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Your regular reminder that the Tories & Reform are two discrete blocs not one homogenous bloc
Your regular reminder that the Tories & Reform are two discrete blocks not one homogenous block– politicalbetting.com
This is fascinating looking at who would Brits vote against. Reform lower than I might have thought. But what jumps out to me is a quarter of Tory voters would pick Reform as the party they would vote against, doesn’t suggest you can add them together like Lego bricks.
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And which may never be.
The leak, which took place after the Supreme Court’s trans decision, caused embarrassment to ministers Angela Eagle and Chris Bryant, but the group’s admins haven’t taken it lying down.
They have set up a new group, methodically leaving out suspects, and now believe the culprits have been excluded. This echoes Rooney’s method for finding the person who leaked stories about her to the tabloids but, unlike when she identified Rebekah Vardy, with no naming and shaming.
This is a classier operation: less Wagatha Christie, more MPD James.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/mps-learn-wagatha-lessons-from-coleen-rooney-c8jntgr80
You can compare Tories and Reform with bricks.
It's just that one set is Duplo.
And the other straw.
They're in government.
Norfolk (for my perspective) - yeah on current polling about right (although SW Norfolk is no way that hard in Reforms camp), i think it will end up a lot more 'patchwork' by the GE, the Tory vote in some rural parts is very fery sticky at 30 to 35%
A little late, but work has begun on Khan Noonien Singh.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c6256wpn97ro
In effect this tells us the percentages of each group that hate Party X more than they hate any of the other parties.
What we should like to know is the percentages of each group that hate each of Parties X, Y and Z enough to vote against them tactically, which is quite different. And ideally we'd like it broken down further into the percentages that would vote tactically against Party X by supporting Party A, and so on.
The current period is like the Cambrian explosion. Every idea is being tried out in a riot of rapid evolution.
Stop laughing at the back.
I've been watching the rise of RefUKIxitUK for years. The people most hated by the Fukkers are the Tories and vice versa. Watch the hatefest up here in the shire as Tory after Tory defects to Refuk - they are hated by the Tories far more than other parties.
“… a last ironic thought drifted through Hendricks’ mind. He felt a little better, thinking about it. The bomb. Made by the Second Variety to destroy the other varieties. Made for that end alone.
They were already beginning to design weapons to use against each other.”
‘I’ve given in to all my basest instincts and I feel dirty. Still gunna do it though.’
Sovereign debt crisis.
YouGov's first MRP since the 2024 election shows a hung parliament with Reform UK as the largest party and the Tories pushed into fourth place
Reform UK: 271 (+266 from 2024)
Labour: 178 (-233)
Lib Dems: 81 (+9)
Conservatives: 46 (-75)
SNP: 38 (+29)
Greens: 7 (+3)
Plaid: 7 (+3)
Others: 3 (-2)
Reform UK: 26% (+12 from 2024)
Labour: 23% (-11)
Conservatives: 18% (-6)
Lib Dems: 15% (+3)
Greens: 11% (+4)
SNP: 3% (=)
Plaid: 1% (=)"
https://x.com/YouGov/status/1938100799655059726
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52437-first-yougov-mrp-since-2024-election-shows-a-hung-parliament-with-reform-uk-as-largest-party
Now, the right is doing the same People's Front of Judea stuff that we used to laugh at lefties for doing. Sort that, and the right wins again, but it's not easy to see how that happens.
💥 David Cameron thinks Robert Jenrick should be the next Tory leader
💥 Tory strategists say the best they can do is to try to salvage 80 seats
💥Kemi’s vision for Britain: “the same but less crap”
💥Boris Johnson has a 5 point plan for his return
https://x.com/ShippersUnbound/status/1938124492548760000
We also have way way lower private debt than the USA. It’s been falling inexorably since 2009.
If the UK gets anywhere near a sovereign debt crisis then the rest of the developed world is really in the shit.
Let's see how Captain Hullbreach responds today
Or another 4 words: and an independent currency.
Only Germany has lower. And that's by a long way.
Our fiscal position is terrible, but we're not the ugliest person at the party here.
Perhaps it would have been better if they had just asked 'Which Party do you hate most?'
'If you could vote against one party ... which party would it be' would be better.
Pinch of salt from these things though, they were on 165 seats and joint second just 15 off largest party in an MRP within the last 3 months.
I don't think I could. See also a Tory party led by Jenrick.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/live/bbc_radio_fourfm
We need an acronym.
SAS - Starmer always surrenders
SAGG - Starmer always gives ground
"Council boss quits, leaving 18-year-old in charge
Reform UK councillor Rob Howard released a short statement in which he said he had made the decision with "much regret".
George Finch, 18, will lead Warwickshire County Council"
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c93knke95peo
Pollsters are just emulating them.
Does the UK have the manufacturing capacity to produce millions of drones per year.
If not ow long would it take to build that capacity.
I think that one reason RefUK supporters are relatively more anti-Labour is the zeal of the convert, and I think that RefUK may have (as per Farage and Anderson for two) some success in getting their supporters to believe things that are made up, of which they use many. For Farage, it is all about marketing.
Listening to a bit of GB News last night, they are still pounding away at the "Lucy Connolly was imprisoned for a single tweet" lie. They were also coming up with some strange stuff about the "oppressed Christian preacher at Kings Cross" story from this week (which is a non-story; they were using PA equipment without bothering with permission or finding out that they needed it).
Another one that surprised me came from a story about reopening Rufford Ford on a Nottingham news site. That is a sometimes deep Ford in a village where performative ASB wankers have been driving through for several years at high speed and getting on Youtube.
The first comment is "Thanks to Labour's Online Safety Bill, those who post such videos can and will be prosecuted.". The Online Safety Act received Royal Assent in October 2023 afaics. Perhaps an indicator that brazen public deception has much potential in 2025 as a strategy for low information voters; it's penetrated at least one head.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/george-cottrell-nigel-farage-reform-geostrategy-international-unlimited-company-donations/
There have already been a handful of UK innovations in Ukraine.
The defence review promises further efforts in that direction, so time will tell.
But you're almost certainly correct that most of the procurement budget will continue to be spent in the old manner.
Balanced budgets versus low taxes
Economic nationalism versus free trade
Social conservatism versus libertarianism
Home ownership versus nimbyism
Aspiration for the young versus oldies uber alles
Isolationism versus military support for friends and allies
21 June 2025
At the St Petersburg International Economic Forum, a Russian MP came up to me.
"Are you going to bomb Iran?" he asked.
"I'm not planning to bomb anyone!" I replied.
"I mean you, the British…"
"Don't you mean Donald Trump?"
"He's told what to do by Britain," the man smiled. "And by the deep state."
It was a brief, bizarre conversation. But it showed that in St Petersburg this week there was more on people's minds than just the economy."
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cdr30jx6x0vo
Trump just said the B-2 pilots called him the other day because they were “devastated by the press.”
“Sir, sir…” they said.... 👀
https://x.com/JoJoFromJerz/status/1937885080694685945
Faith Kipyegon will today attempt to become the first woman to run a mile under 4 minutes. To do this she will be aided by specialist kit including an aerodynamic skin suit, specialist energy returning lightweight spikes and specialist pace runners arranged to disrupt the airflow for her. She will attempt this on a modern track which returns energy after a lifetime of the best scientific conditioning of fitness and nutrition.
71 years ago Roger Banister did it with none of the above assistance after starting the day at work as a medical student then catching the train up to Oxford mid morning and running at 6pm.
At the time of his arrest in August 2016, Cottrell had already been working for UKIP, though Farage told the BBC that this was in an unpaid volunteer position. Cottrell’s LinkedIn says he “served as a treasurer and head of fundraising of the United Kingdom Independence Party during the EU Referendum Campaign in 2016”.
That's two downsides - Nigel either has someone working for him who was head of UKIP fundraising whilst involved in money laundering, or he has someone who has a falsified CV.
Ok, maybe not that many but he liked a fag and a pint in the days before Woke ruined sport.
Hay fever (unless you have been at a book festival and caught something from an author of Aga Sagas) seems worse to me this year. But it may be because I am walking more in the woodlands of Notts / Derbys.
The more important part is the deficit.
Counterintuitive but its like blood loss. You can be big or small, heavy or skinny, and some of those will have serious consequences but regardless of your overall health if you lose too much blood rapidly it is fatal.
Deficits are the same. It is how much we are bleeding out.
On that metric the UK is second worst in the G7, behind only America which is in an absolutely awful position. Japan is actually running a surplus.
France is possibly the one which should set the most alarm bells ringing though being nearly as bad as us, and in the Euro so they lack their own independent sovereign currency.
L O L
Heinz Cleanz Genez.
Regrettably, our political system almost forces you to vote against the party you like least, rather than for the party you like most.
I don't think either Reform, or the ramshackle new model Tory party really have any such aspiration.
I don't care any more if people vote right, centre or left, as long as they vote for parties connected to reality rather than fantasists.
The challenge is making that attitude more common in peace time, and it does look like the people at the top want that to happen.
I gather that while our footballers like a drop of ale, several European players' vice is smoking.
I've made sure I've laid in enough salt for the YouGov MRP this morning though they did the LD seat number right last year. Perhaps they have it right now...
East Ham would end up 42% Labour, 15% Green, 14% Reform, 10% Conservative and 10% Other. I'm a long way from convinced by that given current trends.
MRPs missed the locally based Independents last time and could well do so again as that vote is concentrated in perhaps 30 seats.
So economic nationalists and free traders could be satisfied before globalisation brought new economic competitors.
Balanced budgets and tax cuts could be achieved thanks to North Sea Oil.
And home ownership and nimbyism could be combined before mass immigration.
But we're now in an era of choices and where every choice will have an actual loser, rather than just opportunity cost loser.
Labour is learning this now in government.
Every other party which follows into government will learn it as well.
Con 24%
SNP 24%
RefUK 24%
LD 15%
Lab 8%
Grn 4%
Oth 1%
https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/52437-first-yougov-mrp-since-2024-election-shows-a-hung-parliament-with-reform-uk-as-largest-party
The breadth of the variability is greater than the size of the difference in either extreme or averages, and so the overlap is huge. At my local parkrun, for example, the first female finisher was 9th overall, out of 23 runners, ahead of 6 further male runners. And parkrunners are still only a small proportion of the population.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mile_run_world_record_progression