Does Sir Ed Davey need to perform some more cunning stunts? – politicalbetting.com
Does Sir Ed Davey need to perform some more cunning stunts? – politicalbetting.com
Even after five years as Lib Dem leader, just 37% of Britons can identify Ed Davey by name from a photo% correctly identifying […] from a photoNigel Farage: 89%Keir Starmer: 87%Kemi Badenoch: 62%Ed Davey: 37%Carla Denyer: 9%Adrian Ramsay: 2%yougov.co.uk/politics/art…
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Clegg is partly to blame, having crashed the car and run off from the scene, but the main blame is on the UK public. Talk about a bad break up!
@ericjgeller.com
Anthropic says a hacker used its Claude chatbot "to an unprecedented degree": Claude identified vulnerable companies, wrote infostealer malware, analyzed stolen files for extortion purposes, calculated extortion amounts, and wrote extortion messages.
https://bsky.app/profile/ericjgeller.com/post/3lxfak4piui2x
Nigel Farage and the Reform Party’s Taliban Tax means sending hundreds of millions of taxpayers' money to an oppressive regime that British soldiers fought and died to defeat.
https://bsky.app/profile/libdems.org.uk/post/3lxewslar452d
If only ...
How many official British organisations spell licence that way?
So the text has been deleted.
To be fair to them they seem to be popular local to their Nimby campaigns, but it falls apart outside that when the contradictions become apparent and the other contradiction of them being portrayed as centre left by the media when they're economically centre right/right not really being picked up.
not sure why they think my name is Dave!
Just did a bike ride to the "city beach" with a couple of journos
As soon as you get out of the exquisite UNESCO-listed centre you realise Graz is
1. quite industrial
2. rundown in parts
3. infested with graffiti, in parts
4. not half as rich as the the centre suggests
5. suffering all the usual social problems of European cities, with fairly intense migration pressures
More research reveals
6. It has a communist mayor (!)
and
7. there was a terrible school shooting here in June. A disturbed teen killed ten kids, then himself. The police STILL refuse to reveal his ID - or whether he was neo-Nazi, Islamist, anything - the only detail that begrudgingly emerged is that he is half Austrian half Armenian. This secrecy is driving locals nuts. Quite reminiscent of Southport
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/explore/public_figure/David_Steel
(sorry @leon)
Even now you’re in a statistical tie with the LDs for third place with YouGov having lost a quarter or more of those who did vote Conservative in 2024.
In the local by elections in the once solid heartland of Surrey last week, the Conservatives lost seats to both Reform and the “lumbering oafishness” of the Liberal Democrats with vote shares down a third to a half from 2021.
With Reform UK saying it would be reasonable to pay the Taliban to return migrants to Afghanistan, how many Britons this would be acceptable?
Acceptable: 17%
Unacceptable: 61%
% acceptable by party
Reform: 35%
Con: 23%
Lab/Lib Dem: 7-13%
Don't wanna pay the Taliban Tax
With Reform UK saying it would be reasonable to pay the Taliban to return migrants to Afghanistan, how many Britons this would be acceptable?
Acceptable: 17%
Unacceptable: 61%
% acceptable by party
Reform: 35%
Con: 23%
Lab/Lib Dem: 7-13%
https://yougov.co.uk/topics/politics/survey-results/daily/2025/08/27/23952/2?utm_source=daily_question&utm_medium=bluesky&utm_campaign=daily/2025/08/27_question_2
I’ve done headers on it.
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/07/08/will-the-lib-dems-win-more-seats-than-the-tories/
https://www1.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2025/05/21/winning-here-could-the-lib-dems-win-more-seats-than-the-tories/
https://www.ladbrokes.com/en/sports/event/politics/uk/uk-politics/uk-next-general-election/245440619/all-markets
None.
I am, or more accurately was, a lifelong Tory.
I think you can judge my political views most accurately if I say that I'd have voted coalition rather than Tory in 2015.
As such I would really quite like to have a possible vote that was an alternative to my longstanding Tory one. There should be a degree of comfort for that with the LDs. There's not though, and it's been a while since that was true.
Brits are angry about asylum/migration and want it sorted, but they want it sorted euphemistically and out of sight. Like not seeing the manufacture of sausages. Farage told them how he was going to make the sausages
I suspect there might be a rethink on coal/fracking and NHS privatisation too.
The brief philosophical convergence of Cameron’s “liberal conservatism” and the Orange Bookers made the Coalition possible but the political cost of the arrangement killed off the Liberal Democrats as William Hague correctly surmised in the aftermath of the 2010 GE.
There are many in both parties who enjoyed the old adversarial relationship and preferred that to what could have been a political realignment. The emergence of “Europe” as an issue further fractured a relationship which had become strained by 2012-13. It didn’t help Conservative activists started working Liberal Democrats seats hard and that work paid dividends for the Conservatives in 2015 though that victory turned out to be the epitome of a poisoned chalice.
Could Cameron and Clegg have sold Coalition 2.0 to their parties and on what basis? Running as Coalition candidates would have smacked of the 1918 Coupon election - had the two leaders tried, would one or both parties have split?
It’s easy for me to see 2024 as revenge for 2015 but the party won seats last year it never got close to between 1997 and 2010 - Chichester being a good example, Surrey Heath another. Such gains would not have been possible but for thousands of disillusioned Conservatives feeling comfortable enough to vote Liberal Democrat or staying home relaxed about a possible Liberal Democrat win.
Perhaps the relevant question for you is where has your old Conservative Party gone and why did it choose to abandon ground on which it had enjoyed electoral success over decades to chase a populist chimera?
MattW: That's fair enough. But I did not take the purist "only trans can play trans" position. I said personal experience could add extra.
Because actors are also bound in some ways by their personal experience, and they are not given infinite time.
Does @MarqueeMark have a view, in between moths?
I understand there is a strong view amongst gay actors that only gay actors can play gay. A number of straight actors will not consider a gay role, although many straight (or are they?) actors have given great portrayals of gay characters. I think it would be unfortunate if gay actors were trying to corner the market in gay roles.
A more intriguing situation is facing my wife at the moment: casting for somebody who was a known bisexual. Again, some will not take on the role because they are straight and don't want the controversy. The number of bisexual actors is probably significantly more limited than gay. Do gays get to play bi without question, but straights don't? It really is quite a minefield. It's a high-end project with Oscar-winning cast and crew, likely to get awards attention. And yet...
I haven't asked the moths if they have a view. (Just don't ask them to play Madame Butterfly....oh, the grief you'd get!)
Then she became PM and did.
Except it was the elephant in the room in 2010. The LibDems made it a condition of Coalition that "though shalt not" discuss European membership. A referendum in 2011 supported by Cameron and Clegg would have locked us into ever closer union - eternally. Silencing the matter allowed Farage to run with it, then Boris to see it as a way to the Top Job.
Epic failure by the LibDems - that ultimately gave us Brexit.
Then they were utterly mortified when Cameron adopted their policy.
Where has it gone? I think it's become introverted. There really hasn't been anything like plausible Tory policy for about 25 years.
It was chased out of ground it once held by immigration.
If the Tory party has persued populism it's very effectively disguised. (To paraphrase C)
I still laugh at those muppets who said the Tories were going to lose every seat. How did that work out for you?
At the next election, the Tories will increase their number of seats; the LibDems will lose them. Take that to the bank.
Davey, who is invited to the dinner for Trump’s state visit to the UK, said to turn down an invitation from the king went against all his instincts and that it was a deeply serious move to refuse to attend.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2025/aug/27/lib-dem-leader-ed-davey-boycott-king-banquet-trump-protest-gaza
British Transport Police (BTP) presented a file of evidence to prosecutors over the incident on 28 July, with footage of Robinson, whose real name is Stephen Yaxley-Lennon, pacing around near a man lying face down on the floor, posted on social media. On Wednesday, the force said that the Crown Prosecution Service concluded that there was not enough evidence to bring charges.
It is understood that the victim does not want to pursue charges, and that CCTV footage showed him initially following Robinson as the activist walked away, before he was hit.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025/aug/27/tommy-robinson-no-charge-alleged-st-pancras-assault
Good for him. Very smart move. It's only one vote but it's got mine.
A politician of principle. A while since we've seen one of those
The Futures Bright. The Futures Orange
No one ever seriously thought the Conservatives would end up with no seats - some MRP polling suggested they might win fewer than the LDs but a recovery in the last few days of polling probably saved 20-30 seats. 121 was still an awful result however you dress it up.
As for the next election, it’s all bravado at this point - no one knows what will happen and we have at least three and possibly nearly four years in which to speculate. It’s entirely possible the Conservatives will have fewer councillors than the LDs after the 2026 local round and equally possible both will be looking behind them at Reform.
I will cheerfully concede you could be right and the Conservatives win 200 seats and the LDs 30 - entirely possible. It’s also possible the LDs could win 90 seats and the Conservatives 40.
UnHerd"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4jW8MOxIKY
"People are provably getting thicker".
6 mins.
If you are invited to meet the representative of an allied nation then its hard to see any reason why not.
Trump for a one-to-one at a golf course. Farage territory.
I'm going to send them £100 and would commend others who find Trump repellent to do the same. I think Davey is good guys around.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/aug/27/ed-davey-trump-gaza-boycott-state-dinner-king-charles
And wasn't invited.
When they got into government their Party Line changed with a speed that would have done credit to Stalin, though admittedly with fewer executions.
It was precisely that kind of contempt for voters by an arrogant, dishonest and ultimately incompetent establishment that infuriated so many leave voters.
That the prior coalition made it easier for disgruntled Home Counties Tories to switch to the LDs is an interesting hypothesis that deserves more research. If the LDs got a delayed payoff for the mostly constructive role they played between 2010-15, it would be karma of sorts. But it could equally simply be repulsion at the Tories’ incompetence and venality since they let Johnson take over.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idiocracy
The second part is Cameron made winning a majority a prerequisite for entering into negotiations with other EU leaders to amend the nature of the UK’s membership - the in/out referendum was a last recourse if the negotiations failed to produce a satisfactory amendment to our membership. Had Cameron come back with an amended membership, it would probably have got through the Commons.
How did the Conservatives win a majority in 2015? First, by appeasing UKIP, second by campaigning hard on the issue of the relationship between Labour and the SNP and third working hard in seats won by the LDs in 1997.
Despite that perfect storm, Cameron won a majority of just 12 and had to go to the EU capitals where the leaders offered him nothing. He came back empty handed and was forced to call the in/out referendum.
Apparently that’s all the Lib Dems fault. I see the spirit of fantasy is alive and well in the decimated ranks of the Conservative Party. There were a lot of players involved with Brexit - some of them, I’d argue, were members of the Conservative Party but many were not.
Indeed my guess is that this is the case. The rozzers and CPS have never shown a reluctance to prosecute Robinson in the past; have they?
I have known him for nearly 30 years and as a mate and as a politician I think he is as genuine as they come. I know I am talking my book, but Ed is one of the reasons I have stayed unwavering in my Liberal loyalty.
37% knowing who the LD leader is is not too bad for them given their minor party status, as she is LOTO though Tory MPs would hope for a few more than 62% knowing who she is