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Labour are the favourites to win the most seats at the next general election – politicalbetting.com
Labour are the favourites to win the most seats at the next general election – politicalbetting.com
I suspect what is driving this is that there’s an expectation there will be swingback to the government by the time of the next election and that most of the centre-left will coalesce behind Labour to stop Farage becoming Prime Minister.
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If it's Reform then it's hard to see a Tory comeback.
The Conservative party is still too moribund, Reform are too Marmite (Farage loses every head-to-head) and the Lib Dems are too localised in their support.
Like his dad: https://kyivindependent.com/elon-musks-father-attends-pro-kremlin-event-in-russia-hosted-by-far-right-ideologue/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c62veqrq3yzo
I seem to recall @bondegezou insisting a few days ago that Hamas were actually using a school, not the hospital, a few metres away as the human shields, so that makes it OK by Hamas and a war crime by Israel to strike at him at the hospital where his body has now been found.
Good on Israel for striking another Hamas leader. A shame for the poor, innocent Palestinians who are caught in the middle and being denied refuge from this war by neighbouring states until Hamas surrenders.
For Reform, it's how to hand the baton on to someone who isn't Nigel. None of the Farage vehicles have managed that before.
Linked to that, for the Conservatives, the question is how to remain relevant until Farage leaves the stage, because that's their biggest opportunity. That in turn means that their leader (and the next one) need to recognise that their role is the Michael Howard one- ensuring that there is a party to hand over to a leader who can say "that mess was nothing to do with me".
For the Lib Dems, there is some more Nice Britain to occupy, but that's not enough to get to second place. (Wonder what that ceiling is?) So what can they coherently add to that as their base?
Needs Steve Inmans commentary
https://x.com/langmanvince/status/1931710059664343082?s=61
I'd be curious the relevant proportions of fighting age men, or women, or children in the refugee statistics from Ukraine or those travelling via boat.
This is not America.
BBC report from 2022: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60645126
Women with children wept with the stress, clutching their passports and family birth certificates in one hand and their children in the other. Outside the station, there were tearful goodbyes as fighting-age men, banned from leaving Ukraine, stopped and let their families go, unsure if they would ever see them again.
Curious what "tedious dogwhistle" the BBC was blowing here.
I think the Tories have more long term viability than Labour do - they're not in the hotseat, and politics is shifting rightward.
There are also considerable signs that within Labour they're preparing to lose. The bigging up of Reform is crazy for them viewed as anything other than a losing rearguard strategy aimed at electoral survival via a left-wing panic vote.
Reform implosion is another great hope - well they are imploding, practically weekly it seems. But they are imploding forward, and it barely registers as a stutter.
As for human shields, the IDF have been forcing Palestinian civilians to be human shields for them: https://edition.cnn.com/2025/03/12/middleeast/israel-gaza-human-shields-investigation-intl/index.html , https://www.haaretz.com/middle-east-news/2025-05-24/ty-article/israeli-use-of-human-shields-in-gaza-was-systemic-soldiers-and-former-detainees-tell-ap/00000197-01e6-dc94-ab97-0fee1dd40000
There is absolutely no way that any court, including the Supreme Court, would allow him to cancel any elections. Also, the elections are conducted by the States, so Blue States like California will go ahead with the elections, no matter what Trump says.
Constitution Article 1, Clause 2: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of Members chosen every second Year by the People of the several States, and the Electors in each State shall have the Qualifications requisite for Electors of the most numerous Branch of the State Legislature."
2 U.S. Code § 7: "The Tuesday next after the 1st Monday in November, in every even numbered year, is established as the day for the election, in each of the States and Territories of the United States, of Representatives and Delegates to the Congress commencing on the 3d day of January next thereafter."
The idea that "it starts from a school, not the hospital" seems rather simplistic.
But on the other hand: if the network is widespread, how could the journalists know whether they are under the hospital or elsewhere (given the tunnel was apparently accessed through freshly-dug earth just outside the hospital)?
(*) It would make sense for them to be connected, even if not the primary route used.
They proceeded even during both World Wars and the far more bloody (for them) Civil War.
Nor is the encouragement of it by some Dem politicians.
Sad to see him still pretending it was "elsewhere" without caveat.
On c), Lib Dems were within ~200 votes of winning Ashfield in 2010.
There is a d) targeting areas which voted Labour in 2024 and feel left out depending on what Mr Starmer does, such as badly targeted wealth taxes.
It's how they read the cost-benefit, and the time, I think.
Does this excuse what Israel is doing? Of course not. Much of what they are doing are war crimes. But bombing hospitals used in this way is not. It’s merely abhorrent.
Too many here don't want to see Hamas defeated, or their unconditional surrender though.
The Tamil Tigers were defeated. There's no reason Hamas can't be. All it takes to end the fighting is for them to surrender.
People who try and predict it are modern bird-gut-readers.
A distillation of the PB debates on the topic. It's currently the second most read item on BBC news.
ISTM the Conservatives' best hope is to get some fresh young faces in at the next GE. They'd essentially be fighting local battles under cover of a national campaign. But do they have enough MPs who are ready to step down then, or will they all be focused on keeping their jobs?
Comparisons to earlier big wins already seem off. New Labour held every by election 1997 to 2001, even gaining % in some of the Tory defences and they won the first local elections in 98 gaining 2 councils and only losing a net handful of the 2000 plus wards defended. A year in they were polling 10% above their 1997 vote with a twenty point plus lead
Thats not what they face today.
They are hilariously screwed.
All hands abandon the red wall
But the really amazing thing are the maps of mines, e.g. coal. Not only do they show, to apparently quite high accuracy, the position of the workings, but they can also be objects of beauty. And all done manually, without modern stuff like lasers.
(Somewhere I've got a book on surveying for tunnellers, written in Victorian times.)
Incidentally, there's an online official map of all known old coal workings. I particularly like the ones to the west of Buxton in the Peak District, where the hollows in the ground are still well fenced off.
https://datamine-cauk.hub.arcgis.com/
(*) Yes, I wanted to bore as a profession. Now it's just a hobby...
We're generating 3x as much electricity than we need, just from renewables.
There's an interchangeable Canadian made version of he Hydra 70 called the CRV7.
It sits in a similar application slot as things like Martlet, but there is a big stock that can be converted.
Perun was talking about the principle it in the winter / spring as a possibility for Europe to step up should the USA pull out.
I have no idea where the IP sits Europe vs USA.
I've got a good friend currently working 1km below the North Sea. Mad.
I have a feeling they are now listening to Blair who until Iraq was the master of the genre with their in-house pollsters led by Philip Gould. Find out where the public are and where they can be taken to.
Farage is a mountebank who glitters in the absense of an alternative. The chances of a Party led by him going the distance seem very slight. At the moment with Labour and the Libs holding the centre ground short of a Tory revival I can't see an alternative to the next government being a Labour one
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2025/jun/09/water-companies-public-ownership-could-cost-close-to-zero-says-common-wealth-thinktank
ETA this seems like the sort of thing Farage should be all over. Popular, cheap and with the potential to embarrass both main parties.
But he didn't follow the legal procedures, and just did a JFDI.
And its a lot more likely for Labour to lose support there than for the LibDems to do so in the blue wall.
I’m not holding any candle for the previous government. Building some of the largest offshore wind farms in the world without putting a lot of serious thought into how that energy was going to be efficiently harnessed and distributed was mind blowingly stupid. But Miliband has so far made it worse, not better.
1979 - within a year yes Con lost councillors in 1980 but were holding vote share in polling from 1979 generally (in wretched economic circs)
1997 - as above
2010 - Con held polling vote share and gained at the 2011 locals
Newly elected 'change' govts are not unpopular
This is unprecedented
That would require him willing to have people to stand up to him rather than fawning sycophants.
Our universal price system is very unusual. Almost all other countries have some form of regional/nodal system.
Latest Yougov:
REF: 28% (-1)
LAB: 22% (+1)
CON: 18% (-1)
LDEM: 17% (+2)
GRN: 9% (-2)
That is 46 to Ref and Con combined, and 48 to LLG. Other polls have the right-left lead the other way around. But the “bloc” balance has been stable for months after the centre-left lost its commanding lead a few months into the Labour government. So the country is divided quite equally, as is this forum.
We’re in the era of PR vote shares in a FPTP system. Comparing Labour’s 22% with previous incumbents is tempting but you’d also then need to compare Reform’s 28% with previous challengers, who would usually have been in the 40s mid-term.
I think there are two important dynamics, alongside the usual Scottish one, which are hard to predict.
1. Not all those Green votes will return to Labour. The question is how many will, and whether those that stay out cost any Labour seats.
2. Will Reform consolidate the right? If they do then that helps them against Labour but probably costs even more Tory seats to Lib Dems in the South
How do we think:
a Farage
b Davey
c Starmer
would do? I have not seen any of them running marathons.
I've left Badenoch out since she is of a younger generation.
(My cousin and her husband are just past 60 and have taken up table tennis. He did 5-a-side football until last year. I'm working on it.)
To be fair to Labour I'm not sure its possible to produce the 'change' government that those people want (many of whose ideas of 'change' are contradictory).
LDs will imo lose some of the tactical voting that won them 72 seats on 12.6% in 2024, there are no Tories to 'get out' this time
https://www.theguardian.com/society/2025/jun/09/meet-the-members-of-the-dull-mens-club-some-of-them-would-bore-the-ears-off-you?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Other
The 20k were paid for by the US.
In particular, Reform will struggle to keep the show on the road for four years. The essential move, currently underway, to move to an Old Labour + nearly closed borders position - not in itself ridiculous - will have its difficulties given that so many of its louder voices are absurd and amateurish.
Yesterday showed that he can send federal personnel to take over state duties
He can send people to 'help' with the elections
The South African trend seems to me more chilly and impenetrable, thiough, with a tendency towards being proudly rude, on the other hand, among some Israelis too.
Especially if Labour continue down their route of being a by-word for fuck-up.
Israel should be seeking a monopoly of violence, as any state does.
Labour as as bad, but as they are in power they are significant even when deadly dull.
Afrikaaners included, just keep off politics.
Briefly, if you think his dad is bad, wait until you meet his grandfather. The programme considers the influences of the 1930s Technocratic Movement, the significance of the alphabet (! yes, really!) the symbolism of comic books and various concepts of Master Races, and the way they have all helped to form young Elon.
The RefUKkers (NFF apart) are not of that calibre and are interviewed constantly
This can only be an editorial decision
2024 should have taught them to start working their wards in the delayed counties hard and now
http://www.forgottenrelics.org/tunnels/alfreton-old-tunnel/
Network Rail have a *lot* of parallel-to-the-line routes which could be used for all kinds of beneficial things, but which they keep fenced off. I have a multiuser path that could take me all the way to (mainline) Alfreton Station but which stops half-a-mile short, because Network Rail keep a parallel track fenced off.
So it is necessary to do battle with dual carriageways or dangerous narrow roads, and huge hills (the EMM goes through the flat valley).
So no one uses it to get to the station. The close by area of potential users has about 200k people in it.
But they won't. They choose, as we know, to block up bridges rather than let them be a public benefit. It's all hidden in plain sight.
Unless either Labour ot Tories go extinct it is hard to see how they can extend much. There can't be much doubt that their plan for now is to be in government with Labour and then see what happens next.
The problem is the insane requirement that every government database be linked up, and access provided to everyone who asks. *Without* segregation of data.
So, under the ID card scheme that was beginning to be implemented, a contractor, working for the council on fly tipping, could see your NHS records.
Yes, they really specified the system that way. So that "administrative friction" wouldn't slow down "necassary work".
When they realised there was a problem, the response was that data for "Important People" (decided by the government) would be segregated in a separate database with limited access.
ID cards without this bullshit would be fine.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_make-up_of_local_councils_in_the_United_Kingdom
Five very outer London boroughs, a couple of Midlands mets, the counties that postponed elections and some second tier districts that few could locate on a map.
It's better than nothing, but not by much.