between a Waymo car and a driver the latter would be automatically assumed to be at fault - machines don't make mistakes, right? The corporation will become very skilled in avoiding any suggestion of liability and the small guy will have no chance against this.
It is time to enshrine into law what Joe Public assumes is obviously already there, right?: a car must have a driver.
After all, legally, a car has to be in good enough condition for the road. Add to the existing list of conditions that it must have a driver.
What we need to see is if the May 1 Reform surge came in any part from usual non voters
They need to do something that cuts across everyone. Stop the boats.
But what if they do? They have done - twice. They turned out to win the Brexit vote. And they turned out to elect Boris Johnson. Providing that Farage gets them angry enough- and so far so good - I have little doubt they will vote.
Labour is stuffed if this continues. They either win these people over or get them to go back to not voting. The question is how.
Reform is not about Farage or small boats. Reform is about the country's state and successive governments' incompetence.
Reform is NOTA.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ckg7kgvzrdxo
Four things about this story.
First, it's Bath where one prominent PBer works. Second, it's physics, which claims several more PBers. Third, it's bureaucracy and process because even after identifying the problem at the start of the exam, they could not extend the time because the room was booked for something else.
And fourth because the Head of Physics could be a poster child for trans-European development:-
Professor Ventsislav Valev was born in Bulgaria. He studied physics at the University of Western Brittany (France), with a final year at the University of Cardiff (Wales), as an Erasmus student. He received his PhD in 2006, from the Radboud University Nijmegen (the Netherlands). Subsequently, he was a post-doc and a Research Fellow at the KU Leuven University (Belgium).
Farage is the none of the above vote that was also Brexit and Bozo. So Farage with an actual chance of winning is likely to get some of that vote out. Granted it won't be 100% of it but it could easily be 60% of that vote..
So I would argue that while that 5% may be high but it's going to be margin of error stuff and that margin of error may be the wrong way - because non voters are also not likely to respond to pollsters.
Basically it's soulless and almost impossible. Tesla's nowadays will beep and shake you to death in the 2 seconds before it drives into the underneath of a lorry it didn't spot in time.
But democratically that’s why I support reducing the voting age, PR and undoing the voter ID changes.
How far that fractures once a more rounded identity and policy platform emerges remains to be seen.
SDP at 51% were all things to all people for a while
Change UK at 9/10% briefly too in the limelight with support from both wings of politics
The last scapegoat was Europe, hence Farage and Boris and Brexit and guess what! We still can't stop the boats and we still can't get a decent job or a doctor's appointment.
Nope - there was a two hour window to do something about the issue and even then the worst case was someone sanding outside the door at 11:30 saying sorry but due to unavoidable issues this exam is continuing.
Someone screwed up to begin with but someone else screwed up by not correctly dealing with the problem when it occurred.
Typical university - bright people with absolutely zilch common sense and ability to think through a problem..
The other things they need to do are cut NHS waiting lists and make people feel better off.
Petty crime and lawlessness is something I’ve spent the last week thinking about. They need to do something about that but I am not sure realistically how they can. Lots more police officers?
Reform have tapped into this albeit with reforms that won’t actually address the issues as they’re pursuing migrants as their bette noir.
That leaves space for actual radical reform to be proffered. I am hopeful that liberal radicalism can be offered as it was twice last century. Also possible for the SNP and Plaid to get smart and find a voice that attracts voters.
What I struggle with is how Reform stops itself imploding under the weight of expectation.
And I am willing to bet that the non-voters will show up at the polls, just like they showed up for Trump, and Reform's lead is closer to 9% & not 2%.
This exact same argument was presented by anti-Trump commentators before the 2024 election, to justify what they expected to be a Harris win: "Trump is relying on young non-voting men. They will never show up at the polls. They'll be too busy playing on their Xboxes."
In reality, the "young non-voting men" did show up at the polls.
The important characteristic of non voters is they don't actually vote. Also, Reform until this year has never managed to turn out its claimed supporters, leading to an underperformance in every election.
All that might have changed however. And Reform did very well in the recent local elections.
And so back to the government needing to pull those levers.
It's going to be harder in Wales to do that though as there are tax raising powers (income tax) that aren't currently used but could be.
It’s a permanent collection called “Family of Man” housed in a 12th century chateau in the little Luxembourg village of Clervaux - rebuilt after the horrors of the battle of the bulge
It was collected by a Luxembourg dude - Edward Steichen - when he was director of photography at MOMA in the 1950s-60s. Then the whole thing was gifted to Clervaux
To make it Steichner asked all the world’s best photographers and agencies to send some of their best work. He received 4 million photos. Then he and two assistants narrowed it down to 100,000. Then 10,000. Then 1,000. Then 500
The 500 are what you see in the chateau. The collection is UNESCO listed. It is absolutely magnificent - moving, profound, shocking, savage, sublime
Who knew? Who bloody knew? A little town in Luxembourg. Well I never
https://www.visit-clervaux.lu/en/art/the-family-of-man
https://aestheticsofphotography.com/the-family-of-man/
Just had one of the peak artistic experiences of my life
Besides which, devolved bodies are very good at blaming central Government for things - see the SNP.
The buck only really stops at Number 10.
Does anyone know how he managed to run up legal bills of £4.5 million? This is from his Register of Members' interests, which I ran across whilst rabbit-holing:
Name of donor: Jeremy Hosking
Address of donor: private
Amount of donation or nature and value if donation in kind: Legal services provided in relation to a civil case, the costs of which will be repaid to the donor on an interest-free basis, value £4,470,576.42
Date received: 12 October 2020 - 18 December 2023
Date accepted: 12 October 2020
Donor status: individual
(Registered 19 December 2023)
https://publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm/cmregmem/240108/bridgen_andrew.htm
(Jeremy Hosking is a somewhat controversial financial-world character who funded Lozza Fox's Reclaim Party to the tune of £1 million plus.)
Maybe. We will see. The Welsh elections will be a good test of that I think.
The turn out last time was a local government style level of 46%
Is there anything - literally ANYTHING - that has not been destroyed or besmirched or diminished by “left wing academics”?
Reform 38
Plaid 24
Labour 20
Con 13
LD 3
Green 2
Tories tell Reform to get on with it as a minority govt knowing they can't get anything overly radical through and the whole kit and caboodle can be collapsed at an opportune time.
Isn't that like part of the actual f-ing definition?
Not looked at all the back posts, but at the last election the turnout was 59.8%, whereas 2019 was 67.3, 2017 68.8, and 2015 66.4. Which suggests there are quite a few non-voters LAST TIME who could be persuaded.
Anecdote alert; In the few days before polling day my wife and I were both told by our hairdressers (in my case barbers) that they wouldn't be voting as there was no-one to vote for. From previous discussions, IIRC, the barber normally votes.
Edit; yes, we had a Reform candidate.
I'd never heard if it either.
One for the list.
Why are driverless cars worse than automatic lifts, or driverless trains?
There were, I think, a lot of ex-Conservatives in the non-voter column - we saw this in the pre-election polling data. It's also possible some, seeing Labour as certain to win, decided not to bother (that happened in 2001 as well).
It's suggested there is a gap in British politics for a Party clearly and unequivocally committed to fiscal rectitude - we could call it the Prudence Party. Maybe, but that party would have to explain how we reduce the deficit and borrowing (except for that long term borrowing connected to capital infrastructure projects) without crippling the key services on which a significant portion of the public depend.
Someone remarked they believed they paid 50% tax (when including income tax, NI, VAT, Council Tax and fuel duty). I'll need to sit and work my figures out - I don't disbelieve it but whether that's generally true I'm less certain. Unfortunately, despite the usual nonsense peddled by Reform, I simply don't see how spending cuts can do all the work if you want to reduce the deficit - especially when there is a universal clamour of more defence spending.
It's all a bit "mom and apple pie". Tell the voters what they want to hear.
Mainstream media are bigging up Reform at a remarkable rate.
That goes for Trumpists, 21st Century conservative religious or political (eg JD Vance and his ilk perhaps fit both of those though I think his religion is partially a wrap) , the newly developed misogynistic movements which are sprouting on the right here and in UK/Europe around figureheads such as Yaxley-Lennon or Musk (and their fellow travellers).
I'm not sure where the woke right would stand on that one.
I wonder if the photographic exhibition inspired the name of the song?
One and the same mate, one and the same.
https://issues.aperture.org/article/1955/2/2/the-controversial-family-of-man
“The scholarly reception of The Family of Man is greatly influenced by Roland Barthes who in 1957 criticized the exhibition for an essentialist depiction of human experiences such as birth, death, and work, and the removal of any historical specificity from this depiction. 2) Later, Allan Sekula viewed the exhibition as a populist ethnographic archive and “the epitome of American cold war liberalism” that “universalizes the bourgeois nuclear family” and therefore serves as an instrument of cultural colonialism. 3) Christopher Phillips, on the other hand, criticized Steichen for silencing the voice of individual photographers by decontextualizing their photographs and imposing his own narrative”
https://fkmagazine.lv/2018/07/02/the-family-of-man-the-photography-exhibition-that-everybody-loves-to-hate/
The usual argument is that it has gotten too woke. Sci fi has always been a genre well-adapted to holding up a mirror to society and making a political point, so I’d argue including progressive themes isn’t in and of itself a bad or objectionable thing. However, of the recent episodes I’ve watched, the messaging from the writers is so blatant and uninspired it hits you in the face with blunt force trauma. People watch shows like Doctor Who for escapism, and great if it leaves an impression and maybe makes one think a little bit. They don’t really come to be given a political lecture on the progressive news item du jour.
RTD has never been a writer inclined to subtlety. He wasn’t in his first run either, but I think he exercised more moderation then (or perhaps had more executive oversight).
All that aside, the general standard of storytelling is just poor as well, and resurrecting characters from 20-40 years ago without any real payoffs is incredibly lazy.
For example will Oldham Athletic FC beat Southend United FC this afternoon, or will the latter scrape back into the Football League?
Problem is what they’re changing.
“Ending net zero”. And replacing it with? If we want to revert to burning gas (and coal?) we’ll need to invest heavily in both generating capacity and expensive imported fuel. So a big cost offset against the alleged saving.
“Ending final salary pensions”. Probably inevitable, though with the caveat that making people poorer doesn’t make people better off. Pension reform and welfare reform are crucial. But it can’t just be “cut” because cuts cost money
“End the boats and asylum hotels”. Ok, there is genuine cost to save. But that isn’t where they want to stop, they want to end migration. Which has huge downside costs as migration fills holes that can’t just be filled with easy zero cost.
“Ending waste and bureaucracy in the private sector”. Right ambition, wrong strategy. The waste is the structure. You can’t chop bits off the structure and save money because then what is left is even more inefficient. You need a new structure.
So well done for actually starting the debate. Someone had to. But they don’t have any actual solutions. We can’t - as Starmer tried - just sneeringly say “it doesn’t add up” because neither does the status quo. Change is needed.
1 - That's a bought and paid for reverse ferret. In their 2019 and 2021 manifestos they supported addressing Net Zero. Since then Reform has received several millions of £££ from fossil fuel supporters, and what happens? That should be a red flag for any potential supporters; Trump told his supporters what they wanted to hear, and has now started demolishing the rule of law and the US Constitution, whilst corruptly grifting multiple billions.
2 - That will hit their target young voters. They can only end them for new joiners without a lot of negotiation, and in fact such schemes have already been heavily restricted. For example the Civil Service, NHS and Local Govt Pension Schemes are already based on Career Average Salary.
They are already in control of some Local Authority Pension schemes; let's see what happens. To me that is a potential wedge between factions in the RefUK support base.
3 - They can't do anything there that other parties are not already doing afaik.
4 - There are already mulitple examples in County Councils where they made windy promises, and the expenditure that they promised to cut turns out not to exist. There are also some interesting reverse ferrets from both their Regional Mayors.
At this point, imo RefUK are not a serious political party. We will see !
You mean vast swathes of non voters (say in 2021 Germany) turned out in 2024, but not a single SDP 2021 voter turned into non voter? That's simply not credible.
The size of the CDU 2021 block is very strange, but gives a clue, given they were only slightly behind SDP in that election. Did the CDU 2021 block really just vapourise into 2024 non voters and the CDU win was built on almost entirely on transfers. Seems like a slightly improbable tale to me, but maybe someone can confirm.
You'd never see Dylan Difford pulling this nonsense. No voter or non voter left behind for him.
The treatment of non voters and voter churn by polling companies needs to improve massively.
It does include various provisions relating to liability for accidents (which I have not attempted to read) and about regulation of companies seeking to roll out automated driving. Interestingly it also has clauses making senior managers individually liable for offences like covering up or destroying information sought by the regulator.
Getting rid of DOGE style irrelevance will not be electorally popular. When the GP surgery charges £200 per consultation, frequent flyer NHS uses will be outraged. They will be jumping in their cars and using the pay as you drive roads to get to an Amazon pillar box and send their letters of complaint to Nigel Farage at Mar a Lago.
I repeat what was said in an interview in response to a genuine question and you turn that into an insinuation I agree when I reject the whole Farage Reform proposition
There is 3 - 4 years to the next GE but next year is going to create a narrative and may well seriously damage some politicians careers
Sekula a far better photographer than critic.
Phillips I'd never heard of, but must be this guy:
https://tisch.nyu.edu/about/directory/photo/94813872.html
https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/fcgi-bin/usercode.py?scotcontrol=N&CON=20&LAB=24&LIB=15&Reform=26&Green=7&UKIP=&TVCON=&TVLAB=&TVLIB=&TVReform=&TVGreen=&TVUKIP=&SCOTCON=&SCOTLAB=&SCOTLIB=&SCOTReform=&SCOTGreen=&SCOTUKIP=&SCOTNAT=&display=AllChanged&regorseat=(none)&boundary=2024base
Only four years to go until the exit poll reveals all.