Sir John Curtice thinks the Tories are new Lib Dems – politicalbetting.com
Sir John Curtice thinks the Tories are new Lib Dems – politicalbetting.com
Lib Dems will ‘almost undoubtedly’ win more seats than Tories, says top pollster John Curtice.Sir John Curtice made the stark warning at a fringe event at the Conservative party conference.https://t.co/ZgfPlL3f6R
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I thought the Tory conference would be bad, I had no idea it would be this bad. You cannot outflank refuk to the right and yet that is still the Badenoch play. The Big Policy Announcements ripping up the work of their own governments - Coutinho slagging off the policies of SofS Coutinho being the funniest of the lot.
And then the Thatcher worship. A fucking museum this year. Of a woman who would not be welcome in today's Tory party as despite her economic policies the aim was to lift working people - a very strong safety net to catch the people at the bottom, significant investment into regions, Britain at the heart of international order, free trade. All now heresy in todays ReformCosplay and ScrewtheUnion party.
Good morning, everyone.
I could still see it happening, mind you - it’s just that at the moment this “Orange Book” Lib-Dem ism which might be attractive to centrist Tories isn’t on strong display.
Trump calls on Democrats to reopen government, will then work on health care
https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/5542048-trump-healthcare-deal-democrats-reopen-government/
President Trump on Monday called on Democrats to reopen the government, saying he will only discuss a potential deal on extending health care tax credits once they support the GOP funding proposal...</i€
We have two main parties, both very very unpopular. Cui bono? Not the Lib Dems. They've been eclipsed by the latest Farage vehicle, content to be the approved party of Waitrose shoppers in leafy suburbs, uncontaminated by the need to appeal to the Great Unwashed, unsullied by the vulgarity of popular support.
Which is a shame, because, for all their wrongness about many things, I think the Lib Dems would be far better/less bad for the country than Prime Minister Nigel Farage, which is what we may end up with after the next election.
Let them pass and let them take the hit in the mid-terms.
If they want to use something as leverage against the shut down vote then pick tariffs.
1) Bible Gateway (a really useful Christian resource which has online just about every English bible translation every made) has implemented geo-location blocking of the UK
2) Imgur having implemented geo-location blocking has broken lots fairly obscure technical forums. In my particular case I was trying to find suggestions for implementing hardware watchdog circuitry for crash protection of a GPIO output from a Raspberry PI (I'm using one that reads some K type thermocouple probes as a thermostat on a 1200deg C plate oven at work - a software crash leaving the heating output on could result in an overtemp event that wrecks the oven) but it's quite a problem in forums covering everything from gaming to classic cars.
But clearly I'm being kept suitably safe.
Genuinely I’d like to know what the Lib Dem’s stand for. When you had orange bookers and Sandalistas it was clear what the policies were.
Nowadays it just seems to be telling different groups what they want to hear. For example the undeserving WASPI women and the rest of the invective is about Farage and Trump.
To be fair to the Conservatives (and I do try to be on occasion), the second Conference in opposition is always harder than the first and especially if the first was part of a leadership contest which itself generates excitement among delegates.
The reality of a potentially extended period of opposition has probably hit home and Sir John Curtice's comments won't have helped. The truth is the Conservatives still have a formidable councillor base with over 4,000 representatives across the country and while that may be reduced further next year, the 2027 round, in particular, offers some opportunities for recovery if they can be taken.
Curtice is also right to suggest the Conservatives stop "banging on" (Cameron's words, not mine or Sir John's) about immigration. Unfortunately, there are some nasty authoritarian ideas coming through this morning which would be anathema to Conservatives of another time and as we saw last evening, Badenoch's brash assertions about large scale deportations quickly unravel when the detail is probed (as would Farage's).
The economy offers some more fertile ground though Stride's initial nonsense shows the paucity of thinking on the Conservative side - quite apart from a gross misunderstanding of the impact of mental health (which to be fair the Coalition did a lot of good work on a lifetime ago), the numbers looked dubious in extremis and any credibility around radical economic thinking was shattered by the decision to retain the Triple Lock without explaining how it can and would be funded.
Labour are aimlessly treading water lost between Palestine and Israel and hamstrung by their ridiculous "no new taxes" pledge from 14 years in Opposition. Whilst the Tories, where do you start? And the Greens, loud, excitable and as green and mad as a bag of frogs. And as for Farage, magic remedies from the MAGA right, uncosted, unhinged and unquesttioned.
Just as the introduction of speed limits has prevented all traffic accidents, injuries, and deaths. Huzzah for the Limitless Power of the Law!
As for a potential defector, @Taz looks the most likely.
Our local Lib Dem councillor in a nearby ward, Craig Martin, seems very well regarded locally. But, alas, he won’t get my vote if he stands at the next GE.
Kemi had not worked out how to deal with the Jenrick 'no white faces, not my preferred country' comment. SFAICS she actually had to dispense with his shadow ministerial services in order to be credible and serious.
While Farage leads Reform as Kemi is showing it is unlikely they will reclaim the mantle of main party of the right however much she and Jenrick push leaving the ECHR and scrapping net zero etc. Not least as Farage is pushing for that anyway and saying the Tories would keep the two child benefit cap and not nationalise British steel as the main distinctions with Reform is hardly a game changer.
What the Tories should be doing is trying to reclaim the centre right from Ed Davey. While Davey served in Cameron's government and is plausible as a liberal Orange Booker who won lots of ex Conservative home counties seats many of his members and MPs are more leftwing. Daisy Cooper was openly pushing tax rises at the LD conference for instance. It may require a more centre right leader like Cleverly for the Conservatives to reclaim that ground from the LDs though
Starmer should get rid of her if only to have the unpleasant medicine delivered by a smilier face.
About to go for my Covid vaccination, which the website tells I can't have, at a site which the website tells me doesn't exist, but when I spoke to the staff there yesterday they assured me there would be no problem. I'm over 75, (by 12 years!) and there's never been an issue in the past.
On topic, I wonder if this will encourage Chris Mason and the rest of the BBC's political team to take their heads out of Farage's bottom and give some attention to the various LibDem spokespeople. I'd like to think so but will wait and see.
They have done remarkably well but at a price. In effect they are a sub species of Labour, and thrive exactly and only where Labour don't thrive and also Tory/Reform are not absolute certainties historically.
Their job now, whatever it was in the past, is to keep Reform/Reformlite out of office in up to 100 seats by winning them, adding to the total of seats won by parties that are not very good but not actually insane.
This is a step change, and insufficiently recognised as a win. People forget that previously they held about 6 seats.
A next step change in which they become one of two principal candidates for power is not impossible, but would take both genius and luck, as it requires either both right parties to abandon the role, or Labour to do so. The Labour machine is exceedingly robust.
Mr Zelensky calling out a number of Western countries who have obvious export control issues with military-grade components ending up with sanctioned nations.
https://x.com/zelenskyyua/status/1975116539540992410
The LDs never ever convey a serious sense of mattering beyond being the outfit that is a sub branch of the centre left, who in up to 100 seats are the non rightist candidate.
(Geographically this seems to be mostly connected to King Alfred and Danelaw. I wonder why).
Voting Reform by contrast is now as common as voting Labour used to be. Something your plumber or the binmen did.
FYI I am an Orange Booker.
Re your specific examples:
WASPIs I agree with you although the Government at the time could have done better by staggering the change more so that it wasn't so abrupt and actually writing to them all beforehand. I appreciate the writing it is an expense, but they wrote to me to tell me I was getting a £10 Christmas bonus for goodness sake (which was a waste of money). Having said all of that it was well publicised.
Re Farage and Trump that is a no brainer politically. It makes them distinct from the other parties (who either support him or need to suck up to him because they are in Government). So it is politically sensible means to harness votes and is consistent with them being politically opposite. They could bang on about electoral reform, but the average voter doesn't give a damn.
The LDs are knee deep in policies, but you won't see them publicised by the media. It is hard for them to get airtime, hence the ridiculous publicity stunts. Sadly they work.
PS I don't agree with all LD stuff at all and whereas I don't agree with most (although some) of the stuff from Reform/Labour/Tories/Greens etc I don't get fixated on any of them.
And there are lots of people who are desperate to have covid shots because they have been terrorised over the last few years.
Not sure where the evidence on this is, right now.
That has a twofold purpose: they actually do want to save it, and in the event they can't, they want to make sure the blame lands where it belongs.
The interesting thing about Reform is that they are fighting both Labour and the Tories across seats and regions both would never have expected to lose - even going beyond the 2019 Red Wall for Labour.
There's Fetterman, of course.
Birmingham is a dump full of Brummies whose accents are awful.
I cannot see Lib Dem’s stopping Reform merely taking Tory/Labour rural seats.
While early years Thatcher backed entry into the EEC, after her Bruges speech latter years Thatcher was much more Reformy, like Farage she was an opponent of the Maastricht Treaty for instance and she strongly backed IDS and Hague to be Conservative leader over EUphile Ken Clarke
Looks like Ill have to vote Reform.
The U.K. national body of a sport has banned some coaches from any participation in the sport (as organised by the national body) for *life*.
They did so after an external investigation, complete with lawyers checking everything.
The national body then put a list of the banned coaches on their website.
They were promptly hit with a legal notice under the OSA, saying that they were harming said coaches.
So the list of life banned coaches/people was amended. And the coaches suing removed.
So it seems, the OSA can be used to prevent organisations promulgating information on individuals who are banned for gross misbehaviour.
Won’t someone please think of the children?
But this is more about the GOP vs the Democrats.
Collins and Murkowski are going to vote with their party on the budget, come what may. They only show a bit of bipartisan leg where the stakes are low.
Flu I will have as had flu for first time in my life last Christmas and it was brutal - worse than my worst Covid, also completely destroyed Christmas for me.
Seems there are a couple of strains going round at the moment.
Aside from this, I'm not sure how long each jab gives some protection. I'd be surprised if it wasn't longer than a year and I wasn't about to rush out for one.
And thanks for the paper yesterday.
The Attorney General has written to the Opposition, accusing them of inaccurate comments and warning them of the “potential impact of their words on legal proceedings” over the dropping of the case against Kneecap rapper Liam Óg Ó hAnnaidh.
In a letter to Robert Jenrick, the shadow home secretary, Lord Hermer disclosed that the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) is considering an appeal and said: “I am sure you will carefully consider any further public comments to avoid any risk of prejudicing any future proceedings.”
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2025/10/07/lord-hermer-accuses-tories-putting-kneecap-appeal-at-risk/
It would have to be gentle gradation between no fuel duty in Benbecula to full whack in central London. It would never be perfect and cause some perverse outcomes in some cases, but far far better than something entirely counter-productive like charging on mileage which harms rural communities and incentivises short journeys.
The best motoring tax would be a flat £1 charge per journey.
Wow. Robert Jenrick doubles down by branding a black journalist's questions "ridiculous" and saying that the problem is not his comments, but "journalists like you who pop up and try to knock me down", adding that "this is the reason why terrorist attacks happen". ~AA
https://bsky.app/profile/bestforbritain.org/post/3m2lqc3tsak2g
In that context it is hard to see how comment by the media or politicians can be prejudicial. There are in law no valid proceedings to be prejudicial about.
The fact there could be an appeal is irrelevant. We were and are all free to comment on Letby after the verdicts, even though there was to be, and may yet be further, appeals.
https://www.judiciary.uk/wp-content/uploads/2025/09/Rex-v-Liam-Og-O-hAnnaidh-Liam-OHanna-1.pdf
It's why it typically comes top of things that economists think should be taxed (considering that you need to find a way to raise revenue somehow). Formulating something that is optimal for all these outcomes is tricky though.
(Actually, JD Vance spun exactly the same line of bullshit last week...)
Annoys me when people upgrade a heavy cold to flu. There's no confusing the two.
He's a berk without enough sense to apologise and try to properly explain the point he was trying to make.
Whereas the LD strategy has moved them from few seats for their percentage of the vote to lots of seats, but that now means it is hard to add significant numbers of seats to that number (the domino effect has gone because of concentration of votes). It is hard to see past another 10+ seats currently, although on current polling I do think they will gain those.
Interesting you identified Devon and Cornwall. I think the Rural Devon seats MRPs identify for Reform will actually have the LDs as the main challengers to Con/Lab. Cornwall is a bit harder. This should be LD territory, but Reform do appear to be the challengers to Con/Lab here. I don't think anyone is going to challenge the LDs for their existing seats in Devon and Cornwall, but it will be an interesting fight between Reform, the LDs and the incumbents in the other (rural) seats here.
The main difference with influenza is that children are not vulnerable to Covid in the way that they are to influenza.
HMRC hopes to use online identification to secure unpaid revenue and prevent ‘errors’"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2025/10/07/digital-id-cards-pave-way-for-600m-tax-grab
Half-way sane is not embracing Robert Jenrick, however.
I’m sure the MoD will be asking for clarification from the Ukranians, of exactly what were the items under discussion.
They should do lots of, "We welcome people who can make a contribution to this country, while being tough on illegal immigration." They've got a good story to tell with party leaders like Sunak and Badenoch.
Instead, it's just endless "not seeing another white face" and "deport 750,000", but if you hate immigrants, Reform UK hate them harder. Or it's "leave the ECHR" and "abolish the Sentencing Council", lots of abolish something that the Daily Telegraph invents headlines about, rather than offering any positive solutions to the country.
Guildford will have many more upper middle class voters than most other areas, but they won't be a majority except in a few villages.
https://x.com/danieljhannan/status/1975484786308468786?s=12
“No one falls for selective reporting any more. We can read @RobertJenrick's comments for ourselves, and see what he said, namely that ethnic enclaves are a sign of failure.
There was a time when mischievous Guardian headlines could do real damage, but that power has vanished.”