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Hypothetical polls, a history showing they are consistently bobbins – politicalbetting.com
Hypothetical polls, a history showing they are consistently bobbins – politicalbetting.com
There are some hypothetical VI polls with a new Corbyn party doing the rounds. Take them with a pinch of salt. It's a very natural thing to ask, but it's very difficult to do (and these things – voting intention polls asking about hypothetical new parties – have a *terrible* track record).
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Wow, there's a start for a Sunday morning. Just back from my constitutional. It was wet. The whisper of the Dighty Burn was a snarling muddy rumble this morning and the puddles were across the roads in places.
Trump’s attempt to shut down the big pal of convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein story seems to be going well.
Elon appears to be entirely relaxed about everyone saying anything they like about ex best buddy DJT on X/Twitter.
The avatars and user infos are also too big - ask Vanilla to make them narrower please.
It's not that wind power isn't (probably) the UK's best option for a large slug of our energy mix; it's that it's going to be deeply uncompetitive against year round solar, in countries closer to the equator, at prices of 0.5 cents per kWh.
There are counter arguments, but I'd be interested in what posters like @rcs1000 think.
1. Wind and solar both keep me up at night, but for opposite reasons. Solar works and is winning the global race, Britain simply sits too far north to benefit. Britain is betting on wind instead, yet wind lacks the very traits that makes solar work...
https://x.com/RobertBoswall/status/1946513592225792475
This sort of toxic discourse is wrong no matter who the target is.
What hypothetical polls do tell us is that significant sections of the voting public are not happy with what is on offer from existing parties.
With such multiple different political currents around we either need an electoral system that treats multiple parties fairly, or genuine democracy within the major parties. Tories, Labour and Reform are all led very much top down, with little or no grass roots say on policy or direction.
Of course votes at 16 will make for a more easily manipulated, more gullible electorate. But excuse me a moment. Labour said it was going to introduce this, quite clearly, in its manifesto last year. Yet millions of grown-up voters used their ballots to help Labour into power, directly or indirectly. They’re in no position to sneer at 16-year-olds for being too immature, impulsive and easily led to be allowed to vote.
NYC - Net Favorables:
H. Clinton: +15%
Silwa: +13%
AOC: +13%
Cuomo: +2%
Sharpton: +1%
Mamdani: -3%
Adams: -19%
Trump: -22%
HarrisX / July 2025
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1946614536653451443
Actually she's likely more popular because she isn't doing so.
The potential disintegration of a coalition, which bears at the very least part responsibility for the to toxification of social media, might be a step in its evolution to something a little less so ?
After all, it is not going away.
Of course they played a part, but it wasn't just immaturity, impulsivity and gullibility Millions of people voted for Labour not because they were manipulated and gullible, but out of their own self-interest.
Benefit-scroungers, public sector workers, net zero nutters and trade unionists expecting huge pay rises are obvious examples.
And quite a few middje-class people who preferred to prospect of higher taxes to social breakdown.
We don't need hypotheticals, we can do some extrapolation. At the last election we had a party of the left/gaza etc running - Galloways WPB which got 0.7% of the vote overall standing in about 150 seats - about 3.5% on average per seat contested. Plus we had indies, many of whom were of similar views taking 2% nationwide and 5 seats in England.
A Corbyn vehicle should attract better support than a Galloway one and will sail very well in more heavily Gaza concerned city seats. I could see a 'standing everywhere' Corbyn party getting 5% of the total vote, and average over 10% in inner city seats, competitive in maybe a dozen.
The point of the argument isn't that wind power is probably a big part of our best energy option - which it likely is - it's that year round solar for the majority of generation in (eg) Arizona or Saudi is going to be less than a third of the cost.
However the way costs are going, we should have cheap electricity here, even if they have even cheaper electricity there, however electricity should ideally be only a small factor in the cost base of even intensive industry. Labour etc ought to be more important.
You can in some jurisdictions (S Korea, for example).
In terms of hypothetical polls relating to a new party leader though they tend to be more accurate, eg on Major replacing Thatcher in 1990 or Johnson replacing May in 2019
Speaking of Reform, Farage now on Kuenssberg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9aQxIOlFrg
The crown jowels so to speak.
IDS of course now looks like a relatively moderate Tory grandee compared to either of them and Truss
If they get 27% (say) I think they'll lose many many seats to a tactical push
Good morning!
If you need 4x as many panels (because it’s the U.K.), the rest of the system stays the same. You only need more panels. Which are dirt cheap.
So a solar farm in the UK will cost little more than one in Morocco. Certainly, the difference will be orders of magnitude less than building and maintaining an inter-continental cable.
Perhaps the answer is to move away from our traditional system of government, with an all powerful leader elected from the legislature and have a genuine presidential type election for leader, and a parliament elected by PR. This would combine the need for leadership with democratic accountability. The president would have a mandate, but need to negotiate on actions with a more representative body.
Against this (as alluded to in the transmission cost) is that solar is in the wrong place for the UK. But if the North Africans decide to set up a grid with the Southern Europeans, you could see an energy cascade northwards. They will have to allow for the NIMBYs that don't like HV transmission lines in their area - a real issue in the UK.
It's a useful contribution to the debate and domestic energy storage (Tesla batteries or even a Tesla) looks like another additional area for future building regulation, if GCH is to be banned. I say that as someone who made their living out of the polluting coal power stations and the even more polluting nuclear.
Listening to Farage, he hasn't a clue about how he would run the country and is simply playing popularism at its worse
Whatever happens in the future, Farage is not the answer and I genuinely hope tactical voting does take pace to save our county from a UK Trump.
Mind you if his interview this morning is anything to go by he will have a nightmare in a general election campaign
#LegendaryModestyKlaxon
"I pledge to vote against any increase in fees in the next parliament and to pressure the government to introduce a fairer alternative.”
https://x.com/naomirwolf/status/1946618435548373115
The party lost 37 of its 43 seats in the next election in 2015.
I resigned from the party, and I'm a very active activist.
I hope the lesson has been learned by the Lib Dem leadership.
Also about coalitions.
As for Tory members electing poor leaders, as I've reminded you several times, they are choosing between a shortlist of two presented to them by the PCP. In IDS's case they rejected someone completely ideologically opposed to the settled Eurosceptical view of the wider party, and in Truss's case they rejected Sunak, who want on to lead the Tories to their most crushing defeat in living memory. Sunak was shit on that campaign trail (as he was in Government, and in the GE) and any sensible electorate would have rejected him for the complete dud he was. It's a deeply flawed system, but it's idiotic (as surely you know) to highlight the members choosing one candidate from two, when the MPs have selected 2 from many.
To be fair, I never liked Clegg very much; preferred Kennedy or Campbell, particularly the former. If only he hadn't turned to drink!
But I will say more generally that UK energy policy is in my view heavily led by lobbyists and interest groups - as well as the overall direction of travel being to tick emissions boxes, not generate plentiful, inexpensive energy.
Therefore it is entirely predictable that we would choose the least efficient form of power generation, because greater the inefficiency, the greater money someone is making out of it. We tend to think of 'Government waste' just going into a metaphorical toilet, and nobody would mind if it stopped. Of course, that isn't the case. It actually goes into another organisation's pockets, and those organisations have the resources and influence to keep it that way.
I am not being fatalistic - I really do believe the next Government will start the journey of serious reform that the country needs. But they need to understand broadly that there will be fierce opposition from those who like the current set up - not just for ideological reasons but for profound commercial ones.
Laptop is fine except what you type in the comment box is a very small font, but at least it is easily readable
The mobile version is pretty close to unusable for me. The comments are clear but I have to zoom in a huge amount to see who has posted or to respond or like. When I say the font is small I'm talking micro dot level.
Others don't seem to be having a problem. Is this some set up issue for me. Was fine before.
On another point: @hyufd as previously mentioned, I sent a private message to you last week. I assume you haven't seen it. I also note from private messages I have received in the last few weeks you no longer get an email notification of a private message having been received. That was useful.
They have a lifetime away from power to think on their actions. I hope every day stings like chilli in the eye.
That is a very good thread. Kind of a model of what a great X thread can be: lucid, sharp, pointed, brisk, highly educational. Like a presentation online, illustrated with graphs
And yes: looks like we need nuclear
I've always thought it was notable that only (I think) Ed Davey of the 43 LibDem MP's defeated in 2015 tried to get back into Parliament.
Edited: ah, top of the page, click avatar, and there we are.
“I'm told a potential Labour leadership bid from Wes Streeting is currently shaping up, with Shabana Mahmood broached as campaign chair”
https://x.com/david__osland/status/1946589573733023782?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw
Said no one except Wes Streeting.
Replies under the tweet point out that Streeting has a majority sub-1000 (is that true? Haven’t checked) and is highly likely to lose his seat next GE
So if this is true, it feels more choreography than real rebellion. That said, I struggle to see it as anything other than an improvement.
It's invariably a white middle-class man saying how he's different to all those other white middle-class men.
It'd be nice if we all just collectively got over this diversity dogma. It's out of date, if it was ever in date.
Reform doesn't need Tory retreads either
Not happening.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/uk-asylum-seekers-caught-double-benefits-68krzd9cj
And if they leave the UK, isn't that a bonus?
https://labourlist.org/2025/06/angela-rayner-andy-burnham-labour-leadership-labourlist-survation-poll/
We are utter saps. Just end asylum now. Scrap the whole system and start mass deportation