For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
There's some sort of deal out there taking shape it seems and, as with all good deals, everyone will end up dissatisfied.
The history of Crimea from 1991 to 2014 doesn't make easy reading and you can understand why many Crimeans might not want to be part of a Ukraine seemingly dominated by the West. I'm not sure the Ukrainians comported themselves well in their relations with Crimea.
As far as "security guarantees" are concerned, I'm reminded it's almost exactly 86 years since the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact and while history is rarely symmetrical, if I were Ukraine, I'd be worried about my fate being decided by more powerful men in other rooms. The Europeans can be good friends and cheerleaders but ultimately can probably do very little.
Will this be a step on the road to a well-meaning if slightly incoherent European military power? Perhaps but it will have concerns and serious ones on both its eastern and southern flanks. For now, it needs Washington to be fully supportive of any post-war deal. It sounds as though there will be some waffle about an Article 5-type guarantee (albeit outside NATO) for Kyiv which Putin will accept as he needs time to rebuild (in exchange for the lifting of the significant sanctions).
It would be interesting to know if the population of Crimea would have now preferred to have stayed a part of a peaceful Ukraine rather than being militarily annexed by Russia in 2014 and now suffering the far wider consequences of the on going war caused by the current Russian invasion of Ukraine?
The thing is, and I need to write this carefully as I don’t mean offence to those who have sacrificed their lives and their friends and families, the Ukraine that existed in 2014 was a corrupt and crap country - I can imagine many in Crimea could look at Ukraine and look at Russia and find it hard to tell the difference.
It’s possible that Ukraine “needed” this war to become something else, something good. To stop being totally corrupt, to crave democracy and freedom. To become a fully modern European state and not just another ex Soviet slug.
If Ukraine gets a semblance of peace, however it happens, then they have the opportunity to become a dynamic country, industrialised through war and innovative. Natural resources which will benefit them, regardless of Trump trying to nick what he can.
Every child growing up in Ukraine will want freedom and democracy and will stamp on future Orbans and Ficos as they know how close they came to being under terrible rule.
A lot of lives have been lost but many countries become their best version when they have a point in history that made them identifiably “them”. So if this war ends, I think eventually the people of Crimea will look at Ukraine and wish they were part of it but not in 2014.
I somewhat agree with this. Once peace has frozen over, it is not just Russia who can regroup and reinforce. Ukraine would be united demographically without the Russian-speaking bits, and the race would be on to make it a model country - the new Poland. The race would also presumably be on on the Russian side to make 'their bits' of Ukraine shining beacons of enlightened Russian rule and pave the streets with gold. The prospect of this seems unlikely, but the people in both parts deserve these efforts.
There is no way Russia would be doing that. The whole object is to ensure that Ukraine never becomes successful, in that sense, at all.
Their aim is to make sure that an independent Ukraine isn't successful. That doesn't preclude trying to make those parts of it that are under Russian control a land of milk and honey - or at least not a hell hole with people desperate to cross the border into Free Ukraine.
While in Finland I saw part of a TV programme about Karelia, which was the price Finland had to pay in WWII, handing it to Russia to end the Winter War. Absolutely nothing has done with it since, and people there are now living in appalling conditions.
Don't forget the arctic port of Pechenga (formerly Finnish Petsamo). Oh, and the Sala region.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
He also saw something in the US election the rest of us didn’t. He was right about that. In the face of a lot of withering criticism
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
A cartoonist so good that he needs to label his characters .
Is Punch coming back?
(Or is this a USA cartoon where they would need to label anything from outside the 48 States? )
Who on earth does that caricature look like ? It certainly isn't Zelensky.
It looks a bit more like Ralph Fiennes.
I thought more a young Sir Anthony Sher.
Zack Polanski I thought, green duds helping no doubt.
Minefield though discussing (and possibly drawing) caricatures involving Jewish people. I’d say that one ‘looks’ very Jewish, more so than Zelensky does in fact.
Yes. Odd that a sympathetic cartoonist goes this way, when Zelensky doesn't really have that look.
I think it's just a really really crap cartoonist
You know who's really good at cartoons, these days?
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
I find the Institute for the Study of War and Adam Whitehead are both very good on Ukraine.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
He also saw something in the US election the rest of us didn’t. He was right about that. In the face of a lot of withering criticism
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Also for Reform. Lack of incumbency.
Incumbency won’t be an advantage when politicians are so vilified. Not many MPs are hard working constituency MPs, and even then, they need to be exceptional to override a big swing against their party.
@Sean_F I determined Peter Hitchens was nuts 20 years ago.
His older brother decided to be against all religion. To ape him, he decided to be against everything.
I don't use the word reactionary lightly but it suits him because he quite literally reacts to absolutely everything and anything as bad, and wants to be a professional contrarion.
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
Nobody has mentioned the Times or the Telegraph. Twenty years ago that wouldn’t have been the case.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
Bit of a snowflake though as it turns out. At least there will be an end of whiny righties bewailing the martyrdom of banned St William.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
He also saw something in the US election the rest of us didn’t. He was right about that. In the face of a lot of withering criticism
The way the site behaved to him was unforgivable.
To paraphrase Maggie - there is no such thing as PB, there are individual posters.
Off topic: The WaPo rightly criticizes the Loser's treatment of Lesotho:
For 25 years, the United States has enjoyed a mutually beneficial trading relationship with the African nation of Lesotho. American shoppers have been able to buy affordable Wrangler, Levi and Gap jeans. And the tiny, impoverished, landlocked country encircled by South Africa saw a boom in textile manufacturing jobs, providing a regular income for thousands of families and leading to a reduction in the country’s grinding poverty. By any measure, this has been a win-win arrangement.
How does Europe square this circle - other than by stationing significant armed forces in Ukraine ?
Outside of NATO, there is no credible guarantor of Ukrainian security except the Armed Forces of Ukraine. Europeans can maybe make partial and contingent support promises, but let's not confuse that with a "security guarantee". The US can't be a credible guarantor under Trump. https://x.com/jakluge/status/1957335855820927467
Its time for Poland to step up and show that they've learnt from their mistake at Munich in 1938.
I'm sure all those who've been extrapolating to infinity to show Poland becoming richer than Britain will agree.
There was over 50k in BAOR so Poland can deploy 50k to PAOD.
The Poles are arming at a breath taking rate. And doing it in depth - building factories etc.
Note that they are trying to move to sovereign capabilities as much as possible - one reason they are doing deals with South Korea, is that SK is using non-traditional arms agreements. Next to no constraints on usage/export of the weapons.
Nobody should buy arms from US now, Europe should standardise on it's own products or selected non US products.
@Sean_F I determined Peter Hitchens was nuts 20 years ago.
His older brother decided to be against all religion. To ape him, he decided to be against everything.
I don't use the word reactionary lightly but it suits him because he quite literally reacts to absolutely everything and anything as bad, and wants to be a professional contrarion.
Everything he says comes from a position of hate for the society he lives in.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
He also saw something in the US election the rest of us didn’t. He was right about that. In the face of a lot of withering criticism
The tweets from Trump overnight leave little doubt that the US under Trump is at best the Chamberlain of our time and he may even be a traitor in the camp. It is something that is only relatively slowly becoming clear, but the European leaders headed to Washington with Zelensky are clearly in for one hell of a dirty, bare-knuckle confrontation, probably still dressed up as a disagreement amongst allies, rather than a full on divorce, which is what in reality it will end up being.
An interesting bet will be at what point the Europeans finally stand up to the traitor President and would they even ask for the evacuation of American bases from their territory. Traitor Trump will be most certainly reviled in history by both Americans and Europeans.
The counter pressure against Trump could be a big sell off in the treasury market, and that may not be far away.
Meanwhile Putin is laughing like a drain as "Agent Krasnov" performs his judo throw against democracy and creates an international system based of force and untrammeled power.
In other news, The Ukrainian counter attack in Pokrovsk seems to have been fully successful. With support, the Ukrainian armed forces can hold off the Russians indefinitely and can even defeat them.
One can only hope the Europeans grow a pair at some point, yet to be seen. They are good with the waffling and grovelling to be sure.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
Morning all. My last day in Ukraine today, heading to Kyiv shortly and taking the train out to Poland tonight.
Best of luck to all the leaders on their way to Washington.
I’m still not hugely optimistic that anything can be agreed, but think it’s important that the European governments show a united front at this stage, making it clear that the Russian demands are totally unacceptable and Europe will continue the fight.
Fair play to everyone involved of all political persuations, it’s not easy to get nine or ten heads of government to agree to an in-person meeting at 48hrs notice on another continent.
I hope and trust all the European leaders have agreed to stick together, and none of them crumble when Trump gets arsey.
Trump to Zelenskyy: [Terence Stamp voice] I see you are practised in worshipping things that fly. Good. Now, rise before Trump. [Zelenskyy stands up] KNEEL before Trump.
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
US media is now ridiculously polarised, and most of the good actual journalists have gone to independent media or platforms. Substack is good if you can avoid too many subscriptions, as is The Free Press. A well-curated Twitter can also be good for seeing a wide variety of viewpoints, but requires effort to keep the heat-to-light ratio sensible.
A lot of the comedy podcasts are also good for news and social commentary, as comedians see much more of the country than most journalists ever do. The last election result could have been predicted by listening to comedians. So many of them are liberal centrist types who voted Trump for the first time.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The SNP may not be at their best, but compared to the Scottish branches of the other parties ….
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
They had just one tiny chance to make good when they could have elected Kate Forbes as leader which would have transformed Scottish politics. You have to take your strokes of luck when you can. Like youth, it cannot come again. Just like the referendum.
Parallel: We could have had Rory as PM this very day.
Of course the SNP could have taken the tougher course of actually governing brilliantly well, so well that it was obvious they could run a country. But that was too obvious I suppose.
@Sean_F I determined Peter Hitchens was nuts 20 years ago.
His older brother decided to be against all religion. To ape him, he decided to be against everything.
I don't use the word reactionary lightly but it suits him because he quite literally reacts to absolutely everything and anything as bad, and wants to be a professional contrarion.
Everything he says comes from a position of hate for the society he lives in.
But, if it all changed to what he proclaims he wants, he'd hate that as well.
My cod psychology is that it's a cry for attention and he's lived in his brother's shadow his whole life.
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
US media is now ridiculously polarised, and most of the good actual journalists have gone to independent media or platforms. Substack is good if you can avoid too many subscriptions, as is The Free Press. A well-curated Twitter can also be good for seeing a wide variety of viewpoints, but requires effort to keep the heat-to-light ratio sensible.
A lot of the comedy podcasts are also good for news and social commentary, as comedians see much more of the country than most journalists ever do. The last election result could have been predicted by listening to comedians. So many of them are liberal centrist types who voted Trump for the first time.
The US is itself ridiculously polarised, and not only across domestic political lines.
This is the sort of generational divide seen in the late 60s.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The trial hasn't started yet. Let's see what happens when one or more defendant goes for a cutthroat defence, or if the prosecution evidence shows other people in a less-than-flattering light. This thing hasn't ended - it's just beginning.....
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The SNP may not be at their best, but compared to the Scottish branches of the other parties ….
True - they still have a devoted army of footsoldiers, but how's their morale? And how's the Party's bank balance?
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
@Sean_F I determined Peter Hitchens was nuts 20 years ago.
His older brother decided to be against all religion. To ape him, he decided to be against everything.
I don't use the word reactionary lightly but it suits him because he quite literally reacts to absolutely everything and anything as bad, and wants to be a professional contrarion.
Peter Hitchens is a funny little bean. When Dave became Tory leader he fronted a 'documentary' absolutely decrying Dave's poshness - Eton, Bullingdon, Queen's equerry etc. Yet a few years later he was writing articles stating that the reason Britain had gone to the dogs was because we were no longer sufficiently reverential towards the posh. All a bit odd and inconsistent.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
He also saw something in the US election the rest of us didn’t. He was right about that. In the face of a lot of withering criticism
This site was at its worst around the time of the US election. 95% of posters had one viewpoint, and many were quite rude to anyone who tried to provide some balance to the debate, or even try to dispassionately explain what the other side was saying.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The trial hasn't started yet. Let's see what happens when one or more defendant goes for a cutthroat defence, or if the prosecution evidence shows other people in a less-than-flattering light. This thing hasn't ended - it's just beginning.....
There’s only one defendant, but apart from that great point.
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
I have an ex named Louise who is very up her own backside and thinks, wrongly, that she is rather special and she is known in our circle as Deloulou.
For those who didn’t know - years back, a certain U.K. law firm (and some fellow firms) started selling “libel tourism”.
That is, anything published on the web is visible in the U.K.
So under this bit of judicial activism, anyone on the planet could sue for libel in U.K. courts, if it is published online. No problems with the 1st Amendment in the US.
Big fees would result….
A cross party group in the US Congress passed a law making the results of any such judgements null and void in the US.
The U.K. law firms and Mr Justice Cocklecarrot* were very upset.
*See Private Eye for real name
That’s been the case even since foreign magazines started to be imported in small numbers.
For all the politisation and polarisation in the US, one of few things on which all of the politicians agree is that the US is not a fan of foreign courts having jurisdiction over anything or anyone American.
Quite right too.
It is undemocratic.
A country should be able to enforce its laws. The “no assets or operations” is a false logic - according to that theory it’s fine for a North Korean hacking cooperative to rob a French bank
A country should be able to enforce its laws on its own citizens or those acting in its own country.
A country should not be able to enforce its laws on citizens of another country acting in another country.
That becomes the realm of foreign relations instead.
You indeed can't enforce French laws on North Koreans acting and living in North Korea.
Quite rightly too the inverse is true, the North Korean dictatorship can't enforce its authoritarian laws on French citizens living in France, nor should it be able to do so.
The issue becomes “what is acting”.
Disseminating a message in the UK is “acting” in my view. If 4chan were to, for example, call for violent revolution in the UK and execution of all members of the government, I think that should be illegal and something that could be enforced against.
May be it’s a simple as requiring companies to have a responsible agent - as I believe they do in Brazil - in the country.
The servers are in America, it is being disseminated in America. If people choose to go online and view American websites then that's their choice, and our government could choose to firewall foreign sites, as the Chinese do, but not enforce laws on people abroad who have had no right to vote on those laws.
It is undemocratic to apply a law to someone who has no opportunity to vote for the passage, repeal or amendment of that law.
In Russia it is a criminal act to criticise their military or decision to go to war against Ukraine. Should Russia be entitled to enforce that law on its critics abroad?
Or does its jurisprudence end and its borders thank goodness.
That’s just garbage.
Product regulations and all local laws are applied to people who have no opportunity to vote for the passage, repeal or amendment of that law.
If you want to operate in business in the UK even if via a virtual setup then you are required to abide by British laws.
4chan is selling a service to a UK customer. It doesn’t matter where services are provided from, they are required to abide by UK law or not sell their service to UK customers.
4chan is free to view, isn't it? They're not selling a service to a UK customer.
Providing a service, sorry
In America, on American servers to American laws, yes. They're not exporting.
Should OGH and PB be liable to Russian laws if a Russian logs into this site?
They should be able to block Russian IP addresses from accessing it as a safe harbor
What you are saying is profoundly undemocratic : the UK can no longer enforce laws in its own jurisdiction because there is another country that doesn’t agree.
The Russian authorities have no standing to demand British sites block Russian IPs, we're not subject to their laws. Just as Americans aren't subject to our laws, moreover they're protected by their First Amendment instead.
4chan is not in the UK's jurisdiction, it is in America's. Delaware to be precise.
If the UK government wants to firewall the rest of the world, China-style, then it is possible to do that. However the UK government has no jurisdiction over websites published abroad.
You keep stating that as a fact. It is not. Of the UK wishes to deem that a site which is viewed from the UK has been “published” in the UK it can do so. The US may resist direct enforcement - as is their right - which is where you end up with the concept of a registered agent who has legal responsibility for a corporate’s actions.
Fundamentally social media has not been good for society and it should be regulated. Sites like 4chan are corrosive to Western civilisation. Algorithms radicalise people and drive them towards the worst in humanity; at best they divide and polarise the demos.
Free speech was designed for a world where humans talked to humans. But freedom comes with responsibility and that’s what you always always miss. Actions have consequences and societies have interests that are greater than the sum of the parts.
The UK can deem whatever it damn pleases but it only has control over the UK. Hence jurisdiction.
4chan is in Delaware, it is not in the UK. Not our jurisdiction.
There is no obligation or requirement for foreign sites to provide a registered agent, not can we demand it. We could firewall the Internet if we choose but if we don't do so, then that's our choice.
Our laws only apply to our people and those acting in our country. Simply claiming people acting in Delaware are acting here doesn’t make it so, and doesn't give us jurisdiction.
Thank goodness or every tinpot dictator could shut down our free speech too.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
The sturgeonites , Swinney and all the other chancers need to be chucked out, the policies they tried to implement , the vendetta against Salmond and eth absolute shambles re independence should mean a huge clearout of dross. Issue is that there is no alternative.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
They had just one tiny chance to make good when they could have elected Kate Forbes as leader which would have transformed Scottish politics. You have to take your strokes of luck when you can. Like youth, it cannot come again. Just like the referendum.
Parallel: We could have had Rory as PM this very day.
Of course the SNP could have taken the tougher course of actually governing brilliantly well, so well that it was obvious they could run a country. But that was too obvious I suppose.
The 2007 SNP minority government governed well; well enough to gain a majority in 2011. Since 2014, though they have prioritised social engineering over economic competence. This is changing too slowly, and the retirement of Kate Forbes and exclusion of Fergus Ewing won’t help. Holyrood 2007 was an example of how a minority government having to govern with the support of other parties was beneficial to voters and the country. It only works if minority parties are prepared to work together. I don’t see how that will happen in Scotland or Wales in 2026 or the the UK in 2028/9 though, unless all parties grow up and put the countries and voters above their own party interests.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
US media is now ridiculously polarised, and most of the good actual journalists have gone to independent media or platforms. Substack is good if you can avoid too many subscriptions, as is The Free Press. A well-curated Twitter can also be good for seeing a wide variety of viewpoints, but requires effort to keep the heat-to-light ratio sensible.
A lot of the comedy podcasts are also good for news and social commentary, as comedians see much more of the country than most journalists ever do. The last election result could have been predicted by listening to comedians. So many of them are liberal centrist types who voted Trump for the first time.
I'd rate the FT journalism highly but the paywall is expensive, I dropped it reluctantly once I'd run out of discounted subscription options. Though it's probably no more expensive than a printed daily paper was
Guardian / Observer split could be interesting, browsing the Observer over the weekend it seems to have kept the content while the Guardian has the clickbait. Particularly welcome was a complete absence of details about the sex lives of the late middle-aged.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Having said that so explicitly, does it not now potentially implicate the BBC if they continue to pay her?
No. Only if under UK law the BBC contract was rendered void under some sanction. Rooney is Irish and breaks no law herself anyway. It's just attention seeking.
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
He also saw something in the US election the rest of us didn’t. He was right about that. In the face of a lot of withering criticism
This site was at its worst around the time of the US election. 95% of posters had one viewpoint, and many were quite rude to anyone who tried to provide some balance to the debate, or even try to dispassionately explain what the other side was saying.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
They had just one tiny chance to make good when they could have elected Kate Forbes as leader which would have transformed Scottish politics. You have to take your strokes of luck when you can. Like youth, it cannot come again. Just like the referendum.
Parallel: We could have had Rory as PM this very day.
Of course the SNP could have taken the tougher course of actually governing brilliantly well, so well that it was obvious they could run a country. But that was too obvious I suppose.
Is that like the UK English government then. They are pretty crap fopr sure but are working with one hand tied behind their back , all teh big decisions are made in London.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Having said that so explicitly, does it not now potentially implicate the BBC if they continue to pay her?
Only if she is officially designated a supporter of terrorism. Money is fungible, and the BBC have a contractual obligation. It would take more than just a comment to override the obligation.
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
For a Tory majority they’d need to gain over 200 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Lib Dem’s would lose a load of seats.
For a tory majority there has to be a realisation that alll the other options would be worse.
I don't see that as 14/1 or 18/1 far-fetched.
Labour clearly can't govern. Reform can't tell us how they'd govern. LibDems won't govern. But somebody has to do it.
And after the fourteen years from 2010 to 2024 went so well. Particularly the administration from 2019.
If Labour can't recover which looks quite likely, I fear the only game in town is Reform.
Both Labour and the Conservatives have taken the voting public for mugs for the last seventy five years. Between them they have removed all hope, housing, opportunity and money.
So what do we need? A snake oil salesman, and that is where Farage comes in. He persuaded us against all logic to Brexit, he can persuade us he has the answers. Clearly he doesn't have a clue but your lot made a Horlicks of it for a decade and a half, memories are not that short, unless, Jenrick. Your only hope is for Jenrick. A better snake oil salesman than Farage and one that might persuade us the Conservatives haven't been in Government since 1997.
Voters like most consumers aren't good with multiple choices. Somehow they'll boil it down to two. My guess is that we'll be choosing from the centre Labour/LibDems or the Racist Right which in three years time could well be lead by Jenrick. It could be Reform/Con. Starmer seems to be growing into the job and the rough edges appear to be getting smoothed out so this far out I can't see how he's not favourite.
William Glenn said Farage is a certainty to be next PM so I offered him an even money £1000 that he wouldn't be and he hasn't been seen since. Often the voters in this country dissapoint but not to the extent of ever doing what is necessary to make Farage PM.
He was banned.
He is not currently banned and can comment if he wishes. He may be like @isam, who forgot his password for some years.
Perhaps he cannot be bothered to come back. He owes this place nothing and vice versa.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
That's a shame about William Glenn. I liked him. He was an genuine sophist and having one or two of those about works as a kind of intellectual push up.
Bit of a snowflake though as it turns out. At least there will be an end of whiny righties bewailing the martyrdom of banned St William.
Fuck that guy. I'm glad he's gone and wish some other right wing turds would follow him into the Shadow Realm.
That time he won a bag of sand off Mr. Extrapolation was peak though.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Having said that so explicitly, does it not now potentially implicate the BBC if they continue to pay her?
Or the rest of us if we continue to pay the BBC?
Thankfully I don’t pay the BBC
Given that we’re talking about funding terrorists rather than the village fete, it will be interesting to see how far this gets perused by the authorities in both countries.
Can’t help get the feeling that the UK government has screwed up if they designate an organisation as terrorists but then don’t throw the book at their supporters.
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
US media is now ridiculously polarised, and most of the good actual journalists have gone to independent media or platforms. Substack is good if you can avoid too many subscriptions, as is The Free Press. A well-curated Twitter can also be good for seeing a wide variety of viewpoints, but requires effort to keep the heat-to-light ratio sensible.
A lot of the comedy podcasts are also good for news and social commentary, as comedians see much more of the country than most journalists ever do. The last election result could have been predicted by listening to comedians. So many of them are liberal centrist types who voted Trump for the first time.
I'd rate the FT journalism highly but the paywall is expensive, I dropped it reluctantly once I'd run out of discounted subscription options. Though it's probably no more expensive than a printed daily paper was
Guardian / Observer split could be interesting, browsing the Observer over the weekend it seems to have kept the content while the Guardian has the clickbait. Particularly welcome was a complete absence of details about the sex lives of the late middle-aged.
On the FT I’ve discovered you get a digital account if you buy a Revolut Metal account (£15 a month). Need to sort that out when I sort out bank accounts later this year after the mortgage is paid off
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The SNP may not be at their best, but compared to the Scottish branches of the other parties ….
True - they still have a devoted army of footsoldiers, but how's their morale? And how's the Party's bank balance?
They are like London Labour at present if you compare , pretty shit but well clear.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
They had just one tiny chance to make good when they could have elected Kate Forbes as leader which would have transformed Scottish politics. You have to take your strokes of luck when you can. Like youth, it cannot come again. Just like the referendum.
Parallel: We could have had Rory as PM this very day.
Of course the SNP could have taken the tougher course of actually governing brilliantly well, so well that it was obvious they could run a country. But that was too obvious I suppose.
The 2007 SNP minority government governed well; well enough to gain a majority in 2011. Since 2014, though they have prioritised social engineering over economic competence. This is changing too slowly, and the retirement of Kate Forbes and exclusion of Fergus Ewing won’t help. Holyrood 2007 was an example of how a minority government having to govern with the support of other parties was beneficial to voters and the country. It only works if minority parties are prepared to work together. I don’t see how that will happen in Scotland or Wales in 2026 or the the UK in 2028/9 though, unless all parties grow up and put the countries and voters above their own party interests.
Red they had real leadership then rather than the donkeys, ne'er do wells, carpet baggers and comic singers since the change from Salmond.
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The trial hasn't started yet. Let's see what happens when one or more defendant goes for a cutthroat defence, or if the prosecution evidence shows other people in a less-than-flattering light. This thing hasn't ended - it's just beginning.....
So is this Sub Judice? And would that affect what Nippy said in her book? *
Morning all. My last day in Ukraine today, heading to Kyiv shortly and taking the train out to Poland tonight.
Best of luck to all the leaders on their way to Washington.
I’m still not hugely optimistic that anything can be agreed, but think it’s important that the European governments show a united front at this stage, making it clear that the Russian demands are totally unacceptable and Europe will continue the fight.
Fair play to everyone involved of all political persuations, it’s not easy to get nine or ten heads of government to agree to an in-person meeting at 48hrs notice on another continent.
I hope and trust all the European leaders have agreed to stick together, and none of them crumble when Trump gets arsey.
Trump to Zelenskyy: [Terence Stamp voice] I see you are practised in worshipping things that fly. Good. Now, rise before Trump. [Zelenskyy stands up] KNEEL before Trump.
Terence Stamp, RIP.
RIP indeed. He never really recovered from having a horse fall on him during filming. He also had no interest in material wealth. He spent his final months in a home for "luvvie gentlefolk". Until her death earlier this year, the person in the next room was Marianne Faithful.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Having said that so explicitly, does it not now potentially implicate the BBC if they continue to pay her?
Only if she is officially designated a supporter of terrorism. Money is fungible, and the BBC have a contractual obligation. It would take more than just a comment to override the obligation.
I’m sure she will welcome the inevitable investigation into her bank account.
Which of course begs the question of how does one actually donate to them, presumably they don’t have a website with a link to a payment processor? Bitcoin maybe?
What little we know of genetic predisposition to musicality suggests Beethoven was an absolute no hoper. Which gives some idea of the usefulness of general predictions about complex characteristics, based on genetics.
Notes from Beethoven’s genome
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00025-3 Rapid advances over the last decade in DNA sequencing and statistical genetics enable us to investigate the genomic makeup of individuals throughout history. In a recent notable study, Begg et al.1 used Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair strands for genome sequencing and explored genetic predispositions for some of his documented medical issues. Given that it was arguably Beethoven’s skills as a musician and composer that made him an iconic figure in Western culture, we here extend the approach and apply it to musicality. We use this as an example to illustrate the broader challenges of individual-level genetic predictions...
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
They had just one tiny chance to make good when they could have elected Kate Forbes as leader which would have transformed Scottish politics. You have to take your strokes of luck when you can. Like youth, it cannot come again. Just like the referendum.
Parallel: We could have had Rory as PM this very day.
Of course the SNP could have taken the tougher course of actually governing brilliantly well, so well that it was obvious they could run a country. But that was too obvious I suppose.
Governing brilliantly well is of course pretty doable, as Blair, Brown, Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss, Sunak and Starmer have demonstrated this very century.
I see they've added new words to the dictionary, most of which I've never even heard of, and I read quite widely.
They add all sorts of weird stuff now, partly IMHO because their annual “adding new words” story gets them the free publicity.
I think we need to be a bit less crusty.
Shakespeare is reported to have invented or introduced 1700 words, which is four per year from then to now, or 35 or so per year in his lifetime, and maybe 50 per year in his literary lifetime.
It's a bit odd because the pipeline goes through western Ukraine, and UkrTransNafta gets fees for the oil transported - they've been putting the fees up to try and make Russian oil too expensive for Hungary.
Wikipedia also has this:
In 2023, apparent classified U.S. intelligence documents released in the 2022–2023 Pentagon document leaks included a note of a conversation between the President of Ukraine and Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko in which Volodymyr Zelensky suggested blowing up the Druzhba pipeline to hit Hungarian industry, as Orbán's government was too friendly towards the Kremlin during the Russo-Ukrainian War. A Hungarian government official stated that this proposed sabotage by Zelensky prompted Hungary to block funding of the European Peace Facility.
For a Liberal Democrat majority they'd need to gain over 250 seats. I cannot see it. On the plus side that would mean the Conservatives would lose a load of seats.
What should worry the Libdems right now despite being very comfortable the third largest party at Westminster is the fact that they appear completely irrelevant and totally off the radar for most voters when it comes to the next GE. Having secured the seat numbers they did they should have been in the perfect position to benefit from an unpopular main Opposition and a new Labour Government that has imploded so quickly, and yet they have failed to launch or make themselves relevant in the same way they did under past leaders the last time they were in that position with that number of MPs.
If they got even a quarter of the publicity that Reform get it might be different. In fact, I am amazed that the media aren’t examining Reform policies in depth, costing them and highlighting their impracticality. It shows who the media moguls, including the BBC, really support.
It isn't easy to give a lot of publicity that actually works to decent centrists who have no chance of being in power because of demography/history. That is the LD fate. However much attention they are given, no-one actually reads it.
Reform is different. I think it's a certainty that by about 2027 year end Reform will get proper detailed demands to say where they stand on difficult stuff from thoughtful media. Reform of course have the advantage that the political skill of dealing with this evasively is well developed and they will be working on technique. Blame Tory and Labour history for this.
Oddly on PB there are no contributors who both support Reform and are able to give a coherent account of how they will want to govern on the big spending stuff. They just pivot to migration. (I am against Reform and believe they will be high spend social democrat closed border dirigiste nationalists).
Please explain, with examples, the term “thoughtful media”.
Good question. The Economist; BBC radio sometimes; LBC sometimes; Times Radio sometimes; PB sometimes; Guardian and Times occasionally; New Statesman sometimes; TLS; very occasionally The Spectator; rare but more often than one would think: The Sun. Insufficient data because paywall: FT, NYT. Others worth a look on the interweb: The Rest is Politics, especially Rory; Washington Week (Jeffery Goldberg) which I find very good.
Does that answer?
I'd say that there are perhaps holes there in International & Specialist, and Podcasts. I'd add BBC World Service, DW and probably NPR. For current specialist Ukraine the Latest, Perun. One perhaps surprising one is the news/opinion from Church Times, who have very good networks where others do not and are quite diverse in views; they are tight with free articles. I've always followed legal commentators as a window on politics.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
US media is now ridiculously polarised, and most of the good actual journalists have gone to independent media or platforms. Substack is good if you can avoid too many subscriptions, as is The Free Press. A well-curated Twitter can also be good for seeing a wide variety of viewpoints, but requires effort to keep the heat-to-light ratio sensible.
A lot of the comedy podcasts are also good for news and social commentary, as comedians see much more of the country than most journalists ever do. The last election result could have been predicted by listening to comedians. So many of them are liberal centrist types who voted Trump for the first time.
I'd rate the FT journalism highly but the paywall is expensive, I dropped it reluctantly once I'd run out of discounted subscription options. Though it's probably no more expensive than a printed daily paper was
Guardian / Observer split could be interesting, browsing the Observer over the weekend it seems to have kept the content while the Guardian has the clickbait. Particularly welcome was a complete absence of details about the sex lives of the late middle-aged.
On the FT I’ve discovered you get a digital account if you buy a Revolut Metal account (£15 a month). Need to sort that out when I sort out bank accounts later this year after the mortgage is paid off
That's less than 50% of the cheapest FT plan, classpass and NordVPN look added value as well. Though in reality might only be a couple of gym sessions or a pilates class / month.
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
I have an ex named Louise who is very up her own backside and thinks, wrongly, that she is rather special and she is known in our circle as Deloulou.
I assume tradwife is a rather unnecessary portmanteau of traditional and wife. No idea about 'delulu'. One shudders to think.
Thanks for the challenge to my spectacularly boring list. Go on, give us your list.
The Spectator, Albanian Taxi Drivers, The Spectator, Random Rich people I definitely met but you never will, The Spectator, Twitter, The Spectator.
Völkischer Beobachter Der Angriff Der Stürmer Das Reich Illustrierter Beobachter NS-Frauen-Warte National-Zeitung Signal Krakauer Zeitung Il Popolo d’Italia La Difesa della Razza Gioventù Fascista Je Suis Partout Gringoire Rivarol Minute Présent Valeurs Actuelles Candour The Blackshirt Action Spearhead Nationalism Today Heritage and Destiny The Occidental Observer American Free Press National Vanguard National Review Shōwa Nichinichi Shimbun Kokumin Shimbun Rafu Shimpo Seiyūsha journals Shishi-oriented publications Hsin-Min Pao Blue Shirt Society Bulletins China Critic Die Bauernschaft Nation Europa Zuerst! Junge Freiheit Compact Deutsche Stimme Nouvelles de Synergies Européennes Éléments Krisis (in early Nouvelle Droite mode) Politica Hermética Interregnum The Rockwell Report White Power Stormer The Klansman www.politicalbetting.com
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The trial hasn't started yet. Let's see what happens when one or more defendant goes for a cutthroat defence, or if the prosecution evidence shows other people in a less-than-flattering light. This thing hasn't ended - it's just beginning.....
So is this Sub Judice? And would that affect what Nippy said in her book? *
* Just wait for Volume Two.
If a trial is awaited then in English law it would be sub judice.
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Thanks for the challenge to my spectacularly boring list. Go on, give us your list.
The Spectator, Albanian Taxi Drivers, The Spectator, Random Rich people I definitely met but you never will, The Spectator, Twitter, The Spectator.
Völkischer Beobachter Der Angriff Der Stürmer Das Reich Illustrierter Beobachter NS-Frauen-Warte National-Zeitung Signal Krakauer Zeitung Il Popolo d’Italia La Difesa della Razza Gioventù Fascista Je Suis Partout Gringoire Rivarol Minute Présent Valeurs Actuelles Candour The Blackshirt Action Spearhead Nationalism Today Heritage and Destiny The Occidental Observer American Free Press National Vanguard National Review Shōwa Nichinichi Shimbun Kokumin Shimbun Rafu Shimpo Seiyūsha journals Shishi-oriented publications Hsin-Min Pao Blue Shirt Society Bulletins China Critic Die Bauernschaft Nation Europa Zuerst! Junge Freiheit Compact Deutsche Stimme Nouvelles de Synergies Européennes Éléments Krisis (in early Nouvelle Droite mode) Politica Hermética Interregnum The Rockwell Report White Power Stormer The Klansman www.politicalbetting.com
lol. Which plonker flagged this?
You must have more flags than a Starmer press conference by now.
Thanks for the challenge to my spectacularly boring list. Go on, give us your list.
The Spectator, Albanian Taxi Drivers, The Spectator, Random Rich people I definitely met but you never will, The Spectator, Twitter, The Spectator.
Völkischer Beobachter Der Angriff Der Stürmer Das Reich Illustrierter Beobachter NS-Frauen-Warte National-Zeitung Signal Krakauer Zeitung Il Popolo d’Italia La Difesa della Razza Gioventù Fascista Je Suis Partout Gringoire Rivarol Minute Présent Valeurs Actuelles Candour The Blackshirt Action Spearhead Nationalism Today Heritage and Destiny The Occidental Observer American Free Press National Vanguard National Review Shōwa Nichinichi Shimbun Kokumin Shimbun Rafu Shimpo Seiyūsha journals Shishi-oriented publications Hsin-Min Pao Blue Shirt Society Bulletins China Critic Die Bauernschaft Nation Europa Zuerst! Junge Freiheit Compact Deutsche Stimme Nouvelles de Synergies Européennes Éléments Krisis (in early Nouvelle Droite mode) Politica Hermética Interregnum The Rockwell Report White Power Stormer The Klansman www.politicalbetting.com
lol. Which plonker flagged this?
You must have more flags than a Starmer press conference by now.
I suspect it was "Small Dick Exhaust Pipes", @Dura_Ace, jealous of my multilngualism
Thanks for the challenge to my spectacularly boring list. Go on, give us your list.
The Spectator, Albanian Taxi Drivers, The Spectator, Random Rich people I definitely met but you never will, The Spectator, Twitter, The Spectator.
Völkischer Beobachter Der Angriff Der Stürmer Das Reich Illustrierter Beobachter NS-Frauen-Warte National-Zeitung Signal Krakauer Zeitung Il Popolo d’Italia La Difesa della Razza Gioventù Fascista Je Suis Partout Gringoire Rivarol Minute Présent Valeurs Actuelles Candour The Blackshirt Action Spearhead Nationalism Today Heritage and Destiny The Occidental Observer American Free Press National Vanguard National Review Shōwa Nichinichi Shimbun Kokumin Shimbun Rafu Shimpo Seiyūsha journals Shishi-oriented publications Hsin-Min Pao Blue Shirt Society Bulletins China Critic Die Bauernschaft Nation Europa Zuerst! Junge Freiheit Compact Deutsche Stimme Nouvelles de Synergies Européennes Éléments Krisis (in early Nouvelle Droite mode) Politica Hermética Interregnum The Rockwell Report White Power Stormer The Klansman www.politicalbetting.com
lol. Which plonker flagged this?
You must have more flags than a Starmer press conference by now.
I suspect it was "Small Dick Exhaust Pipes", @Dura_Ace, jealous of my multilngualism
On topic, if our current state of fragmented politics broadly holds (a big “if”, but certainly possible) then I think it is quite hard to see the next GE resulting in a majority government.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
Can I mention Scotland? I don't think the SNP are going to do particularly well in the next few years - the press is finally giving them the scrutiny that they also ought to be giving to ReformUK, and the damage from Operation Branchform has not yet been factored in to the polling. Also, the factionalism within the SNP (and Alba) between Salmon-ites and Sturgeon-ists is becoming more apparent, as is the lack of obvious talent in the higher reaches of the party. They seem to be helfd solely responsible for the Trans issues in Scotland, which might be unfair but could still have an impact.
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
What damage from Branchform (£2.7m and counting) do you think has not already been factored in to polling? If voters haven’t clocked blue tents and the arrest of a former FM breathlessly highlighted minute by minute by the BBC, I don’t think much else can reach them. Unless Murrell is found to have peculated money for gender reassignment surgery I don’t think there’s much juice left in that wizened husk.
The trial hasn't started yet. Let's see what happens when one or more defendant goes for a cutthroat defence, or if the prosecution evidence shows other people in a less-than-flattering light. This thing hasn't ended - it's just beginning.....
So is this Sub Judice? And would that affect what Nippy said in her book? *
* Just wait for Volume Two.
If a trial is awaited then in English law it would be sub judice.
The charge and therefore the presumed trial are under Scots law; but yes, they do have a contempt law in place.
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
Could someone enlighten me to which words that nobody uses have been added to the dictionary? You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu. Are there others? As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
I have an ex named Louise who is very up her own backside and thinks, wrongly, that she is rather special and she is known in our circle as Deloulou.
I assume tradwife is a rather unnecessary portmanteau of traditional and wife. No idea about 'delulu'. One shudders to think.
Trump has accepted what Putin wants and either Ukraine agrees or he’ll find a way to pull support and play the martyr who wanted peace and blame Ukraine .
European leaders begging for scraps is an un-edifying spectacle .
Any security guarantees offered up by the WH are worthless and yet the media keeps bigging these up.
More than likely if Ukraine agrees to these hostage demands Putin will down the line come back for the whole of Ukraine under some false flag .
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Having said that so explicitly, does it not now potentially implicate the BBC if they continue to pay her?
Yes. I believe it would be covered by terrorist financing laws, and so the BBC, and the BBC's bank, are obliged not to transfer money to her. Doubtless she will then take them to court for non-payment, but I wouldn't think she'd get that far.
Edit: Other people have said there's an additional step that would be required, but I would have thought it likely the bureaucratic state would designate her a supporter of terrorism if she did provide funds to Palestine Action.
Which would then create issues for her future travel plans, I would guess.
"Sally Rooney vows to use BBC royalties to fund Palestine Action Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
Having said that so explicitly, does it not now potentially implicate the BBC if they continue to pay her?
Only if she is officially designated a supporter of terrorism. Money is fungible, and the BBC have a contractual obligation. It would take more than just a comment to override the obligation.
I’m sure she will welcome the inevitable investigation into her bank account.
Which of course begs the question of how does one actually donate to them, presumably they don’t have a website with a link to a payment processor? Bitcoin maybe?
Rather astonished at PB these days.
1. Indignation when HMG presumes to control foreign IT companies' activities in their own countries which are legal there 2. Indignation when HMG presumes to control a foreigh person's activities in that person's native country and which are legal there ... no, does not compute ...
Comments
Tory peer Lord Jackson could defect to Reform over ‘woeful’ migration failings
Lord Jackson of Peterborough says Conservative Party appears unable to offer ‘compelling and attractive alternative’ to Labour
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/08/18/tory-peer-could-defect-reform-woeful-migration-failings/
https://x.com/front_ukrainian/status/1957168041919156343
All this news today, it’s almost as if there’s something going on in the background.
He was banned just after Rogerdamus offered him the bet.
Isam did say, IIRC, he was joking about the password.
Taking each of the parties in turn:
Labour are defending too many small majorities and start from a low base. It doesn’t take much of a swing to see them lose loads of seats, and there will be a likely an anti-incumbency feeling.
Even if the Tories enjoy a recovery, it is hard to see them dislodging the number of LDs they’d need to get a majority. Yes the LDs could plausibly lose some seats, but historically they are hard to dislodge, and any seat the Tories fail to win in the South means another red wall-type seat that they need to get in the midlands and the North - those seat profiles just don’t seem a good fit for the Tories right now.
Then Reform. Despite the fact that they are now polling well ahead and it’s entirely possible they’ll win a huge chunk of seats, they are still unlikely to have the ground game in tight races (yes, a rising tide carries all boats but there will be an impact) and tactical “stop Nigel” voting would likely cost them at least a few seats too.
I see things at the moment as being a question of whether Lab/LD have enough together, or Reform/CON. But a long way to go yet.
(As far as I can tell, there isn't much prejudice against "gingers" in the US.)
‘ Driving a modern car is basically like having a Liberal Democrat councillor in the passenger seat. Constantly.’
‘ https://x.com/markchristie/status/1957339936442421426?s=61
Lack of incumbency.
I don't have a good summary source who do USA or Canada well. I find NYT never ending and variable, with some good nuggets, like the 1990s Sunday Times when it required a shopping trolley to fetch.
There is also much on Substack, but subscribing gets expensive.
How do you assess traditional international papers now - Christian Science Monitor, IHT as was - now NYT International etc?
His older brother decided to be against all religion. To ape him, he decided to be against everything.
I don't use the word reactionary lightly but it suits him because he quite literally reacts to absolutely everything and anything as bad, and wants to be a professional contrarion.
At least there will be an end of whiny righties bewailing the martyrdom of banned St William.
And now Lesotho is losing much of its manufacturing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesotho
Their vote could go to Labour, and/or the Conservatives, and/or even the Lib Dems in a few places. I could see it bleeding away in all directions - not enough for them to be humiliated, but enough to ensure that there will not be an overall majority for any other party.
Europeans and Zelenskiy will hold a pre-summit summit (they call it preparatory) before heading to see Trump at the White House later today.
A lot of the comedy podcasts are also good for news and social commentary, as comedians see much more of the country than most journalists ever do. The last election result could have been predicted by listening to comedians. So many of them are liberal centrist types who voted Trump for the first time.
Normal People author says if her actions are considered terrorism under UK law, ‘so be it’"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/08/17/sally-rooney-vows-use-bbc-royalties-fund-palestine-action
You'd have to be living in a room with only books never to have heard of tradwife or delulu.
Are there others?
As for youth culture. Where do folk think new words have ever come from?
Parallel: We could have had Rory as PM this very day.
Of course the SNP could have taken the tougher course of actually governing brilliantly well, so well that it was obvious they could run a country. But that was too obvious I suppose.
My cod psychology is that it's a cry for attention and he's lived in his brother's shadow his whole life.
This is the sort of generational divide seen in the late 60s.
Benjamin Netanyahu Net-Favorables:
🔴 All: -33%
🔴 Men: -14%
🔴 Women: -31%
🔴 18-34: -53%
🔴 35-54: -35%
🟢 55+: +5%
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1957133679660073444
Volodymyr Zelenskyy Net-Favorables:
🟢 All: +18%
🟢 Men: +14%
🟢 Women: +24%
🟢 18-34: +26%
🟢 35-54: +5%
🟢 55+: +27%
Gallup / July 21, 2025
https://x.com/USA_Polling/status/1957134972642357706
4chan is in Delaware, it is not in the UK. Not our jurisdiction.
There is no obligation or requirement for foreign sites to provide a registered agent, not can we demand it. We could firewall the Internet if we choose but if we don't do so, then that's our choice.
Our laws only apply to our people and those acting in our country. Simply claiming people acting in Delaware are acting here doesn’t make it so, and doesn't give us jurisdiction.
Thank goodness or every tinpot dictator could shut down our free speech too.
Guardian / Observer split could be interesting, browsing the Observer over the weekend it seems to have kept the content while the Guardian has the clickbait. Particularly welcome was a complete absence of details about the sex lives of the late middle-aged.
Money is fungible, and the BBC have a contractual obligation. It would take more than just a comment to override the obligation.
That time he won a bag of sand off Mr. Extrapolation was peak though.
Given that we’re talking about funding terrorists rather than the village fete, it will be interesting to see how far this gets perused by the authorities in both countries.
Can’t help get the feeling that the UK government has screwed up if they designate an organisation as terrorists but then don’t throw the book at their supporters.
* Just wait for Volume Two.
He was very kind to me.
Which of course begs the question of how does one actually donate to them, presumably they don’t have a website with a link to a payment processor? Bitcoin maybe?
Which gives some idea of the usefulness of general predictions about complex characteristics, based on genetics.
Notes from Beethoven’s genome
https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(24)00025-3
Rapid advances over the last decade in DNA sequencing and statistical genetics enable us to investigate the genomic makeup of individuals throughout history. In a recent notable study, Begg et al.1 used Ludwig van Beethoven’s hair strands for genome sequencing and explored genetic predispositions for some of his documented medical issues. Given that it was arguably Beethoven’s skills as a musician and composer that made him an iconic figure in Western culture, we here extend the approach and apply it to musicality. We use this as an example to illustrate the broader challenges of individual-level genetic predictions...
Shakespeare is reported to have invented or introduced 1700 words, which is four per year from then to now, or 35 or so per year in his lifetime, and maybe 50 per year in his literary lifetime.
Calm down !
Wikipedia also has this:
In 2023, apparent classified U.S. intelligence documents released in the 2022–2023 Pentagon document leaks included a note of a conversation between the President of Ukraine and Deputy Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko in which Volodymyr Zelensky suggested blowing up the Druzhba pipeline to hit Hungarian industry, as Orbán's government was too friendly towards the Kremlin during the Russo-Ukrainian War. A Hungarian government official stated that this proposed sabotage by Zelensky prompted Hungary to block funding of the European Peace Facility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Druzhba_pipeline
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Ramirez
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/ce93ygv4zzlo
The charge and therefore the presumed trial are under Scots law; but yes, they do have a contempt law in place.
https://www.thenational.scot/news/25024510.contempt-court-warning-peter-murrell-court-appearance/
Trump has accepted what Putin wants and either Ukraine agrees or he’ll find a way to pull support and play the martyr who wanted peace and blame Ukraine .
European leaders begging for scraps is an un-edifying spectacle .
Any security guarantees offered up by the WH are worthless and yet the media keeps bigging these up.
More than likely if Ukraine agrees to these hostage demands Putin will down the line come back for the whole of Ukraine under some false flag .
Edit: Other people have said there's an additional step that would be required, but I would have thought it likely the bureaucratic state would designate her a supporter of terrorism if she did provide funds to Palestine Action.
Which would then create issues for her future travel plans, I would guess.
1. Indignation when HMG presumes to control foreign IT companies' activities in their own countries which are legal there
2. Indignation when HMG presumes to control a foreigh person's activities in that person's native country and which are legal there ... no, does not compute ...
Z is fucked in the head if he puts any store in their assurances about security.