Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Not true, sadly.
Tony Blair's whopper of a lie over the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty was far greater a lie than anything Boris said.
Boris's deal that he agreed matches that which he proposed under the Vote Leave framework: A free trade agreement reached, outside the Single Market and Customs Union.
As for Farage, he's a repugnant racist shit but he has always been forthright over his intentions. Its not that he's lying, its that it is unpleasant, those are two different things.
Thing is, Boring Old Starmer is right, but he's not really talking to you this time.
When you are starting out in life, with new jobs/houses/financial arrangements, you have to prove your identity a lot. And at the moment, doing so involves various somewhat leaky ways that are a PITA.
If you are established, those issues largely melt away; we saw that with voter ID. And someone here (eek?) who points out that it's easier for companies to take on foreigners than young locals, because they have ID papers in place.
How many people without passports or driving licences buy houses?
Pinnokeir's example is horseshit
They have passports but everyone plunging a house needs AML identity checks and they are say £x to perform. But the agency can charge whatever they can get away with for the checks so say charge £x0 instead.
That is the point Starmer is getting out with an OD card the agency wouldn’t be able to charge £x0 to confirm you are Fred, you would have an ID card that confirmed the answer immediately.
Now it’s a niche issue but it’s an easy to explain one
You get asked to prove your ID to rent as well
Yep - but I think fees for those checks have been legislated away - which is why I didn’t mention it
I think so too, but you still can't rent unless you can prove ID and passports, driving licence all cost.
It's higher than Reform's national poll rating, and an increase of 30 something percentage points.
There's something for everyone to take from this - except Labour and the Tories really.
Reform's job is now to portay Plaid as part of the uniparty and continuity Labour, and that should not be too hard a task, now that Plaid are looking to be a repository for tactical Labour and general left-wing votes, so will actively avoid radical positions.
Given that the left (PC+Lab) beat the right (Ref+Con) by 58% to 38%, maybe Reform might just have to accept that this seat isn't going to vote in a right of centre MP?
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
So much easier to hate than to come up with a positive reason to vote for your side
"So much easier to hate" is Reform’s entire modus operandi.
Sorry if posted already but a Welsh journalist take on the result, sad to read in the closing paragraph that they have faced numerous threats of violence for being a reporter.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
But 0% to 36% in one election cycle is pretty impressive too. Or should that be pretty worrying?
Good morning, everybody.
Adonis has told Guardian he thinks it shows how a group of voters will get behind whoever seems strongest/likeliest at the time to block Reform.
Seems to me there's a strong echo here of the exercise we went through which ultimately led to Brexit. No worries, chaps, we can block out all the concerns that these stupid people are expressing.
Until it was too late.
Brexit is the perfect example, of course, of why it is essential not to let right wing populists win.
I'd rephrase that somewhat. Brexit is the perfect example of why it is essential to deal properly with the concerns that drive people into the right wing populist camp before those people get there.
The difficulty with that statement though is that the concerns that drove people into the populist camp were entirely confected and the solution 'worse' than the problem as far as they are concerned
Brexit was a temper tantrum by emotional toddlers who yearned for an imagined past
It's not a perfect anything
The concern that democratic consent was often promised and always avoided was not confected.
This inotion of ''democratic consent' as in your point of view being represented makes no sense.. The idea that a British Reform government is more likely to represet my views than an EU one is nonsensical
Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Perhaps you could put that on the side of a bus.
The idea that people who voted for Brexit "don't like liars" is one of the more ludicrous i have encountered recently
People don’t like known liars, but until the liar is caught they are very happy to listen to their simplified easy solutions that won’t actually fix the real difficult problems
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
The best way to get a holistic plan is to have a light touch framework set out under the principle that "whatever isn't forbidden is permitted" then someone can make a holistic plan for what they need to do, avoiding that which is forbidden, while doing the best possible job that balances competing demands, within a competitive framework so that if they don't do a good job then others could balance the competing demands better.
Instead we have increasingly gone towards a process of "whatever isn't permitted is forbidden" which ties everything down and can't work well with competing demands and means that whoever has permission to act faces no competition from those who don't, so they can look after their own interests sheltered from competition.
Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Not true, sadly.
Tony Blair's whopper of a lie over the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty was far greater a lie than anything Boris said.
Boris's deal that he agreed matches that which he proposed under the Vote Leave framework: A free trade agreement reached, outside the Single Market and Customs Union.
As for Farage, he's a repugnant racist shit but he has always been forthright over his intentions. Its not that he's lying, its that it is unpleasant, those are two different things.
Oh behave! Johnson didn't even believe his own Brexit bullshit, he was more shocked than the rest of us when Leave won. And Farage? He wouldn't know what reality outside of his own warped mindset looked like.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
It's politically expedient for those who frustrated at the lack of "progress" in house building to blame "NIMBY" types in whatever party (usually the one to which they are ideologically opposed).
The truth is house building is slowed by a number of factors - one of which in my part of the world is the actual cost of construction. The developers whinge about this but the problem is if you add 250 new homes and potentially 500+ people to an area you have to provide for them without degrading the quality of services for those already in residence. That means health services, transport, perhaps schools and other infrastructure.
Yes, you can argue the economic benefits of bringing "incomers" (with their income(s)) into the area but that doesn't materialise until the houses or flats are bought or sold.
The other problem is the costs of construction create a break even price for new dwellings which remains beyond what most can afford so the alternative is rental and a growing proportion of new build flats in East Ham, Barking an Ilford are for rent not ownership. The other unpalatable truth is a lot of these properties are struggling to sell in a softening housing market.
But 0% to 36% in one election cycle is pretty impressive too. Or should that be pretty worrying?
Good morning, everybody.
Adonis has told Guardian he thinks it shows how a group of voters will get behind whoever seems strongest/likeliest at the time to block Reform.
Seems to me there's a strong echo here of the exercise we went through which ultimately led to Brexit. No worries, chaps, we can block out all the concerns that these stupid people are expressing.
Until it was too late.
Brexit is the perfect example, of course, of why it is essential not to let right wing populists win.
I'd rephrase that somewhat. Brexit is the perfect example of why it is essential to deal properly with the concerns that drive people into the right wing populist camp before those people get there.
The difficulty with that statement though is that the concerns that drove people into the populist camp were entirely confected and the solution 'worse' than the problem as far as they are concerned
Brexit was a temper tantrum by emotional toddlers who yearned for an imagined past
It's not a perfect anything
The concern that democratic consent was often promised and always avoided was not confected.
This inotion of ''democratic consent' as in your point of view being represented makes no sense.. The idea that a British Reform government is more likely to represet my views than an EU one is nonsensical
If you don't want a Reform government, don't vote for it.
Whatever government we elect represents our views, collectively, better than one we didn't elect.
🏴Scottish nationalists will run Holyrood 🏴Welsh nationalists will run the Senedd 🇮🇪Irish nationalists will run Stormont 🏴English nationalists will run Westminster
🇬🇧People who believe in the UK need to reimagine it.
And if thats true the left will love it in Wales and Scotland and hate it in England. England is not allowed to be nationalist, only the poor little celtic nations are. Pride in your flag in Wales and Scotland means you are proud to be Welsh/Scottish. Pride in your flag in England means you are a nasty little racist.
Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Not true, sadly.
Tony Blair's whopper of a lie over the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty was far greater a lie than anything Boris said.
Boris's deal that he agreed matches that which he proposed under the Vote Leave framework: A free trade agreement reached, outside the Single Market and Customs Union.
As for Farage, he's a repugnant racist shit but he has always been forthright over his intentions. Its not that he's lying, its that it is unpleasant, those are two different things.
Oh behave! Johnson didn't even believe his own Brexit bullshit, he was more shocked than the rest of us when Leave won. And Farage? He wouldn't know what reality outside of his own warped mindset looked like.
Neither of which is a lie.
Whereas Blair's lies over the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty were far more egregious.
People like Scott may not like the trade treaty that Boris negotiated, but it matches the contours of the framework he'd set out pre-referendum far better than the referendum we held didn't hold matched the contours of Blair's manifesto committing to one.
Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Perhaps you could put that on the side of a bus.
The idea that people who voted for Brexit "don't like liars" is one of the more ludicrous i have encountered recently
Gentle reminder: the vote wasn't on liking Farage or not. Or Boris or not.
It was to stay in or leave the EU. The pro-EU political class of the UK had shown (primarily Labour, of course) a contentment to promise a referendum and then renege upon it. The idea that had nothing to do with the decision to leave and that it was all the fault of Farage and people who support him is to paint a pleasant fiction over the grubby reality.
I could've easily voted either way. It's the only time I've ever gone in to vote without knowing what I was going to decide. And the fact that this could be the only opportunity to ever vote and that the political class would probably never offer it again was something on my mind.
Sorry if posted already but a Welsh journalist take on the result, sad to read in the closing paragraph that they have faced numerous threats of violence for being a reporter.
No need to apologise - it's a fascinating report. Also his comment on behaviour and style of the candidates and their party leaders, SKS scoring null (he never came), and the acknowledgement speecxh of Mr Whittle.
'Laughing at the fact he had attempted to win this seat over a dozen times he said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you will forgive me, I’m not used to speaking first in these election counts.”
He then added:
“Whilst we are perhaps euphoric in some parties tonight, I would respectfully ask that you remember the reason we are having this by election.
“I am very proud to pay tribute, and this is hard, to Hefin David and to his family and friends, I extend my personal sympathies. He will be a hard act to follow. I will never fill his shoes. But I promise you, I will walk the same path that he did. And I can pay no finer tribute to an excellent man.”'
Then again, this week I became involved with a bottle of Penderyn, which is a departure from my usual Glengoyne and, while not a good as Glengoyne, is perfectly acceptable nevertheless.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
The best way to get a holistic plan is to have a light touch framework set out under the principle that "whatever isn't forbidden is permitted" then someone can make a holistic plan for what they need to do, avoiding that which is forbidden, while doing the best possible job that balances competing demands, within a competitive framework so that if they don't do a good job then others could balance the competing demands better.
Instead we have increasingly gone towards a process of "whatever isn't permitted is forbidden" which ties everything down and can't work well with competing demands and means that whoever has permission to act faces no competition from those who don't, so they can look after their own interests sheltered from competition.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
It's politically expedient for those who frustrated at the lack of "progress" in house building to blame "NIMBY" types in whatever party (usually the one to which they are ideologically opposed).
The truth is house building is slowed by a number of factors - one of which in my part of the world is the actual cost of construction. The developers whinge about this but the problem is if you add 250 new homes and potentially 500+ people to an area you have to provide for them without degrading the quality of services for those already in residence. That means health services, transport, perhaps schools and other infrastructure.
Yes, you can argue the economic benefits of bringing "incomers" (with their income(s)) into the area but that doesn't materialise until the houses or flats are bought or sold.
The other problem is the costs of construction create a break even price for new dwellings which remains beyond what most can afford so the alternative is rental and a growing proportion of new build flats in East Ham, Barking an Ilford are for rent not ownership. The other unpalatable truth is a lot of these properties are struggling to sell in a softening housing market.
Adding new homes doesn't add anything to our population, childbirth and immigration does.
Constructing homes merely allows people who are here to have somewhere to live.
People who live in overcrowded homes because there is no home of their own available are still there, whether the home is built or not.
Sorry if posted already but a Welsh journalist take on the result, sad to read in the closing paragraph that they have faced numerous threats of violence for being a reporter.
No need to apologise - it's a fascinating report. Also his comment on behaviour and style of the candidates and their party leaders, SKS scoring null (he never came), and the acknowledgement speecxh of Me Whittle.
'Laughing at the fact he had attempted to win this seat over a dozen times he said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you will forgive me, I’m not used to speaking first in these election counts.”
He then added:
“Whilst we are perhaps euphoric in some parties tonight, I would respectfully ask that you remember the reason we are having this by election.
“I am very proud to pay tribute, and this is hard, to Hefin David and to his family and friends, I extend my personal sympathies. He will be a hard act to follow. I will never fill his shoes. But I promise you, I will walk the same path that he did. And I can pay no finer tribute to an excellent man.”'
Mr Whittle sounds like a good egg. Otoh the Reform candidate looked incongruously like a hairy egg.
Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Perhaps you could put that on the side of a bus.
The idea that people who voted for Brexit "don't like liars" is one of the more ludicrous i have encountered recently
Gentle reminder: the vote wasn't on liking Farage or not. Or Boris or not.
It was to stay in or leave the EU. The pro-EU political class of the UK had shown (primarily Labour, of course) a contentment to promise a referendum and then renege upon it. The idea that had nothing to do with the decision to leave and that it was all the fault of Farage and people who support him is to paint a pleasant fiction over the grubby reality.
I could've easily voted either way. It's the only time I've ever gone in to vote without knowing what I was going to decide. And the fact that this could be the only opportunity to ever vote and that the political class would probably never offer it again was something on my mind.
The Conservatives throughout my lifetime have been opposed to referenda because as they correctly say "Parliament is sovereign". On the two occasion they relented, one went Cameron's way so he didn't believe the second wouldn't go his way too. Unfortunately undecideds like yourself made the wrong choice and let him down.
Another mediocre performance from Nigel. Despite Reform's leading in opinion polls - more to do with Labour and Tory collapse than any convincing Reform enthusiasm - Nigel hasn't really done anything good for some time. This isn't a Ming vase strategy because there've been quite a few missteps along the way, although Nigel has been lucky that they tend to go under the media's radar. Nigel can't keep flatlining like this for ever. I'd say he's got about six months' grace from here. After that he needs to start showing a bit of oomph.
I enjoy wittering on about the Conservative Party - I know it annoys the "old school" Tories who proliferate on here.
The party is approaching a crossroads (not as in a fictional suburban Birmingham hotel). It's quite clear there is a niche (not perhaps a large one but one nonetheless) for a party determined to talk about sound finances and being supportive of business and aspiration (the details on that to follow presumably).
The corollary of that is recognising some form of immigration (specialist, professional, skilled but not exclusively) is needed to foster economic growth, raise tax revenues and cover our spending commitments whether they be welfare, defence or debt interest repayments. That's not to advocate uncontrolled mass immigration by any stretch but acknowledging there is a strong economic argument for importing (as well as developing internally) the skills required to grow the economy.
In the current mood, such a party might not poll well but might have the advantage of sounding coherent - sometimes you need to say what's right, not necessarily what people want to hear (Stodge's Eleventh Law of Politics).
The other side of that is looking at other parties realistically and seeing with whom these objectives can best be advanced or achieved in any future Parliament without an overall majority for any one party.
Theer are three options - first, move closer to Reform and accept the likely role of being a junior partner in a Government led by Farage and Tice. That means encouraging your voters to vote Reform in any seat where the Conservatives have no chance and Reform do. Second, move away from Reform and toward other parties as part of a broad anti-Reform movement - encourage your voters to vote tactically in any constituency where the Conservatives have no chance against Reform and choosing the party (whichever it may be) most likely to stop Reform.
The third option is to do neither and adopt the good old Alliance policy of equidistance. If you want sensible Conservative policies, vote Conservative would seem the obvious approach. There's an old adage "to thine own self be true" but first you have to decide what that "own self" really is and in what it believes.
This is the challenge which afflicted the Alliance and the Lib Dems from the mid 1980s to 2010 - in an unstable and potentially chaotic post-election Parliament, you might be the kingmaker - on whose head do you put the crown?
Have we ever had a header outlining Stodge's laws in full ?
Point to note: Party that portrays itself as a bastion of fiscal rectitude (apart from PPE deals etc) comes way down the list to those promising more 'sweeties' by taxing others. As a nation we're not facing up to reality and the next test will be the level of wailing come the budget.
Sorry if posted already but a Welsh journalist take on the result, sad to read in the closing paragraph that they have faced numerous threats of violence for being a reporter.
No need to apologise - it's a fascinating report. Also his comment on behaviour and style of the candidates and their party leaders, SKS scoring null (he never came), and the acknowledgement speecxh of Me Whittle.
'Laughing at the fact he had attempted to win this seat over a dozen times he said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you will forgive me, I’m not used to speaking first in these election counts.”
He then added:
“Whilst we are perhaps euphoric in some parties tonight, I would respectfully ask that you remember the reason we are having this by election.
“I am very proud to pay tribute, and this is hard, to Hefin David and to his family and friends, I extend my personal sympathies. He will be a hard act to follow. I will never fill his shoes. But I promise you, I will walk the same path that he did. And I can pay no finer tribute to an excellent man.”'
Mr Whittle sounds like a good egg. Otoh the Reform candidate looked incongruously like a hairy egg.
Plenty else in that report to mull over - including who might have been counting their chickens a bit too early, and who might be getting a nice chocolate, or rather organic carob and brown sugar Easter egg next spring.
What will worry Farage is Reform got 36% in Caerphilly ie above their UK poll average of about 30% but still lost due to Labour tactical votes for Plaid.
It shows that Reform are not guaranteed a majority at the next general election or even most seats if anti Farage voters vote tactically for whichever party is most likely to beat Reform in their seat. That could be Labour, LD, Plaid, SNP or even Tory in Conservative held seats.
Farage can still beat Labour and the Tories for now given their relative unpopularity and Starmer's deep unpopularity and Badenoch's failure to make much impact with voters. If say Streeting or Burnham became Labour leader and Cleverly Conservative leader it would be a different ball game though.
Plaid will be pleased with the result of course but unionist parties still got the majority of votes in the by election so it was not a vote for Welsh independence, more an anti Reform vote
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Point to note: Party that portrays itself as a bastion of fiscal rectitude (apart from PPE deals etc) comes way down the list to those promising more 'sweeties' by taxing others. As a nation we're not facing up to reality and the next test will be the level of wailing come the budget.
Trussonomics didn't help with the fiscal rectitude claim, and I rather think there are other reasons as well. But quite so.
For me the thing to note about the by election is the signal it gives about Tories, whose vote fell from small to about zero (5013 down to 690). They lost 86% of their voters.
Unless and until the Tories decide whether a Tory vote is a vote for the Reform camp or a vote against the Reform camp, they are stuffed.
Tactical voting looks like being the kingmaker for now.
The problem is, they are probably stuffed if they do decide which side of the watershed they fall. Because (1) why vote Reformlite if Reform is the option. Or (2) With so few seats, Tories are not the major contender against Reform in about 450-500 seats.
I think they can only break that gordian knot with a very new, radically different and inspired programme and leader. No, no-one comes to mind.
But 0% to 36% in one election cycle is pretty impressive too. Or should that be pretty worrying?
Good morning, everybody.
Adonis has told Guardian he thinks it shows how a group of voters will get behind whoever seems strongest/likeliest at the time to block Reform.
Would be interesting to see if Labour and Lib Dem supporters would vote Tory if the Tories are the best chance to stop Reform or is that going too far? Has there been any polling on this?
I think they would in a by-election but probably not in a general. Being in a constituency which has voted Reform would be pretty shameful. Having said that let's see how far Katie Lam moves the dial
It is not just Katie Lam and Honest Bob. Kemi has herself promoted the idea of ICE (her term not mine) style agents policing illegal immigration. Neither has Kemi censured Katie Lam. They are all singing from the same hymn sheet.
Good for Labour then. The sharper the lines are drawn the better. It's possibly fanciful to see this as Reforms high water mark but when the momentum stops that's how it feels. It wouldn't be the first time the Tories climbed aboard a sinking ship
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
The best way to get a holistic plan is to have a light touch framework set out under the principle that "whatever isn't forbidden is permitted" then someone can make a holistic plan for what they need to do, avoiding that which is forbidden, while doing the best possible job that balances competing demands, within a competitive framework so that if they don't do a good job then others could balance the competing demands better.
Instead we have increasingly gone towards a process of "whatever isn't permitted is forbidden" which ties everything down and can't work well with competing demands and means that whoever has permission to act faces no competition from those who don't, so they can look after their own interests sheltered from competition.
I would actually disagree in many areas of that.
But the common theme is that there is a little point to government, if all it does it randomly twiddle a few knobs on the Control Board of The Great Machine.
It is this that people are rebelling against. It is this, that is the real meaning behind "Taking Back Control".
So when an obvious criminal front organisation starts up on the high street, people wonder why it goes on for years. Why it takes hundreds of millions and 20 years to plan a road.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Some good holds and gains from the LibDems in last night's local by-elections
Yes, another week of solid results - perhaps the most interesting of all the local contests, in Paulsgrove (Portsmouth), counts this morning.
As for Caerphilly - a solid win for Plaid and, let's be fair, a decent result for Reform. Everyone else was frankly squeezed out of it with incredibly poor results for the Greens, Conservatives and LDs and catastrophic for Labour in a former heartland.
I disagree with Tice and Farage (as I do on many things) - "two party politics" isn't dead, well, it is, if you assume that it's a monolithic conflict everywhere between Labour and Conservative.
There are all manner of one, two and three party (and possibly even four and five) party conflicts evolving across England, Scotland and Wales to mirror what has been happening in Northern Ireland for some time.
A number of these new conflicts don't include Labour or the Conservatives. Fenland, for example, a solid Conservative hold in what's probably the heart of their new heartland, is Conservative vs Reform.
IF there's a national overview involving Reform, it won't play out in seats like East Ham where Reform could conceivably come fourth at best. For us, it will either be Labour vs Newham Independents vs Green.
What we are seeing is the end of national political movements - we now have a patchwork of regional or economic-based parties conflicting in different areas of England where East Ham and Fenland are a million miles apart on so many levels. Trying to read the runes of all that is going to be a challenge.
Yes, and a sad fact about politics is that it's MUCH easier to get votes on the basis that you're trying to stop someone else than to come up with policies that appeal to a majority. The Plaid winner certainly deserves his victory after decades of trying locally, but a lot of his vote was to stop Reform.
Occasionally you get a mandate for something positive, even if vague - 1997 was an election for something fresh, even though it also had a dose of "not the Tories AGAIN" as well. But it was an exception.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
I don't think that's true.
Brexit is a very long way from being everything, but it (and our still to be fully worked out relationship with Europe) does, to a greater or lesser extent, impact everything - trade; industry; defence; immigration; finance; medicine - and will continue to do so.
Turns out lying to the electorate diminishes trust and increases grievance. Not an EU flaw, a UK pro-EU political flaw.
Nobody told more lies to the electorate than Brexit BoZo and Nigel Fucking Farage
Perhaps you could put that on the side of a bus.
The idea that people who voted for Brexit "don't like liars" is one of the more ludicrous i have encountered recently
Gentle reminder: the vote wasn't on liking Farage or not. Or Boris or not.
It was to stay in or leave the EU. The pro-EU political class of the UK had shown (primarily Labour, of course) a contentment to promise a referendum and then renege upon it. The idea that had nothing to do with the decision to leave and that it was all the fault of Farage and people who support him is to paint a pleasant fiction over the grubby reality.
I could've easily voted either way. It's the only time I've ever gone in to vote without knowing what I was going to decide. And the fact that this could be the only opportunity to ever vote and that the political class would probably never offer it again was something on my mind.
The Conservatives throughout my lifetime have been opposed to referenda because as they correctly say "Parliament is sovereign". On the two occasion they relented, one went Cameron's way so he didn't believe the second wouldn't go his way too. Unfortunately undecideds like yourself made the wrong choice and let him down.
My googling research is that pre-2016 Labour only promised an EU referendum in 1974 (both manifestos) and delivered on that promise in 1975. Lib Dems promised / called for it from 2007 onwards (which is typical of their masterful political strategy)
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
'MPs will not be given time in the House of Commons to discuss Prince Andrew’s conduct because the royal family wants Parliament to focus on “important issues”, Downing Street said.'
Admittedly al,so because reasons Erskine May reasons. But that's Parliament put in its place.
Mostly for centrist dads and a few others, this lengthy, slightly valedictory and elegiac, Andrew Marr discussion on ther way we are, Labour's uselessness and the ineradicable nature of hope despite all the evidence is pretty good. Courtesy of New Statesman and goes on for three quarters of an hour. Highly recommended, but don't expect solutions
Another mediocre performance from Nigel. Despite Reform's leading in opinion polls - more to do with Labour and Tory collapse than any convincing Reform enthusiasm - Nigel hasn't really done anything good for some time. This isn't a Ming vase strategy because there've been quite a few missteps along the way, although Nigel has been lucky that they tend to go under the media's radar. Nigel can't keep flatlining like this for ever. I'd say he's got about six months' grace from here. After that he needs to start showing a bit of oomph.
I think there's a bit of wishful thinking there. Would you expect Reform to get 36% in South Wales? The "right" got less than 20% last time.
They can't win everywhere. Obviously it's not as good a result as if they had won, although they could have easily won with 36% of the vote if other parties' votes had fallen differently.
It is of course instructive that anti-Reform tactical voting appears to be a thing, at least in more left-leaning areas. So they may underperform their vote share at a general election.
Can they win a election flatlining? Absolutely. It is the election they need to win, not the opinion polls. Maintaining a steady ~30% will show they are getting people who support them long term, not just as a one-off protest vote. They then need just a few percent from the election campaign. Of course they could lose a few percent too.
But 0% to 36% in one election cycle is pretty impressive too. Or should that be pretty worrying?
Good morning, everybody.
Adonis has told Guardian he thinks it shows how a group of voters will get behind whoever seems strongest/likeliest at the time to block Reform.
Would be interesting to see if Labour and Lib Dem supporters would vote Tory if the Tories are the best chance to stop Reform or is that going too far? Has there been any polling on this?
There has been some private polling which says yes but there's a huge caveat, the focus groups have picked up Robert Jenrick's and Katie Lam's recent comments and those tactical voters have said no now as they see nothing that distinguishes the Tories from Reform.
The thought of deporting people who are here lawfully is particularly repugnant to voters, see the Windrush scandal.
A Jenrick led Conservatives won't get tactical votes to beat Reform, it basically would be Reform 2 anyway. A Badenoch led Conservatives wouldn't get many either as Kemi is now aping Jenrick more.
A Cleverly led Conservatives though could well get Labour and LD voters holding their noses in Tory held seats and voting Conservative to beat Reform
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Most of these proposals will be in the courts long after the next general election.
That is how the system we have at the moment works.
There are 250 within a 1/4 mile of me going up now. There are 1500 being built at pace (!) about 8 miles away. Further away, new build is merging towns together. What used to be gaps are now new homes on flood plain. Building is happening but may be in the wrong places for most.
What will worry Farage is Reform got 36% in Caerphilly ie above their UK poll average of about 30% but still lost due to Labour tactical votes for Plaid.
It shows that Reform are not guaranteed a majority at the next general election or even most seats if anti Farage voters vote tactically for whichever party is most likely to beat Reform in their seat. That could be Labour, LD, Plaid, SNP or even Tory in Conservative held seats.
Farage can still beat Labour and the Tories for now given their relative unpopularity and Starmer's deep unpopularity and Badenoch's failure to make much impact with voters. If say Streeting or Burnham became Labour leader and Cleverly Conservative leader it would be a different ball game though.
Plaid will be pleased with the result of course but unionist parties still got the majority of votes in the by election so it was not a vote for Welsh independence, more an anti Reform vote
Wales doesn't want Labour or Reform and I might say conservatives will have voted Plaid to keep out Reform as I would
Also Plaid have already stated independence is not an issue in their first term
Some good holds and gains from the LibDems in last night's local by-elections
Yes, another week of solid results - perhaps the most interesting of all the local contests, in Paulsgrove (Portsmouth), counts this morning.
As for Caerphilly - a solid win for Plaid and, let's be fair, a decent result for Reform. Everyone else was frankly squeezed out of it with incredibly poor results for the Greens, Conservatives and LDs and catastrophic for Labour in a former heartland.
I disagree with Tice and Farage (as I do on many things) - "two party politics" isn't dead, well, it is, if you assume that it's a monolithic conflict everywhere between Labour and Conservative.
There are all manner of one, two and three party (and possibly even four and five) party conflicts evolving across England, Scotland and Wales to mirror what has been happening in Northern Ireland for some time.
A number of these new conflicts don't include Labour or the Conservatives. Fenland, for example, a solid Conservative hold in what's probably the heart of their new heartland, is Conservative vs Reform.
IF there's a national overview involving Reform, it won't play out in seats like East Ham where Reform could conceivably come fourth at best. For us, it will either be Labour vs Newham Independents vs Green.
What we are seeing is the end of national political movements - we now have a patchwork of regional or economic-based parties conflicting in different areas of England where East Ham and Fenland are a million miles apart on so many levels. Trying to read the runes of all that is going to be a challenge.
Yes, and a sad fact about politics is that it's MUCH easier to get votes on the basis that you're trying to stop someone else than to come up with policies that appeal to a majority. The Plaid winner certainly deserves his victory after decades of trying locally, but a lot of his vote was to stop Reform.
Occasionally you get a mandate for something positive, even if vague - 1997 was an election for something fresh, even though it also had a dose of "not the Tories AGAIN" as well. But it was an exception.
Good government would undoubtedly be popular. It's a pity we have for so long been rather bereft of that. Policies should be pursued that are efficient, fair, etc. Such policies may not start out as terribly popular, but will prove to be so in the long run.
We need to get away from the costly inefficient mess that we have in almost all areas of government. So reform... but I definitely don't mean Reform.
🏴Scottish nationalists will run Holyrood 🏴Welsh nationalists will run the Senedd 🇮🇪Irish nationalists will run Stormont 🏴English nationalists will run Westminster
🇬🇧People who believe in the UK need to reimagine it.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
I know you absolutely hate Brexit - you've been fairly clear on that. But it is 'shit'? Its not clear that the situation in the UK is that different. The biggest economic shocks were Covid (a once in 100 years event) and the war in Ukraine. Its not as if the EU is somehow surging ahead and the UK is trailing behind. Since 2007 much of the West has seen little or no economic growth. Its as if there is a wider problem going on.
Yes Farage is trying to pull the same trick twice. Sadly too many gullible (and desperate) people may well be fooled again. Look at that complete loon Leon, banned yet again because he cannot comply with simple instructions. He's the biggest Reform promotor on here.
The need to bring hundreds of welders to Scotland from almost 7,000 miles away comes after Scottish Enterprise refused to support plans to build a new welding skills centre on the Clyde because it would be used to build military submarines. https://x.com/nats_tired/status/1981247131680985572
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Most of these proposals will be in the courts long after the next general election.
That is how the system we have at the moment works.
There are 250 within a 1/4 mile of me going up now. There are 1500 being built at pace (!) about 8 miles away. Further away, new build is merging towns together. What used to be gaps are now new homes on flood plain. Building is happening but may be in the wrong places for most.
Presumably it would have been Nimbyish to complain about the flood plain.
I've seen very little coverage of the recently concluded fourth plenum in China. Kinda nuts how much time is spent on the minutiae of Trump's social media posting, but the media isn't willing to do the work to interpret what's going on in China.
Has anyone seen useful coverage of it in English-speaking news media?
But 0% to 36% in one election cycle is pretty impressive too. Or should that be pretty worrying?
Good morning, everybody.
Adonis has told Guardian he thinks it shows how a group of voters will get behind whoever seems strongest/likeliest at the time to block Reform.
Seems to me there's a strong echo here of the exercise we went through which ultimately led to Brexit. No worries, chaps, we can block out all the concerns that these stupid people are expressing.
Until it was too late.
Brexit is the perfect example, of course, of why it is essential not to let right wing populists win.
I'd rephrase that somewhat. Brexit is the perfect example of why it is essential to deal properly with the concerns that drive people into the right wing populist camp before those people get there.
The difficulty with that statement though is that the concerns that drove people into the populist camp were entirely confected and the solution 'worse' than the problem as far as they are concerned
Brexit was a temper tantrum by emotional toddlers who yearned for an imagined past
It's not a perfect anything
The concern that democratic consent was often promised and always avoided was not confected.
This inotion of ''democratic consent' as in your point of view being represented makes no sense.. The idea that a British Reform government is more likely to represet my views than an EU one is nonsensical
If you don't want a Reform government, don't vote for it.
Whatever government we elect represents our views, collectively, better than one we didn't elect.
Its called democracy.
Maybe if the EU allowed us to vote for an EU "government" and we could choose between parties with different views on, say, European integration, then enough voters might have voted "in" to have stayed in.
The need to bring hundreds of welders to Scotland from almost 7,000 miles away comes after Scottish Enterprise refused to support plans to build a new welding skills centre on the Clyde because it would be used to build military submarines. https://x.com/nats_tired/status/1981247131680985572
Submarines aren't built on the Clyde but in Barrow on Furness, so this seems very odd. (This is very specialist work, with a special centre at Barrow, AIUI.)
She is on strike today as there is a Women’s strike partly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first one but secondly because even there there are still things that need to be improved
A minor quibble: I understand the point being made, but PC weren't really 'best placed to stop Reform' - Labour were. You can GOTV to defeat Reform, but only if its for one of the other NOTA parties.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Most of these proposals will be in the courts long after the next general election.
That is how the system we have at the moment works.
There are 250 within a 1/4 mile of me going up now. There are 1500 being built at pace (!) about 8 miles away. Further away, new build is merging towns together. What used to be gaps are now new homes on flood plain. Building is happening but may be in the wrong places for most.
Presumably it would have been Nimbyish to complain about the flood plain.
Flood plains can work. Our parkrun is held on a country park that is Sang land for the neighbouring development. In the winter we have to regularly cancel due to flooding - last January and February we managed one run each month. This is annoying, but does suggest they got it right with respect to the housing development, which doesn't flood, and the country park is quite nice too, when it's not under water
She is on strike today as there is a Women’s strike partly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first one but secondly because even there there are still things that need to be improved
A minor quibble: I understand the point being made, but PC weren't really 'best placed to stop Reform' - Labour were. You can GOTV to defeat Reform, but only if its for one of the other NOTA parties.
A brave/competent Lib Dem leader would see the chance to oust Labour. But they just can't bring themselves to do it. Even after Iraq they focussed on beating the Tories.
'MPs will not be given time in the House of Commons to discuss Prince Andrew’s conduct because the royal family wants Parliament to focus on “important issues”, Downing Street said.'
Admittedly al,so because reasons Erskine May reasons. But that's Parliament put in its place.
A parliamentary committee is looking into Royal Lodge funding though.
Beyond that unless Parliament formally decides to remove Andrew's titles and his place in the line of succession further discussion of him is just hot air
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
I don't think that's true.
Brexit is a very long way from being everything, but it (and our still to be fully worked out relationship with Europe) does, to a greater or lesser extent, impact everything - trade; industry; defence; immigration; finance; medicine - and will continue to do so.
I find it bizarre to pretend otherwise.
How has Brexit adversely impacted on defence, for say Ukraine? Arguably it allowed Boris to make a bolder commitment than if we had been tied in to a common EU response - especially when the Germans in particular were so far up Putin's arse. We still pay a chunk of change to the EU for access in to their markets. On immigration, Merkel opening the EU borders arguably was the UK's biggest single driver to Brexit, having happened before the Referendum. DavidL is right.
Anna Soubry questioned Farage's personal inclinations and it didn't seem to harm him.
Too many people don't like Reform. Nathan Gill obviously didn't help. I wonder if there's also a Tory factor here. Could some of them be voting tactically against Reform in order to try and strangle the realignment at birth?
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
I know you absolutely hate Brexit - you've been fairly clear on that. But it is 'shit'? Its not clear that the situation in the UK is that different. The biggest economic shocks were Covid (a once in 100 years event) and the war in Ukraine. Its not as if the EU is somehow surging ahead and the UK is trailing behind. Since 2007 much of the West has seen little or no economic growth. Its as if there is a wider problem going on.
Yes Farage is trying to pull the same trick twice. Sadly too many gullible (and desperate) people may well be fooled again. Look at that complete loon Leon, banned yet again because he cannot comply with simple instructions. He's the biggest Reform promotor on here.
To be fair to Leon he does tend to back the next PMs, Starmer, Truss, Boris et al. Unfortunately within a few months he realises they are useless. And despite his massive IQ still can't see that demonstrates he has terrible judgment in politicians.
@Byron_Wan 🇨🇳 Li Liu (left pic) and 🇨🇳 Wanqing Yu (right pic), two Chinese students living in Leeds, have been locked up after exploiting a massive loophole in Britain’s rail compensation system. Liu and Yu raked in a whopping £156,743 — Liu stole £141,031, Yu £15,712 — by scamming the Delay Repay scheme for three years.
Liu began a one-year course at Leeds University last year, having previously applied for an advanced computer science course at Birmingham University. Yu was enrolled on a one-year English-teaching course at Leeds.
Another mediocre performance from Nigel. Despite Reform's leading in opinion polls - more to do with Labour and Tory collapse than any convincing Reform enthusiasm - Nigel hasn't really done anything good for some time. This isn't a Ming vase strategy because there've been quite a few missteps along the way, although Nigel has been lucky that they tend to go under the media's radar. Nigel can't keep flatlining like this for ever. I'd say he's got about six months' grace from here. After that he needs to start showing a bit of oomph.
I think there's a bit of wishful thinking there. Would you expect Reform to get 36% in South Wales? The "right" got less than 20% last time.
They can't win everywhere. Obviously it's not as good a result as if they had won, although they could have easily won with 36% of the vote if other parties' votes had fallen differently.
It is of course instructive that anti-Reform tactical voting appears to be a thing, at least in more left-leaning areas. So they may underperform their vote share at a general election.
Can they win a election flatlining? Absolutely. It is the election they need to win, not the opinion polls. Maintaining a steady ~30% will show they are getting people who support them long term, not just as a one-off protest vote. They then need just a few percent from the election campaign. Of course they could lose a few percent too.
Be interested to know how much of the former Tory vote went Reform - and how much went Plaid to poke Farage in the eye...
She is on strike today as there is a Women’s strike partly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first one but secondly because even there there are still things that need to be improved
The shop or the country?
Country - sod all work for recent graduates in the UK at the moment
For me the thing to note about the by election is the signal it gives about Tories, whose vote fell from small to about zero (5013 down to 690). They lost 86% of their voters.
Unless and until the Tories decide whether a Tory vote is a vote for the Reform camp or a vote against the Reform camp, they are stuffed.
Tactical voting looks like being the kingmaker for now.
The problem is, they are probably stuffed if they do decide which side of the watershed they fall. Because (1) why vote Reformlite if Reform is the option. Or (2) With so few seats, Tories are not the major contender against Reform in about 450-500 seats.
I think they can only break that gordian knot with a very new, radically different and inspired programme and leader. No, no-one comes to mind.
Cleverly is their best bet unless Kemi improves Tory poll ratings.
He can get tactical Labour and LD votes to beat Reform in the 120 or so Tory held seats. Plus he might see the Conservatives gain a few seats from Labour in affluent areas especially in London and the home counties where Reform are weaker
I've seen very little coverage of the recently concluded fourth plenum in China. Kinda nuts how much time is spent on the minutiae of Trump's social media posting, but the media isn't willing to do the work to interpret what's going on in China.
Has anyone seen useful coverage of it in English-speaking news media?
Agree 100%. The media focus on things that don't matter.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Most of these proposals will be in the courts long after the next general election.
That is how the system we have at the moment works.
There are 250 within a 1/4 mile of me going up now. There are 1500 being built at pace (!) about 8 miles away. Further away, new build is merging towns together. What used to be gaps are now new homes on flood plain. Building is happening but may be in the wrong places for most.
Presumably it would have been Nimbyish to complain about the flood plain.
Flood plains can work. Our parkrun is held on a country park that is Sang land for the neighbouring development. In the winter we have to regularly cancel due to flooding - last January and February we managed one run each month. This is annoying, but does suggest they got it right with respect to the housing development, which doesn't flood, and the country park is quite nice too, when it's not under water
Sure, but it's the ten- and twenty-year floods, now more like five- and ten-, that are worrisome. Let's hope. (I know of two developments near me built on haughland in a steep-sided valley with unstable slopes - which are apt to create instant dams. And that doesn't allow for just plain rain. I remember the factory gatehouse on the site, with ominous lines and dates marked on the door jamb).
@Byron_Wan 🇨🇳 Li Liu (left pic) and 🇨🇳 Wanqing Yu (right pic), two Chinese students living in Leeds, have been locked up after exploiting a massive loophole in Britain’s rail compensation system. Liu and Yu raked in a whopping £156,743 — Liu stole £141,031, Yu £15,712 — by scamming the Delay Repay scheme for three years.
Liu began a one-year course at Leeds University last year, having previously applied for an advanced computer science course at Birmingham University. Yu was enrolled on a one-year English-teaching course at Leeds.
Seems he was quite good at advanced computer science...
Another mediocre performance from Nigel. Despite Reform's leading in opinion polls - more to do with Labour and Tory collapse than any convincing Reform enthusiasm - Nigel hasn't really done anything good for some time. This isn't a Ming vase strategy because there've been quite a few missteps along the way, although Nigel has been lucky that they tend to go under the media's radar. Nigel can't keep flatlining like this for ever. I'd say he's got about six months' grace from here. After that he needs to start showing a bit of oomph.
I think there's a bit of wishful thinking there. Would you expect Reform to get 36% in South Wales? The "right" got less than 20% last time.
They can't win everywhere. Obviously it's not as good a result as if they had won, although they could have easily won with 36% of the vote if other parties' votes had fallen differently.
It is of course instructive that anti-Reform tactical voting appears to be a thing, at least in more left-leaning areas. So they may underperform their vote share at a general election.
Can they win a election flatlining? Absolutely. It is the election they need to win, not the opinion polls. Maintaining a steady ~30% will show they are getting people who support them long term, not just as a one-off protest vote. They then need just a few percent from the election campaign. Of course they could lose a few percent too.
I think the point is that if their national vote share is ~30% then you'd expect them to poll more than 30% in about half the seats and less than 30% in the other half (this might vary due to the distribution, but close enough).
In order to win a majority they need to win more than half the seats - so it follows that they need to win most of the seats where they poll more than their national average. They failed at that in Caerphilly.
Another point about Caerphilly is that it's next door to Cardiff so will have a lot of commuters to the capital city. The further you go from Cardiff in the south Wales valleys the better Reform will probably do.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
I know you absolutely hate Brexit - you've been fairly clear on that. But it is 'shit'? Its not clear that the situation in the UK is that different. The biggest economic shocks were Covid (a once in 100 years event) and the war in Ukraine. Its not as if the EU is somehow surging ahead and the UK is trailing behind. Since 2007 much of the West has seen little or no economic growth. Its as if there is a wider problem going on.
Yes Farage is trying to pull the same trick twice. Sadly too many gullible (and desperate) people may well be fooled again. Look at that complete loon Leon, banned yet again because he cannot comply with simple instructions. He's the biggest Reform promotor on here.
Even Brexit voters think the situation now is worse than it was before. That's shit.
"Vote for me and your life will be better. Is it better now? No? Then vote for me!"
Another mediocre performance from Nigel. Despite Reform's leading in opinion polls - more to do with Labour and Tory collapse than any convincing Reform enthusiasm - Nigel hasn't really done anything good for some time. This isn't a Ming vase strategy because there've been quite a few missteps along the way, although Nigel has been lucky that they tend to go under the media's radar. Nigel can't keep flatlining like this for ever. I'd say he's got about six months' grace from here. After that he needs to start showing a bit of oomph.
I think there's a bit of wishful thinking there. Would you expect Reform to get 36% in South Wales? The "right" got less than 20% last time.
They can't win everywhere. Obviously it's not as good a result as if they had won, although they could have easily won with 36% of the vote if other parties' votes had fallen differently.
It is of course instructive that anti-Reform tactical voting appears to be a thing, at least in more left-leaning areas. So they may underperform their vote share at a general election.
Can they win a election flatlining? Absolutely. It is the election they need to win, not the opinion polls. Maintaining a steady ~30% will show they are getting people who support them long term, not just as a one-off protest vote. They then need just a few percent from the election campaign. Of course they could lose a few percent too.
Be interested to know how much of the former Tory vote went Reform - and how much went Plaid to poke Farage in the eye...
As a (generally) Tory voter (in national elections) I am certainly not going to vote Reform. Living where I do, I will probably go Lib Dem again. Unless a new Tory leader gets in, scraps the Reform-lite stuff and disassociates the party from the Boris/Liz/Rishi years and comes up with some new policies. Which is probably unlikely.
Interesting what happens in left-leaning constituencies where Labour being the party of Government won't be so well placed to get anti-Reform votes, and the alternatives of Green and maybe Your will be too left wing for many people. We need an English Plaid Cymru*
*Which has an official English name, the Party of Wales. So why is it not referred to as that when speaking English? It could help them with Anglophone voters I would have thought
One other straw in the wind. That MRP mega-poll everyone was getting so excited about a few weeks ago had Reform winning Caerphilly by 7 points at a general election. Westminster obviously, but something to note.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
Yeah I'm surprised David doesn't see the link. Promising the world on a stick of only.....
I just hope we won't have to put up with or indulge the idiots as we did over Brexit, given the damage that caused.
Another point about Caerphilly is that it's next door to Cardiff so will have a lot of commuters to the capital city. The further you go from Cardiff in the south Wales valleys the better Reform will probably do.
Yes, I pointed this out last week. The south of the constituency is a Cardiff suburb, lots of Welsh Government dependent jobs. Reform would have had better luck if the by-election was in Islwyn, or Torfean.
A minor quibble: I understand the point being made, but PC weren't really 'best placed to stop Reform' - Labour were. You can GOTV to defeat Reform, but only if its for one of the other NOTA parties.
This is precisely the problem with tactical voting when there are large underlying changes in public support. People get confused.
How many voters in Caerphilly reluctantly still voted Labour to stop Reform? Possibly quite a few.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
I know you absolutely hate Brexit - you've been fairly clear on that. But it is 'shit'? Its not clear that the situation in the UK is that different. The biggest economic shocks were Covid (a once in 100 years event) and the war in Ukraine. Its not as if the EU is somehow surging ahead and the UK is trailing behind. Since 2007 much of the West has seen little or no economic growth. Its as if there is a wider problem going on.
Yes Farage is trying to pull the same trick twice. Sadly too many gullible (and desperate) people may well be fooled again. Look at that complete loon Leon, banned yet again because he cannot comply with simple instructions. He's the biggest Reform promotor on here.
Even Brexit voters think the situation now is worse than it was before. That's shit.
"Vote for me and your life will be better. Is it better now? No? Then vote for me!"
It's tragic how many people fall for it. Again.
Of course its worse now - we had covid and then the energy/inflation shock of the war in Ukraine.
As someone still Labour GE VI, this is a pleasing result. MAGAUK were well defeated by tactical voting and, if Labour got squeezed as a result because they were out of it, I'm not tribal about it, so what.
There's so much of that sort of stuff going around. Historical stories with just enough truthiness to draw you in.
We have an epistemological problem with establishing truth that has become markedly worse recently.
My Facebook seems to get a lot of posts that are about how awful the Brits are without saying it directly. So there is the usual pathetic crap about the everything in the British Museum is stolen (apart from the fact that over 90% of objects are from Britain) and then the comments get progressively anti-British. Then there are loads which single out the Brits for being uniquely awful colonialists.
A lot of the comments are in English but clearly not written by native speakers. Strangely there are always a huge proportion in Spanish saying how evil we are and how we are Pirates. A few issues there I think. But it’s instructive how easy it is for foreign powers can post low level agitation in a mass way that chips away. If you only really have your knowledge of history from social media you are going to be thinking we were the worst peoplein the world.
The other weird thing I’ve seen a lot of recently, related to the Whitehouse “improvements” is that the vast majority of Canadians on Facebook seem to believe that Canada invaded the US in retaliation for burning York/Toronto and Canadians burnt down the Whitehouse. Silly really as the regiments who did it are clearly identifiable as Britishregular regiments not militia and certainly not Canadians.
So whilst the internet has put loads of knowledge at a click it’s also put as much bullshit fake info there.
A minor quibble: I understand the point being made, but PC weren't really 'best placed to stop Reform' - Labour were. You can GOTV to defeat Reform, but only if its for one of the other NOTA parties.
This is precisely the problem with tactical voting when there are large underlying changes in public support. People get confused.
How many voters in Caerphilly reluctantly still voted Labour to stop Reform? Possibly quite a few.
It worked well enough. It was dependent on pre-election polling and the like, but this is always some kind of influence.
Not sure what this means for Caerphilly in a GE, do PC gain an incumbency initiative when Labour are more competitive, as they likely will be at a GE.
Although I say I'm still Labour VI, I'm likely to have to make this kind of judgement in the next GE in Huddersfield, as Reform could well go through the middle if the Labour/Green split goes wrong. So the judgement will be a gambler's one, trying to put my cross on the winning horse.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
And which bus was this 'moon on a stick' on ?
I notice that people have long stopped complaining about the spend more on the NHS bus now that the extra money has been spent on the NHS.
One other straw in the wind. That MRP mega-poll everyone was getting so excited about a few weeks ago had Reform winning Caerphilly by 7 points at a general election. Westminster obviously, but something to note.
I'm no fan of MRP polls. In fact I think the individual predictions are often nonsense (eg one gave labour winning Guildford, another labour winning Wantage at the last election). However a by election does enable much more focused tactical voting, so if that had been a GE where it was one of 600+ seats, Reform might have won.
Do still agree they are nonsense however on a seat by seat prediction basis.
But 0% to 36% in one election cycle is pretty impressive too. Or should that be pretty worrying?
Good morning, everybody.
Adonis has told Guardian he thinks it shows how a group of voters will get behind whoever seems strongest/likeliest at the time to block Reform.
Would be interesting to see if Labour and Lib Dem supporters would vote Tory if the Tories are the best chance to stop Reform or is that going too far? Has there been any polling on this?
There has been some private polling which says yes but there's a huge caveat, the focus groups have picked up Robert Jenrick's and Katie Lam's recent comments and those tactical voters have said no now as they see nothing that distinguishes the Tories from Reform.
The thought of deporting people who are here lawfully is particularly repugnant to voters, see the Windrush scandal.
A Jenrick led Conservatives won't get tactical votes to beat Reform, it basically would be Reform 2 anyway. A Badenoch led Conservatives wouldn't get many either as Kemi is now aping Jenrick more.
A Cleverly led Conservatives though could well get Labour and LD voters holding their noses in Tory held seats and voting Conservative to beat Reform
I'd vote Cleverly but not Badenoch or Jenrick as a tactical vote.
I find it increasingly bizarre that so many on here return to the question of Brexit at every opportunity, even if the links require the most tortuous of reasoning. Anyone who persuades themselves that it is still Brexit that is driving Reform or their voters is deluding themselves. The country has moved on, Brexit is neither the land of milk and honey promised or the disaster predicted. We have so many real and profound problems to address, not only economic (although they are particularly acute) but also cultural and social.
Except Nigel Fucking Farage is the face of both
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
I know you absolutely hate Brexit - you've been fairly clear on that. But it is 'shit'? Its not clear that the situation in the UK is that different. The biggest economic shocks were Covid (a once in 100 years event) and the war in Ukraine. Its not as if the EU is somehow surging ahead and the UK is trailing behind. Since 2007 much of the West has seen little or no economic growth. Its as if there is a wider problem going on.
Yes Farage is trying to pull the same trick twice. Sadly too many gullible (and desperate) people may well be fooled again. Look at that complete loon Leon, banned yet again because he cannot comply with simple instructions. He's the biggest Reform promotor on here.
Even Brexit voters think the situation now is worse than it was before. That's shit.
"Vote for me and your life will be better. Is it better now? No? Then vote for me!"
It's tragic how many people fall for it. Again.
Of course its worse now - we had covid and then the energy/inflation shock of the war in Ukraine.
But we were insulated from those by not being part of the EU superstate.
There's so much of that sort of stuff going around. Historical stories with just enough truthiness to draw you in.
We have an epistemological problem with establishing truth that has become markedly worse recently.
My Facebook seems to get a lot of posts that are about how awful the Brits are without saying it directly. So there is the usual pathetic crap about the everything in the British Museum is stolen (apart from the fact that over 90% of objects are from Britain) and then the comments get progressively anti-British. Then there are loads which single out the Brits for being uniquely awful colonialists.
A lot of the comments are in English but clearly not written by native speakers. Strangely there are always a huge proportion in Spanish saying how evil we are and how we are Pirates. A few issues there I think. But it’s instructive how easy it is for foreign powers can post low level agitation in a mass way that chips away. If you only really have your knowledge of history from social media you are going to be thinking we were the worst peoplein the world.
The other weird thing I’ve seen a lot of recently, related to the Whitehouse “improvements” is that the vast majority of Canadians on Facebook seem to believe that Canada invaded the US in retaliation for burning York/Toronto and Canadians burnt down the Whitehouse. Silly really as the regiments who did it are clearly identifiable as Britishregular regiments not militia and certainly not Canadians.
So whilst the internet has put loads of knowledge at a click it’s also put as much bullshit fake info there.
One of the sad things about this is that it puts a lot of knowledge about the past that is true (but weird and surprising) into the, "you've got to be kidding, AI has made that up," category.
Think of things like the bouncing bombs used in WWII, or sound-ranging to locate artillery in WWI. I heard about these things from reputable sources before AI started generating mountains of rubbish, so I'm confident they're true. But nowadays even supposedly reputable sources are publishing AI crap because they don't have time to check their sources, so how would a future generation be able to validate that those stories are true?
Fundamentally democracy can only function with a degree of trust, and a reasonably reliable way of establishing what is true. AI slop and troll factories run by despots are undermining both. We're in big trouble.
The next general election is going to be all about tactical voting. Britons are very good at tactical voting and centre-left Britons are especially good at it. One thing that I am a little more sure about today is that there is a majority of us who really hate Reform and its dishonest and divisive approach to politics, and I think that this majority may be more effective than people expect at locking Reform out of power.
Rather a shame, though, that there's unlikely to be any interest from that present majority to address the issues that motivate others to become Reform voters.
I don't think that is right at all. Labour is absolutely focused on fixing the asylum system so that those without a valid claim can be deported quickly, it is focused on cutting the huge backlog it inherited in the NHS, it is focused on housebuilding to deal with the massive housing shortage it inherited... but all of these things take time and so we will only see the results in coming years. To deal with the country's problems we need competence and steady progress, not populist slogans, scaremongering and scapegoating.
Lets consider housebuilding
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Can't move in the South East for new build and lots on infills. One commented before - 5000 homes for a small Kentish village.
Nowhere near enough for the population that we have living here. Villages should be evolving into towns and towns into cities, with millions of extra homes being built, not just small numbers.
There's so much of that sort of stuff going around. Historical stories with just enough truthiness to draw you in.
We have an epistemological problem with establishing truth that has become markedly worse recently.
My Facebook seems to get a lot of posts that are about how awful the Brits are without saying it directly. So there is the usual pathetic crap about the everything in the British Museum is stolen (apart from the fact that over 90% of objects are from Britain) and then the comments get progressively anti-British. Then there are loads which single out the Brits for being uniquely awful colonialists.
A lot of the comments are in English but clearly not written by native speakers. Strangely there are always a huge proportion in Spanish saying how evil we are and how we are Pirates. A few issues there I think. But it’s instructive how easy it is for foreign powers can post low level agitation in a mass way that chips away. If you only really have your knowledge of history from social media you are going to be thinking we were the worst peoplein the world.
The other weird thing I’ve seen a lot of recently, related to the Whitehouse “improvements” is that the vast majority of Canadians on Facebook seem to believe that Canada invaded the US in retaliation for burning York/Toronto and Canadians burnt down the Whitehouse. Silly really as the regiments who did it are clearly identifiable as Britishregular regiments not militia and certainly not Canadians.
So whilst the internet has put loads of knowledge at a click it’s also put as much bullshit fake info there.
One of the sad things about this is that it puts a lot of knowledge about the past that is true (but weird and surprising) into the, "you've got to be kidding, AI has made that up," category.
Think of things like the bouncing bombs used in WWII, or sound-ranging to locate artillery in WWI. I heard about these things from reputable sources before AI started generating mountains of rubbish, so I'm confident they're true. But nowadays even supposedly reputable sources are publishing AI crap because they don't have time to check their sources, so how would a future generation be able to validate that those stories are true?
Fundamentally democracy can only function with a degree of trust, and a reasonably reliable way of establishing what is true. AI slop and troll factories run by despots are undermining both. We're in big trouble.
Future generations should get their information from books, not the internet.
Comments
Tony Blair's whopper of a lie over the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty was far greater a lie than anything Boris said.
Boris's deal that he agreed matches that which he proposed under the Vote Leave framework: A free trade agreement reached, outside the Single Market and Customs Union.
As for Farage, he's a repugnant racist shit but he has always been forthright over his intentions. Its not that he's lying, its that it is unpleasant, those are two different things.
The anti RefCon alliance voter needs to remain aware that Reform and Farage have captured the hearts of around 40% of rust belt Wales.
Plaid look like the receptacle for the anti-Reform vote.
The problem with housebuilding is that it's all very fine to say "We are committed to building more homes"
But on one side, the government is piling on more regulations and costs - see landfill pricing and the conflicts between safety, environmental and density. At another, local political NIMBYism is alive and well in the Labour Party.
So home building has collapsed in some areas. We see the latest band-aid policy is abandoning targets for affordable homes, in London.
For example, the rules about "No active air con in domestic" ignores modern air source heat pumps and the fact that electricity is decarbonising at steep rate. The lack of air con then leads to complicated geometries for flats - which then bumps into the desire for dual staircases in larger buildings. Result - less density, and a more complicated layout. Oh, and natural ventilation doesn't help much above 25c - which is why A/C is universal in modern homes being built in many European countries.
A rational approach to the problem is to look at all the oppositional factors and see which ones can be reduced rationally. A holistic plan.
Instead we get random efforts.
Instead we have increasingly gone towards a process of "whatever isn't permitted is forbidden" which ties everything down and can't work well with competing demands and means that whoever has permission to act faces no competition from those who don't, so they can look after their own interests sheltered from competition.
The truth is house building is slowed by a number of factors - one of which in my part of the world is the actual cost of construction. The developers whinge about this but the problem is if you add 250 new homes and potentially 500+ people to an area you have to provide for them without degrading the quality of services for those already in residence. That means health services, transport, perhaps schools and other infrastructure.
Yes, you can argue the economic benefits of bringing "incomers" (with their income(s)) into the area but that doesn't materialise until the houses or flats are bought or sold.
The other problem is the costs of construction create a break even price for new dwellings which remains beyond what most can afford so the alternative is rental and a growing proportion of new build flats in East Ham, Barking an Ilford are for rent not ownership. The other unpalatable truth is a lot of these properties are struggling to sell in a softening housing market.
Whatever government we elect represents our views, collectively, better than one we didn't elect.
Its called democracy.
Whereas Blair's lies over the EU Constitution Lisbon Treaty were far more egregious.
People like Scott may not like the trade treaty that Boris negotiated, but it matches the contours of the framework he'd set out pre-referendum far better than the referendum we held didn't hold matched the contours of Blair's manifesto committing to one.
It was to stay in or leave the EU. The pro-EU political class of the UK had shown (primarily Labour, of course) a contentment to promise a referendum and then renege upon it. The idea that had nothing to do with the decision to leave and that it was all the fault of Farage and people who support him is to paint a pleasant fiction over the grubby reality.
I could've easily voted either way. It's the only time I've ever gone in to vote without knowing what I was going to decide. And the fact that this could be the only opportunity to ever vote and that the political class would probably never offer it again was something on my mind.
'Laughing at the fact he had attempted to win this seat over a dozen times he said:
“Ladies and gentlemen, you will forgive me, I’m not used to speaking first in these election counts.”
He then added:
“Whilst we are perhaps euphoric in some parties tonight, I would respectfully ask that you remember the reason we are having this by election.
“I am very proud to pay tribute, and this is hard, to Hefin David and to his family and friends, I extend my personal sympathies. He will be a hard act to follow. I will never fill his shoes. But I promise you, I will walk the same path that he did. And I can pay no finer tribute to an excellent man.”'
Then again, this week I became involved with a bottle of Penderyn, which is a departure from my usual Glengoyne and, while not a good as Glengoyne, is perfectly acceptable nevertheless.
So there is that.
Constructing homes merely allows people who are here to have somewhere to live.
People who live in overcrowded homes because there is no home of their own available are still there, whether the home is built or not.
Otoh the Reform candidate looked incongruously like a hairy egg.
It shows that Reform are not guaranteed a majority at the next general election or even most seats if anti Farage voters vote tactically for whichever party is most likely to beat Reform in their seat. That could be Labour, LD, Plaid, SNP or even Tory in Conservative held seats.
Farage can still beat Labour and the Tories for now given their relative unpopularity and Starmer's deep unpopularity and Badenoch's failure to make much impact with voters. If say Streeting or Burnham became Labour leader and Cleverly Conservative leader it would be a different ball game though.
Plaid will be pleased with the result of course but unionist parties still got the majority of votes in the by election so it was not a vote for Welsh independence, more an anti Reform vote
https://www.kentonline.co.uk/maidstone/news/details-of-controversial-5-000-home-garden-village-to-be-rev-323343/
Unless and until the Tories decide whether a Tory vote is a vote for the Reform camp or a vote against the Reform camp, they are stuffed.
Tactical voting looks like being the kingmaker for now.
The problem is, they are probably stuffed if they do decide which side of the watershed they fall. Because (1) why vote Reformlite if Reform is the option. Or (2) With so few seats, Tories are not the major contender against Reform in about 450-500 seats.
I think they can only break that gordian knot with a very new, radically different and inspired programme and leader. No, no-one comes to mind.
The National
@ScotNational
·
39m
BREAKING: Three Scottish Greens councillors have defected to Jeremy Corbyn and Zarah Sultana's new left-wing party
It means that Your Party now have their first political representation in Scotland
https://x.com/ScotNational/status/1981633995889582361
You can't pretend there is no connection between them
He promised them the moon on a stick if they voted for Brexit
They voted for Brexit
it's shit (even they say so)
Now he is offering them the moon on a stick if they vote RefUK
But that's totally different...
Can I interest you in a bridge? One careful owner
But the common theme is that there is a little point to government, if all it does it randomly twiddle a few knobs on the Control Board of The Great Machine.
It is this that people are rebelling against. It is this, that is the real meaning behind "Taking Back Control".
So when an obvious criminal front organisation starts up on the high street, people wonder why it goes on for years. Why it takes hundreds of millions and 20 years to plan a road.
Occasionally you get a mandate for something positive, even if vague - 1997 was an election for something fresh, even though it also had a dose of "not the Tories AGAIN" as well. But it was an exception.
Brexit is a very long way from being everything, but it (and our still to be fully worked out relationship with Europe) does, to a greater or lesser extent, impact everything - trade; industry; defence; immigration; finance; medicine - and will continue to do so.
I find it bizarre to pretend otherwise.
Lib Dems promised / called for it from 2007 onwards (which is typical of their masterful political strategy)
That is how the system we have at the moment works.
'MPs will not be given time in the House of Commons to discuss Prince Andrew’s conduct because the royal family wants Parliament to focus on “important issues”, Downing Street said.'
Admittedly al,so because reasons Erskine May reasons. But that's Parliament put in its place.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C7jA3PLbBYM
They can't win everywhere. Obviously it's not as good a result as if they had won, although they could have easily won with 36% of the vote if other parties' votes had fallen differently.
It is of course instructive that anti-Reform tactical voting appears to be a thing, at least in more left-leaning areas. So they may underperform their vote share at a general election.
Can they win a election flatlining? Absolutely. It is the election they need to win, not the opinion polls. Maintaining a steady ~30% will show they are getting people who support them long term, not just as a one-off protest vote. They then need just a few percent from the election campaign. Of course they could lose a few percent too.
A Cleverly led Conservatives though could well get Labour and LD voters holding their noses in Tory held seats and voting Conservative to beat Reform
He has done so himself:
https://x.com/FennellJW/status/1981462089639366688
Also Plaid have already stated independence is not an issue in their first term
We need to get away from the costly inefficient mess that we have in almost all areas of government. So reform... but I definitely don't mean Reform.
Yes Farage is trying to pull the same trick twice. Sadly too many gullible (and desperate) people may well be fooled again. Look at that complete loon Leon, banned yet again because he cannot comply with simple instructions. He's the biggest Reform promotor on here.
The need to bring hundreds of welders to Scotland from almost 7,000 miles away comes after Scottish Enterprise refused to support plans to build a new welding skills centre on the Clyde because it would be used to build military submarines.
https://x.com/nats_tired/status/1981247131680985572
Has anyone seen useful coverage of it in English-speaking news media?
She is on strike today as there is a Women’s strike partly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the first one but secondly because even there there are still things that need to be improved
Beyond that unless Parliament formally decides to remove Andrew's titles and his place in
the line of succession further
discussion of him is just hot air
Too many people don't like Reform. Nathan Gill obviously didn't help. I wonder if there's also a Tory factor here. Could some of them be voting tactically against Reform in order to try and strangle the realignment at birth?
@Byron_Wan
🇨🇳 Li Liu (left pic) and 🇨🇳 Wanqing Yu (right pic), two Chinese students living in Leeds, have been locked up after exploiting a massive loophole in Britain’s rail compensation system. Liu and Yu raked in a whopping £156,743 — Liu stole £141,031, Yu £15,712 — by scamming the Delay Repay scheme for three years.
Liu began a one-year course at Leeds University last year, having previously applied for an advanced computer science course at Birmingham University. Yu was enrolled on a one-year English-teaching course at Leeds.
He can get tactical Labour and LD votes to beat Reform in the 120 or so Tory held seats. Plus he might see the Conservatives gain a few seats from Labour in affluent areas especially in London and the home counties where Reform are weaker
We have an epistemological problem with establishing truth that has become markedly worse recently.
In order to win a majority they need to win more than half the seats - so it follows that they need to win most of the seats where they poll more than their national average. They failed at that in Caerphilly.
"Vote for me and your life will be better. Is it better now? No? Then vote for me!"
It's tragic how many people fall for it. Again.
Interesting what happens in left-leaning constituencies where Labour being the party of Government won't be so well placed to get anti-Reform votes, and the alternatives of Green and maybe Your will be too left wing for many people. We need an English Plaid Cymru*
*Which has an official English name, the Party of Wales. So why is it not referred to as that when speaking English? It could help them with Anglophone voters I would have thought
One other straw in the wind. That MRP mega-poll everyone was getting so excited about a few weeks ago had Reform winning Caerphilly by 7 points at a general election. Westminster obviously, but something to note.
I just hope we won't have to put up with or indulge the idiots as we did over Brexit, given the damage that caused.
How many voters in Caerphilly reluctantly still voted Labour to stop Reform? Possibly quite a few.
A lot of the comments are in English but clearly not written by native speakers. Strangely there are always a huge proportion in Spanish saying how evil we are and how we are Pirates. A few issues there I think. But it’s instructive how easy it is for foreign powers can post low level agitation in a mass way that chips away. If you only really have your knowledge of history from social media you are going to be thinking we were the worst peoplein the world.
The other weird thing I’ve seen a lot of recently, related to the Whitehouse “improvements” is that the vast majority of Canadians on Facebook seem to believe that Canada invaded the US in retaliation for burning York/Toronto and Canadians burnt down the Whitehouse. Silly really as the regiments who did it are clearly identifiable as Britishregular regiments not militia and certainly not Canadians.
So whilst the internet has put loads of knowledge at a click it’s also put as much bullshit fake info there.
Not sure what this means for Caerphilly in a GE, do PC gain an incumbency initiative when Labour are more competitive, as they likely will be at a GE.
Although I say I'm still Labour VI, I'm likely to have to make this kind of judgement in the next GE in Huddersfield, as Reform could well go through the middle if the Labour/Green split goes wrong. So the judgement will be a gambler's one, trying to put my cross on the winning horse.
I notice that people have long stopped complaining about the spend more on the NHS bus now that the extra money has been spent on the NHS.
Do still agree they are nonsense however on a seat by seat prediction basis.
Oh, wait...
Think of things like the bouncing bombs used in WWII, or sound-ranging to locate artillery in WWI. I heard about these things from reputable sources before AI started generating mountains of rubbish, so I'm confident they're true. But nowadays even supposedly reputable sources are publishing AI crap because they don't have time to check their sources, so how would a future generation be able to validate that those stories are true?
Fundamentally democracy can only function with a degree of trust, and a reasonably reliable way of establishing what is true. AI slop and troll factories run by despots are undermining both. We're in big trouble.