I am popular These Tories want to join because I am popular We will be more popular with a more experienced team.
A rather glaring error - the more Tories join, the lower Reform slide in the polls. Am I the only one watching a gradual shaving of their polling data and thinking its the Tory effect?
Had decent Tories been joining then maybe it would be different. But its the scumbag Tories, the toxic Tories, the oh God not them Tories who are joining.
Why are Reform popular? Its way beyond stop the boats - they articulate that the country is broken and they will fix it. That they have no plan to fix it doesn't matter, they at least recognise the lived experience of so many.
But they're now adding in the very Tories who not only are seen to have broken Britain, but sneered at the people who are now Reform voters whilst doing it. Once we start seeing Jenrick, Braverman, Zahawi etc as spokespeople I expect the erosion will speed up ever so slightly.
Reform will do very well in the May elections and we'll be distracted from their polling slow slide by it. But it is there.
Pretty sure the vast majority of the Jenrick-Braverman supporters were already signalling for Reform in 2025. Most other Reform supporters would be happy enough to have them on board as fellow travellers but are there a few from Reform 2025 polling who are primarily anti-Conservative - absolutely and it is those votes that are at risk with the defections.
Medium term I think it also gives space for the Conservatives to create a more coherent brand, although not sure if they will take or continue the perpetual in fighting of the last decade.
We keep hearing this from the Conservative-inclined on here (though whether they are more anti-Labour and anti-Reform than pro-Conservative varies from case to case).
What is this "more coherent brand"? I'm told there's a "gap" in the market for something which might be called Conservative but again it all seems very fuzzy and ill-defined.
We even have some extoling "One Nation" though without a scintilla of idea as to what that means in the mid to late 2020s.
"What do the Conservatives stand for?" used to be a question no one asked but now it's a question worth asking. If we start from the basic questions around economic growth and the competing demands of an insecure, ageing society which needs more funds on both defence and social care simultaenously, how can any of this be funded within the current socio-economic framework?
The Revolutionary Communsts would have you believe "the billionaires" are the answer - some might call it legalised extortion and others might argue said billionaires can probably more quicker than a sclerotic Government and take their funds away.
Yes, we can tax a little more and spend a little less and that might help - we can wait for technology to play its part to boost productivity (which is probably the core issue) - why pay a barista to get your coffee order wrong when a machine can get it wrong for you more quickly and efficiently?
I think there's been a values change too again possibly related to the pandemic, possibly related to demographics around the kind of lives we want to live and the role of work and the importance of material acquisition within that life. That's by no means true of everyone and for many it remains a struggle from one week to the next and alleviating that struggle would be a help.
If I were a conservative strategist (I am neither) seeking to reconnect with a younger audience I would suggest they focus on the environment. Obviously approach it very differently to the Greens, have green tech as a core growth industry and a lot of attention and messaging on the local rural environment above global issues. Conserve = Conservative
In a word, the Conservative offer should be: "Aspiration".
Do any of the other parties really offer that? Certainly not Reform, that's for sure.
It was a key element of Thatcherism, and the Tories have a certain degree of historical credibility with their emphasis on the "property-owning democracy" and lower the tax burden, especially on business. (In fact, businesses are a very much neglected interest group which, I imagine, is why Street and Davidson have so much emphasised that during the ProsperUK launch. Focusing on that would be way of moving on from the Brexit wars which trashed the party;s reputation with much of the business community.)
I should also say that I think Kemi's made a mistake in, apparently, turning her back on the environment. I get that it is designed to prevent Reform outflanking the Tories but, actually, my experience is that many traditional Tories are rather keen on England's green and pleasant land which is why you can find the Greens winning seats in Suffolk and Herefordshire. This is one area Boris actually got right.
Article today in The Guardian by George Monbiot on the threat to Britain's security from environmental degradation:
Cameron's "detoxification" project was not only craven, because it involved abandoning policies that worked because focus groups and opinion pollsters told him were unpopular, but it didn't even work particularly well because he failed to get a majority against somebody as toxic and useless as Gordon Brown after a once-in-a-generation financial crisis, or to dent the large Lib Dem seat total in 2010.
I happen to think that the electorate isn't quite as stupid as pollsters and the more cynical of the posters on here think. Enough voters will support policies regarded as "nasty" in the short term if the long term benefits are explained to them and they are convinced. Ditching policies you know are right because focus groups tell you to worked triumphantly for a once-in-a-generation political genius like Blair, who benefited hugely from the prosperity caused by those policies, but for a second-rate Blair clone like Cameron and the more cynical of his followers, it just made them look even more dishonest and phoney than Tony. It may have just about passed pre-2007, but it didn't really work in the much harsher economic climate of the 2010s.
Cameron's 'detoxification' strategy was mainly aimed at Guardian readers, which didn't work as they would never vote Tory anyway. Despite a recession and deeply unpopular Labour PM he still failed to win a majority, even if the Tories only failed to take Hampstead by 42 votes.
The 2015 and 2019 Conservative campaigns were more successful as they focused on lower middle class and skilled working class swing voters and the economy and Brexit respectively
Until they trashed the economy and people saw how Brexit turned out in reality, whereupon they lost many of their middle class core vote.
Labour leapfrog into second in this week’s voting intention on 22%. Reform’s lead drops to 7 on 29%, with the Tories third on 20%.
➡️ REF UK 29% (-2) 🌹 LAB 22% (+2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 10% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
MoreInCommon N = 2,016 | 23 - 25/01| Change w 21/01
Leader approvals - it’s very close at the top with Davey on -12 and Badenoch and Farage on -14. Starmer is far behind on -41 though this is higher than he’s been since Autumn, which from qual seems to reflect a recurring international affairs bounce."
Good poll for Starmer, again shows a swing from Reform to Labour after the Jenrick and Rosindell defections and included a bit of the post Burnham blocking and Braverman defections which also don't seem to have damaged Labour much and not helped Reform either.
Greens down 1% as well will be positive for Labour ahead of Gorton and Tories will be concerned that Kemi is losing her pre Christmas bounce with the Conservatives falling to 3rd again behind Labour as well as Reform
Don't forget - entries must be posted or PM'ed to me by midnight on Saturday 31 January.
Its amazing how many people are forecasting big Dem gains in this year's elections when I regular read here that Trump is not going to let them happen.
Members of the UK team are all on "disposable burner phone numbers and temporary email addresses", our political editor Chris Mason reports from the flight to Beijing.
Modern tech like iPads and earbuds have all been "left at home under the bed", swapped for "notepads and pens" and other kit "that they might not bring back", he says.
"Such is the anxiety about security, about bugging, about spying."
That’s no different to me going to the USA for Bae back in the early 2010s
New empty laptop, different email address - rebuilt on return (it was a one off visit, otherwise you had a separate going to the US laptop).
The last thing the Tories want is for Reform to win the by-election so standing aside would be utterly stupid.
Why doesn’t he go and join Reform and continue his daily fellation of Farage !
I would prefer Reform to win it than Labour or the Greens.
Jacob in any case said he would back a Tory candidate if selected but the Tories were 5th in Gorton and Denton in 2024 even when they were 2nd nationally and it was Reform second in Gorton and Denton so only Reform can likely win there and no Tory candidate has been selected yet
Trump's Justice Department has decided there will be no civil rights investigation of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, and instead two units of DHS will investigate their own officers and the man they killed, according to three people briefed on the steps and internal records reviewed by MS NOW. https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/2016217164571631662
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I am popular These Tories want to join because I am popular We will be more popular with a more experienced team.
A rather glaring error - the more Tories join, the lower Reform slide in the polls. Am I the only one watching a gradual shaving of their polling data and thinking its the Tory effect?
Had decent Tories been joining then maybe it would be different. But its the scumbag Tories, the toxic Tories, the oh God not them Tories who are joining.
Why are Reform popular? Its way beyond stop the boats - they articulate that the country is broken and they will fix it. That they have no plan to fix it doesn't matter, they at least recognise the lived experience of so many.
But they're now adding in the very Tories who not only are seen to have broken Britain, but sneered at the people who are now Reform voters whilst doing it. Once we start seeing Jenrick, Braverman, Zahawi etc as spokespeople I expect the erosion will speed up ever so slightly.
Reform will do very well in the May elections and we'll be distracted from their polling slow slide by it. But it is there.
Pretty sure the vast majority of the Jenrick-Braverman supporters were already signalling for Reform in 2025. Most other Reform supporters would be happy enough to have them on board as fellow travellers but are there a few from Reform 2025 polling who are primarily anti-Conservative - absolutely and it is those votes that are at risk with the defections.
Medium term I think it also gives space for the Conservatives to create a more coherent brand, although not sure if they will take or continue the perpetual in fighting of the last decade.
We keep hearing this from the Conservative-inclined on here (though whether they are more anti-Labour and anti-Reform than pro-Conservative varies from case to case).
What is this "more coherent brand"? I'm told there's a "gap" in the market for something which might be called Conservative but again it all seems very fuzzy and ill-defined.
We even have some extoling "One Nation" though without a scintilla of idea as to what that means in the mid to late 2020s.
"What do the Conservatives stand for?" used to be a question no one asked but now it's a question worth asking. If we start from the basic questions around economic growth and the competing demands of an insecure, ageing society which needs more funds on both defence and social care simultaenously, how can any of this be funded within the current socio-economic framework?
The Revolutionary Communsts would have you believe "the billionaires" are the answer - some might call it legalised extortion and others might argue said billionaires can probably more quicker than a sclerotic Government and take their funds away.
Yes, we can tax a little more and spend a little less and that might help - we can wait for technology to play its part to boost productivity (which is probably the core issue) - why pay a barista to get your coffee order wrong when a machine can get it wrong for you more quickly and efficiently?
I think there's been a values change too again possibly related to the pandemic, possibly related to demographics around the kind of lives we want to live and the role of work and the importance of material acquisition within that life. That's by no means true of everyone and for many it remains a struggle from one week to the next and alleviating that struggle would be a help.
If I were a conservative strategist (I am neither) seeking to reconnect with a younger audience I would suggest they focus on the environment. Obviously approach it very differently to the Greens, have green tech as a core growth industry and a lot of attention and messaging on the local rural environment above global issues. Conserve = Conservative
In a word, the Conservative offer should be: "Aspiration".
Do any of the other parties really offer that? Certainly not Reform, that's for sure.
It was a key element of Thatcherism, and the Tories have a certain degree of historical credibility with their emphasis on the "property-owning democracy" and lower the tax burden, especially on business. (In fact, businesses are a very much neglected interest group which, I imagine, is why Street and Davidson have so much emphasised that during the ProsperUK launch. Focusing on that would be way of moving on from the Brexit wars which trashed the party;s reputation with much of the business community.)
It does sound like revisiting the past, though.
What does "aspiration" look like in the second and third decades of the 21st Century? It may not be individual material acquisition but, for example, good schools, hospitals and transport.
As for "property owning", we all know that's at the heart of any and every Conservative message because home owners (or mortgage holders if you prefer) tend to be Conservative whereas renters don't. However, the price of houses versus the income of those aspiring to buy them means either crippling mortgage payments (and condequent vulnerability to rises in interest rates) and keeping the asset price treadmill running.
I'm not sure I agree with the focus on "business" - IF I were a Conservative strategist, I'd be be more focused on the consumer and the customer and especially in terms of utilities but other sectors, asking some searching questions about how these organisations treat their customers.
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I think Ground Rent tends to be British financials and property rather than PE.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
The last thing the Tories want is for Reform to win the by-election so standing aside would be utterly stupid.
Why doesn’t he go and join Reform and continue his daily fellation of Farage !
I would prefer Reform to win it than Labour or the Greens.
That's putting your short-term merriment ahead of your party's strategic interests, though, isn't it? The optimal - indeed possibly only, excepting some sort of merger/takeover - scenario back to dominance for the Tories is that the Reform balloon either bursts or slowly deflates.
Similarly, I'd be happiest to see the Greens win, but for the LibDems it's probably better that Labour wins it.
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
The last thing the Tories want is for Reform to win the by-election so standing aside would be utterly stupid.
Why doesn’t he go and join Reform and continue his daily fellation of Farage !
I would prefer Reform to win it than Labour or the Greens.
That's putting your short-term merriment ahead of your party's strategic interests, though, isn't it? The optimal - indeed possibly only, excepting some sort of merger/takeover - scenario back to dominance for the Tories is that the Reform balloon either bursts or slowly deflates.
Reform were second behind Labour in Gorton and Denton even in 2024 when the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform UK wide.
The Tory candidate was a poor 5th, behind even Galloway's Party and the Greens. There is zero chance of the Tories winning the seat and the Tories didn't even win it in their 2019 landslide victory. Reform though have a shot and in seats where Tories can't win a Reform MP is more likely to back Kemi to be PM in a hung parliament whereas a Labour or Green MP would back a minority Labour government staying in office
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
Wasn't that a ward the Greens held due to the local deal between LDs and Greens, that handed the Greens some plumb seats in return for not opposing the LDs across the rest of the patch? A deal that no longer applies, and so voters returned to their party of choice.
The last thing the Tories want is for Reform to win the by-election so standing aside would be utterly stupid.
Why doesn’t he go and join Reform and continue his daily fellation of Farage !
I would prefer Reform to win it than Labour or the Greens.
That's putting your short-term merriment ahead of your party's strategic interests, though, isn't it? The optimal - indeed possibly only, excepting some sort of merger/takeover - scenario back to dominance for the Tories is that the Reform balloon either bursts or slowly deflates.
Reform were second behind Labour in Gorton and Denton even in 2024 when the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform UK wide.
The Tory candidate was a poor 5th, behind even Galloway's Party and the Greens. There is zero chance of the Tories winning the seat and the Tories didn't even win it in their 2019 landslide victory. Reform though have a shot and in seats where Tories can't win a Reform MP is more likely to back Kemi to be PM in a hung parliament whereas a Labour or Green MP would back a minority Labour government staying in office
As so often, you miss the point. The Tories are better off with Labour or the Greens winning, with Reform's widely touted prospects falling short, because if Reform wins those seat projections you so enjoy will push the projected Tory seat total lower still.
I am popular These Tories want to join because I am popular We will be more popular with a more experienced team.
A rather glaring error - the more Tories join, the lower Reform slide in the polls. Am I the only one watching a gradual shaving of their polling data and thinking its the Tory effect?
Had decent Tories been joining then maybe it would be different. But its the scumbag Tories, the toxic Tories, the oh God not them Tories who are joining.
Why are Reform popular? Its way beyond stop the boats - they articulate that the country is broken and they will fix it. That they have no plan to fix it doesn't matter, they at least recognise the lived experience of so many.
But they're now adding in the very Tories who not only are seen to have broken Britain, but sneered at the people who are now Reform voters whilst doing it. Once we start seeing Jenrick, Braverman, Zahawi etc as spokespeople I expect the erosion will speed up ever so slightly.
Reform will do very well in the May elections and we'll be distracted from their polling slow slide by it. But it is there.
Pretty sure the vast majority of the Jenrick-Braverman supporters were already signalling for Reform in 2025. Most other Reform supporters would be happy enough to have them on board as fellow travellers but are there a few from Reform 2025 polling who are primarily anti-Conservative - absolutely and it is those votes that are at risk with the defections.
Medium term I think it also gives space for the Conservatives to create a more coherent brand, although not sure if they will take or continue the perpetual in fighting of the last decade.
We keep hearing this from the Conservative-inclined on here (though whether they are more anti-Labour and anti-Reform than pro-Conservative varies from case to case).
What is this "more coherent brand"? I'm told there's a "gap" in the market for something which might be called Conservative but again it all seems very fuzzy and ill-defined.
We even have some extoling "One Nation" though without a scintilla of idea as to what that means in the mid to late 2020s.
"What do the Conservatives stand for?" used to be a question no one asked but now it's a question worth asking. If we start from the basic questions around economic growth and the competing demands of an insecure, ageing society which needs more funds on both defence and social care simultaenously, how can any of this be funded within the current socio-economic framework?
The Revolutionary Communsts would have you believe "the billionaires" are the answer - some might call it legalised extortion and others might argue said billionaires can probably more quicker than a sclerotic Government and take their funds away.
Yes, we can tax a little more and spend a little less and that might help - we can wait for technology to play its part to boost productivity (which is probably the core issue) - why pay a barista to get your coffee order wrong when a machine can get it wrong for you more quickly and efficiently?
I think there's been a values change too again possibly related to the pandemic, possibly related to demographics around the kind of lives we want to live and the role of work and the importance of material acquisition within that life. That's by no means true of everyone and for many it remains a struggle from one week to the next and alleviating that struggle would be a help.
If I were a conservative strategist (I am neither) seeking to reconnect with a younger audience I would suggest they focus on the environment. Obviously approach it very differently to the Greens, have green tech as a core growth industry and a lot of attention and messaging on the local rural environment above global issues. Conserve = Conservative
In a word, the Conservative offer should be: "Aspiration".
Do any of the other parties really offer that? Certainly not Reform, that's for sure.
It was a key element of Thatcherism, and the Tories have a certain degree of historical credibility with their emphasis on the "property-owning democracy" and lower the tax burden, especially on business. (In fact, businesses are a very much neglected interest group which, I imagine, is why Street and Davidson have so much emphasised that during the ProsperUK launch. Focusing on that would be way of moving on from the Brexit wars which trashed the party;s reputation with much of the business community.)
Everyone aspires just for different things.
Conservatives aspire for financial prosperity at an individual and family level. Labour aspire for a more equal and fairer society Reform aspire for a whiter, more Christian country of their childhood. LDs aspire for everyone getting along a bit more Greens aspire for protecting the planet and peace in Gaza
Providing a platform for financial prosperity is a noble and popular goal you can build a party around. But it cannot be achieved coherently with a reduction in the tax base given our demographics, otherwise other important areas, like justice, health, defence, that matter to conservatives inevitably fail.
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I think Ground Rent tends to be British financials and property rather than PE.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
What are the barriers to entry for vets ?
Part of the problem seems to be a shortage of vets which helps drive the prices up.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
More the Greens, the LDs have no chance in those areas since their coalition government with the Tories. They are now the party of the posh South anti Brexit areas and SW London under Davey
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
Members of the UK team are all on "disposable burner phone numbers and temporary email addresses", our political editor Chris Mason reports from the flight to Beijing.
Modern tech like iPads and earbuds have all been "left at home under the bed", swapped for "notepads and pens" and other kit "that they might not bring back", he says.
"Such is the anxiety about security, about bugging, about spying."
That’s no different to me going to the USA for Bae back in the early 2010s
New empty laptop, different email address - rebuilt on return (it was a one off visit, otherwise you had a separate going to the US laptop).
I would suggest its quite different.
Um no - it’s applying the exact same info security rules of keep everything 100% separate and don’t trust anything that went to that country - what’s different?
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I think Ground Rent tends to be British financials and property rather than PE.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
What are the barriers to entry for vets ?
Part of the problem seems to be a shortage of vets which helps drive the prices up.
There's a significant shortage of vets, with many practices refusing to take new patients, exacerbated by the significant jump in pet ownership during covid that has only slightly subsided. My own vets seems to have an ever-changing rota of young vets from Commonwealth countries coming here for the travel and experience.
But the real drivers of rising prices are a mixture of the same factors that are pushing up the costs of human healthcare - increasing costs of medication, increasing use of technology, use of ultrasound and MRI etc. - and the progressive capture of the veterinary sector by private equity, which buys up smaller and family owned practices and chains and ruthlessly sets about maximising profit, both by hard-selling scans and other tests that the pet doesn't really need, and through pricing - for example there's one drug my pet is currently on that costs twice as much from the vet as it does with a private prescription that I can collect and pay for at Boots.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
Wasn't that a ward the Greens held due to the local deal between LDs and Greens, that handed the Greens some plumb seats in return for not opposing the LDs across the rest of the patch? A deal that no longer applies, and so voters returned to their party of choice.
You may well be right in that case?
However I do think in some areas the Greens are a threat to the Lib Dem’s as they are to Labour in others.
Reform are the right wing NOTA, the Greens the left wing NOTA.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
More the Greens, the LDs have no chance in those areas since their coalition government with the Tories. They are now the party of the posh South anti Brexit areas and SW London under Davey
Camden Council – West Hampstead (August 2025) Winner: Liberal Democrats (Janet Grauberg)
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
Wasn't that a ward the Greens held due to the local deal between LDs and Greens, that handed the Greens some plumb seats in return for not opposing the LDs across the rest of the patch? A deal that no longer applies, and so voters returned to their party of choice.
You may well be right in that case?
However I do think in some areas the Greens are a threat to the Lib Dem’s as they are to Labour in others.
Reform are the right wing NOTA, the Greens the left wing NOTA.
Mrs P. tells me she often votes Green in the locals and she undoubtedly is passionately about green issues, so I'd say that for positive reasons. In a GE election though we both tend to vote tactically.
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
Tony Benn in his latter years must have been at least a 5, probably more.
On the Tory side, Ken Clarke, and Ruth Davidson did amazingly well in Scotland for a Conservative.
I am popular These Tories want to join because I am popular We will be more popular with a more experienced team.
A rather glaring error - the more Tories join, the lower Reform slide in the polls. Am I the only one watching a gradual shaving of their polling data and thinking its the Tory effect?
Had decent Tories been joining then maybe it would be different. But its the scumbag Tories, the toxic Tories, the oh God not them Tories who are joining.
Why are Reform popular? Its way beyond stop the boats - they articulate that the country is broken and they will fix it. That they have no plan to fix it doesn't matter, they at least recognise the lived experience of so many.
But they're now adding in the very Tories who not only are seen to have broken Britain, but sneered at the people who are now Reform voters whilst doing it. Once we start seeing Jenrick, Braverman, Zahawi etc as spokespeople I expect the erosion will speed up ever so slightly.
Reform will do very well in the May elections and we'll be distracted from their polling slow slide by it. But it is there.
Pretty sure the vast majority of the Jenrick-Braverman supporters were already signalling for Reform in 2025. Most other Reform supporters would be happy enough to have them on board as fellow travellers but are there a few from Reform 2025 polling who are primarily anti-Conservative - absolutely and it is those votes that are at risk with the defections.
Medium term I think it also gives space for the Conservatives to create a more coherent brand, although not sure if they will take or continue the perpetual in fighting of the last decade.
We keep hearing this from the Conservative-inclined on here (though whether they are more anti-Labour and anti-Reform than pro-Conservative varies from case to case).
What is this "more coherent brand"? I'm told there's a "gap" in the market for something which might be called Conservative but again it all seems very fuzzy and ill-defined.
We even have some extoling "One Nation" though without a scintilla of idea as to what that means in the mid to late 2020s.
"What do the Conservatives stand for?" used to be a question no one asked but now it's a question worth asking. If we start from the basic questions around economic growth and the competing demands of an insecure, ageing society which needs more funds on both defence and social care simultaenously, how can any of this be funded within the current socio-economic framework?
The Revolutionary Communsts would have you believe "the billionaires" are the answer - some might call it legalised extortion and others might argue said billionaires can probably more quicker than a sclerotic Government and take their funds away.
Yes, we can tax a little more and spend a little less and that might help - we can wait for technology to play its part to boost productivity (which is probably the core issue) - why pay a barista to get your coffee order wrong when a machine can get it wrong for you more quickly and efficiently?
I think there's been a values change too again possibly related to the pandemic, possibly related to demographics around the kind of lives we want to live and the role of work and the importance of material acquisition within that life. That's by no means true of everyone and for many it remains a struggle from one week to the next and alleviating that struggle would be a help.
If I were a conservative strategist (I am neither) seeking to reconnect with a younger audience I would suggest they focus on the environment. Obviously approach it very differently to the Greens, have green tech as a core growth industry and a lot of attention and messaging on the local rural environment above global issues. Conserve = Conservative
In a word, the Conservative offer should be: "Aspiration".
Do any of the other parties really offer that? Certainly not Reform, that's for sure.
It was a key element of Thatcherism, and the Tories have a certain degree of historical credibility with their emphasis on the "property-owning democracy" and lower the tax burden, especially on business. (In fact, businesses are a very much neglected interest group which, I imagine, is why Street and Davidson have so much emphasised that during the ProsperUK launch. Focusing on that would be way of moving on from the Brexit wars which trashed the party;s reputation with much of the business community.)
It does sound like revisiting the past, though.
What does "aspiration" look like in the second and third decades of the 21st Century? It may not be individual material acquisition but, for example, good schools, hospitals and transport.
As for "property owning", we all know that's at the heart of any and every Conservative message because home owners (or mortgage holders if you prefer) tend to be Conservative whereas renters don't. However, the price of houses versus the income of those aspiring to buy them means either crippling mortgage payments (and condequent vulnerability to rises in interest rates) and keeping the asset price treadmill running.
I'm not sure I agree with the focus on "business" - IF I were a Conservative strategist, I'd be be more focused on the consumer and the customer and especially in terms of utilities but other sectors, asking some searching questions about how these organisations treat their customers.
It is arguable that "surviving" top trumps "aspiration" currently. But voters do look to a party to offer them something more than than they currently have. It's why buying your council house and then buying your own home rather than renting were so popular for Thatcher in the 70's and 80's. And then why keeping what you've earned played so well in limiting the impact of IHT for Osborne.
Your business surviving Covid might have been expected to play better for Sunak. But it was expected, without any gratitude. Ditto the help with the cost of living crisis and fuel bills. There was no gratitiude at the ballot box. And instead we have a country burdened with debt we are struggling to repay.
I think voters' expectations of what government can provide them are currently unrealistic. It makes governing damned near impossible. So we move from one reviled Tory government to another Labour one. If they get that far, Reform will be even more reviled as they promised the moon - and will end up closing hospitals.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
I agree that the Greens are a much bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Reform.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
He may have been very right wing but he later joined Labour and was, I think, even elected a councillor for them. I believe he was very bitter at being dropped by the Tories in Hexham after his Hampstead experience.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
More the Greens, the LDs have no chance in those areas since their coalition government with the Tories. They are now the party of the posh South anti Brexit areas and SW London under Davey
While there are AFAIK no formal deals with the Greens in Birmingham, there does seem to be some informal accommodation. I think the LDs will be focusing their campaigning on wards where the Greens have little presence, while tending to leave others to the Greens. I wouldn't be surprised if the Greens were doing something similar.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
I agree that the Greens are a much bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Reform.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
They will have to start going to war with the Greens when they lose votes to them. Greens are going to attract Labour, LibDems and even ome Tories. Especially if the narrative becomes "It is how you stop Reform".
I can see the Greens losing the LibDems South Devon, for example.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
And as with every other attempt to give some legal status to illegal immigrants it encourages further illegal immigration.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Talking of which, David A turns one hundred this year on the very day the local election results will be coming out, which I expect will crowd out some of the political news coverage
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
And as with every other attempt to give some legal status to illegal immigrants it encourages further illegal immigration.
Speaking of which:
How migrants are buying fake jobs to stay in the UK illegally
A burgeoning industry offers skilled worker visa sponsorships for positions that do not exist. A Times undercover investigation exposes those behind the schemes
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
I agree that the Greens are a much bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Reform.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
They will have to start going to war with the Greens when they lose votes to them. Greens are going to attract Labour, LibDems and even ome Tories. Especially if the narrative becomes "It is how you stop Reform".
I can see the Greens losing the LibDems South Devon, for example.
Who knows what polling and modelling he's using, but UKelectionmaps "nowcast" forecast for South Devon currently has the LDs on 41% with the Tories and Reform both on around 24% and the Greens on 7%.
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
And as with every other attempt to give some legal status to illegal immigrants it encourages further illegal immigration.
Speaking of which:
How migrants are buying fake jobs to stay in the UK illegally
A burgeoning industry offers skilled worker visa sponsorships for positions that do not exist. A Times undercover investigation exposes those behind the schemes
A fake 'skilled worker' sponsorship costs £13k it seems.
Why don't we just skip the middleman and let anyone in with a right to work for wherever between £15,000 and £50,000 the gov't thinks will max revenue and get immigration to where it wants (Adjust up or down to suit)
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
Too low on Wilson, Atlee and Thatcher. Too high on Macmillan. Final verdict.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
Just under 90% of polling respondents have heard of Badenoch; about two thirds say the same of Attlee.
Other than that, I have no idea - or indeed what is meant by "national treasureness", since in her very odd way, I'd have thought Truss might now qualify...
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
I agree that the Greens are a much bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Reform.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
They will have to start going to war with the Greens when they lose votes to them. Greens are going to attract Labour, LibDems and even ome Tories. Especially if the narrative becomes "It is how you stop Reform".
I can see the Greens losing the LibDems South Devon, for example.
South Devon is a classic seduce and squeeze case, not go to war.
At the last GE, Lib Dems got 22,000 votes and a 7,000 majority over the Tories in South Devon. The Greens got just 1,500 votes. You can see the bar chart.
In leaflets and on the doorstep I suspect the Lib Dem message to Greens will be: "The Tories/Reform is our common enemy. The Greens and Lib Dems share a passionate interest in protecting the environment. The Green Party has no chance in this constituency (produce bar chart). A vote for the Green Party is totally wasted here and may allow the Tories/Reform to win this seat. So will you please lend us you vote?" No attack lines against the Green Party or its leader.
Probability of a Lib Dem hold in South Devon - at least 95%.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Talking of which, David A turns one hundred this year on the very day the local election results will be coming out, which I expect will crowd out some of the political news coverage
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
Just under 90% of polling respondents have heard of Badenoch; about two thirds say the same of Attlee.
Other than that, I have no idea - or indeed what is meant by "national treasureness", since in her very odd way, I'd have thought Truss might now qualify...
Yeah, I may have got that one wrong. (Badenoch, not Truss)
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
And as with every other attempt to give some legal status to illegal immigrants it encourages further illegal immigration.
Speaking of which:
How migrants are buying fake jobs to stay in the UK illegally
A burgeoning industry offers skilled worker visa sponsorships for positions that do not exist. A Times undercover investigation exposes those behind the schemes
A fake 'skilled worker' sponsorship costs £13k it seems.
Why don't we just skip the middleman and let anyone in with a right to work for wherever between £15,000 and £50,000 the gov't thinks will max revenue and get immigration to where it wants (Adjust up or down to suit)
The problem is with people who aren't skilled enough to earn the required amount legally but are willing to pay for a fake sponsorship so that they can work illegally.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
Just under 90% of polling respondents have heard of Badenoch; about two thirds say the same of Attlee.
Other than that, I have no idea - or indeed what is meant by "national treasureness", since in her very odd way, I'd have thought Truss might now qualify...
All politicians score zero on being a national treasure - generally speaking being a politician is directly antithetical to being a national treasure - with the possible exception of powerless backbenchers who get known to the public for various quirks.
Tony Benn, in his later years would have scored above zero. Provided Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't come close to any sort of power or influence again he might also rise above nothing on the scale. Dennis Skinner was at least regarded as a treasure by Parliamentary sketch writers - but did that ever extend across the nation? I'm not so sure.
Truss is indeed a glorious failure which fits into a long and proud British tradition, and so could become a limited national treasure, were she to remain safely very far away from power. If she becomes at all politically rehabilitated then very much not so.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
The MPs she's losing are however toxic to some people.
Remember she's lost the Home Secretary that allowed over a million immigrants in (granted not all were illegal) and the person who transformed your town's old but posh hotel into a Refugee centre...
I wouldn't call either of those examples a loss to the tory party...
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
Pet owners are angry at the price hikes and attempted upselling by monopolistic veterinary practices. All the vet practices within a 15 miles radius of us except one are owned by the same private equity group. The high prices are just a function of the lack of competition, not the root cause of pet owners’ dissatisfaction.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
Mate I am no Badenoch fan - quite the opposite. I just think she does have a bit more charisma about her than Attlee, who I would say was however the most transformative PM of the 20th century.
Anyway, it's all just a bit of bollocks for a winter Wednesday morning/
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
Pet owners are angry at the price hikes and attempted upselling by monopolistic veterinary practices. All the vet practices within a 15 miles radius of us except one are owned by the same private equity group. The high prices are just a function of the lack of competition, not the root cause of pet owners’ dissatisfaction.
I think vet bills are instructive - they illustrate the 'real' price of NHS care for humans.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
I agree that the Greens are a much bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Reform.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
By attack I don’t mean the sort of personal stuff they go for Reform with but attack the policies.
The Greens are now becoming a Corbynite tribute act. I cannot see anti Landlordism/wealth tax now/free Palestine and their other policy platforms being as well received in the leafy shires whereas in university seats and inner city seats I can see it hoovering up votes.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
Just under 90% of polling respondents have heard of Badenoch; about two thirds say the same of Attlee.
Other than that, I have no idea - or indeed what is meant by "national treasureness", since in her very odd way, I'd have thought Truss might now qualify...
All politicians score zero on being a national treasure - generally speaking being a politician is directly antithetical to being a national treasure - with the possible exception of powerless backbenchers who get known to the public for various quirks.
Tony Benn, in his later years would have scored above zero. Provided Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't come close to any sort of power or influence again he might also rise above nothing on the scale. Dennis Skinner was at least regarded as a treasure by Parliamentary sketch writers - but did that ever extend across the nation? I'm not so sure.
Truss is indeed a glorious failure which fits into a long and proud British tradition, and so could become a limited national treasure, were she to remain safely very far away from power. If she becomes at all politically rehabilitated then very much not so.
Alan Titchmarsh would probably make National Treasure status if he set up the Garden Party. He probably has no interest whatsoever, but it would probably rob Reform of a third of its voters overnight...
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I think Ground Rent tends to be British financials and property rather than PE.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
What are the barriers to entry for vets ?
Part of the problem seems to be a shortage of vets which helps drive the prices up.
My impression was that there was a massive surplus of people who wanted to be vets. My daughter chose her A-levels on the basis of keeping the option of training to be a vet open (though she later regretted not choosing Physics), and it seemed that the competition to become a vet was very strong.
So, just as with human medicine, not enough training places?
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I think Ground Rent tends to be British financials and property rather than PE.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
What are the barriers to entry for vets ?
Part of the problem seems to be a shortage of vets which helps drive the prices up.
There's a significant shortage of vets, with many practices refusing to take new patients, exacerbated by the significant jump in pet ownership during covid that has only slightly subsided. My own vets seems to have an ever-changing rota of young vets from Commonwealth countries coming here for the travel and experience.
But the real drivers of rising prices are a mixture of the same factors that are pushing up the costs of human healthcare - increasing costs of medication, increasing use of technology, use of ultrasound and MRI etc. - and the progressive capture of the veterinary sector by private equity, which buys up smaller and family owned practices and chains and ruthlessly sets about maximising profit, both by hard-selling scans and other tests that the pet doesn't really need, and through pricing - for example there's one drug my pet is currently on that costs twice as much from the vet as it does with a private prescription that I can collect and pay for at Boots.
As with human care we can (and vets offer) do more for our pets. When my dog had a cancer diagnosis a couple of years back, if I'd wanted we could have had an MRI. For a dog.
Now I loved that dog, but at the end of the day it might have lived a couple more years. In the end we blindly treated with chemotherapy (1000 a month for 4 doses) that actually put her into remission and gave her another 18 months.
Twenty years ago we would probably have managed pain until euthanasia.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
I’d expect the Greens to be a threat to the Lib Dem’s and Labour in seats up here that fit that bill.
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
I agree that the Greens are a much bigger threat to the Lib Dems than Reform.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals. The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
By attack I don’t mean the sort of personal stuff they go for Reform with but attack the policies.
The Greens are now becoming a Corbynite tribute act. I cannot see anti Landlordism/wealth tax now/free Palestine and their other policy platforms being as well received in the leafy shires whereas in university seats and inner city seats I can see it hoovering up votes.
If you attack the Green policies you won't convert those who find the policies attractive. You'll only antagonise them and become their enemies. More difficult to squeeze. This is practical politics in a very fragmented field.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
It isn't just Brexit, there are plenty of other reasons to despise Farage and his politics.
Matt Goodwin as his preferred candidate for example.
Indeed, according to the Professor I'm not British.
If Goodwin loses I promise to never use that Farage photo again.
And yet Jacob Rees Twat wants the Tories to roll over for the fascists.
"Spain gives half a million migrants legal status to ‘defeat the far-Right’ Applicants will be allowed to work in any sector to help curb ‘institutional racism that only fuels exploitation and racist hatred’"
Off to Southern Spain in a few weeks time. Every time I go there you can see more and more immigrants on the streets and in the fields. Like Southern Italy and Greece, the agricultural sector runs on immigrant labour. Giving them renewable residency status makes them identifiable rather than unknown in the hidden economy.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
And as with every other attempt to give some legal status to illegal immigrants it encourages further illegal immigration.
Speaking of which:
How migrants are buying fake jobs to stay in the UK illegally
A burgeoning industry offers skilled worker visa sponsorships for positions that do not exist. A Times undercover investigation exposes those behind the schemes
A fake 'skilled worker' sponsorship costs £13k it seems.
Note that the direct recruitment, abroad, for care homes was shut down because nearly no one recruited that way ended up working in a care home. They were selling visas for jobs that didn’t exist.
Given that the price of a trip across the Channel in a RIB is in the thousands, a plane ride with a real visa is obviously worth far more.
Note also the startling expansions in business offering “visa handling”, “foreign recruitment” etc etc…
Labour leapfrog into second in this week’s voting intention on 22%. Reform’s lead drops to 7 on 29%, with the Tories third on 20%.
➡️ REF UK 29% (-2) 🌹 LAB 22% (+2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 10% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
MoreInCommon N = 2,016 | 23 - 25/01| Change w 21/01
Leader approvals - it’s very close at the top with Davey on -12 and Badenoch and Farage on -14. Starmer is far behind on -41 though this is higher than he’s been since Autumn, which from qual seems to reflect a recurring international affairs bounce."
Good poll for Starmer, again shows a swing from Reform to Labour after the Jenrick and Rosindell defections and included a bit of the post Burnham blocking and Braverman defections which also don't seem to have damaged Labour much and not helped Reform either.
Greens down 1% as well will be positive for Labour ahead of Gorton and Tories will be concerned that Kemi is losing her pre Christmas bounce with the Conservatives falling to 3rd again behind Labour as well as Reform
Burnham has single handedly managed to arrest the improvement and further diminish Labour. What a tit!
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
It isn't just Brexit, there are plenty of other reasons to despise Farage and his politics.
Matt Goodwin as his preferred candidate for example.
Indeed, according to the Professor I'm not British.
If Goodwin loses I promise to never use that Farage photo again.
And yet Jacob Rees Twat wants the Tories to roll over for the fascists.
How startling, I always had Rees Mogg down as one of the good guys.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
More the Greens, the LDs have no chance in those areas since their coalition government with the Tories. They are now the party of the posh South anti Brexit areas and SW London under Davey
I'm in Camden, north London, and we LDs are absolutely eyeing up Labour wards where we did well in 2006. Ditto our sister parties in bordering Islington and Haringey. I expect the Greens to do well in Camden too, but they're starting from a much lower base and may lack the local organisation. We've had OK local by-election results (as have the Greens).
Labour’s best attack line is that the Tories broke Britain.
This is why I’m not convinced of the wisdom of recruiting a load of them into Reform.
Reform have the same challenge as Labour right now - its easy to say that the Tories broke Britain (and you can argue about the role of Covid and Ukraine and Brexit and whether it is fair, but the same was used against Labour by the Tories, so what goes around, comes around).
What's harder is actual policies to fix things. Reform seem to be planning on fixing the blame on immigrants, trying to deport loads of them and hoping no-one notices that nothing as improved (or probably got worse). Labour are tinkering at the edges (getting rid of leasehold problems, banning U16's from social media) but everytime they try to do anything big, they cave to the back benches.
"Smash the Gangs" he said. Well, we're still waiting.
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The LDs will also be eyeing up Labour wards in parts of London and the northern cities, particularly in areas where they used to be strong
More the Greens, the LDs have no chance in those areas since their coalition government with the Tories. They are now the party of the posh South anti Brexit areas and SW London under Davey
Camden Council – West Hampstead (August 2025) Winner: Liberal Democrats (Janet Grauberg)
Result:
LibDems: 1,176 votes (54.4%, +15.4)
Labour: 458 votes (21.2%, –23.4)
Conservative: 222 votes (10.3%, –6.3)
Reform UK: 155 votes (7.2%, new)
Green: 152 votes (7.0%, new)
Outcome: Liberal Democrat GAIN from Labour
Even the Tories still have a councillor in Hampstead Town, it is very posh and very wealthy, just anti Brexit ie typical LD seat now
Labour’s best attack line is that the Tories broke Britain.
This is why I’m not convinced of the wisdom of recruiting a load of them into Reform.
Reform have the same challenge as Labour right now - its easy to say that the Tories broke Britain (and you can argue about the role of Covid and Ukraine and Brexit and whether it is fair, but the same was used against Labour by the Tories, so what goes around, comes around).
What's harder is actual policies to fix things. Reform seem to be planning on fixing the blame on immigrants, trying to deport loads of them and hoping no-one notices that nothing as improved (or probably got worse). Labour are tinkering at the edges (getting rid of leasehold problems, banning U16's from social media) but everytime they try to do anything big, they cave to the back benches.
"Smash the Gangs" he said. Well, we're still waiting.
The last thing the Tories want is for Reform to win the by-election so standing aside would be utterly stupid.
Why doesn’t he go and join Reform and continue his daily fellation of Farage !
I would prefer Reform to win it than Labour or the Greens.
That's putting your short-term merriment ahead of your party's strategic interests, though, isn't it? The optimal - indeed possibly only, excepting some sort of merger/takeover - scenario back to dominance for the Tories is that the Reform balloon either bursts or slowly deflates.
Reform were second behind Labour in Gorton and Denton even in 2024 when the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform UK wide.
The Tory candidate was a poor 5th, behind even Galloway's Party and the Greens. There is zero chance of the Tories winning the seat and the Tories didn't even win it in their 2019 landslide victory. Reform though have a shot and in seats where Tories can't win a Reform MP is more likely to back Kemi to be PM in a hung parliament whereas a Labour or Green MP would back a minority Labour government staying in office
As so often, you miss the point. The Tories are better off with Labour or the Greens winning, with Reform's widely touted prospects falling short, because if Reform wins those seat projections you so enjoy will push the projected Tory seat total lower still.
No they won't, Gorton and Denton has never elected a Tory MP, even under Boris and Thatcher
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The central mystery though...
What happens in middle England? The boring suburbs, the sort-of OK small commuter towns? Provincial, but without the chip on the shoulder?
At the moment, nobody is really speaking to them, though they are probably the lens through which Starmer's blurred vision makes most sense.
And there's flipping loads of them.
My impression is that Reform has swept through small towns. I think they score very highly in the East Midlands, which is sort of a proxy for small towns as I think it's the region with fewest large cities or rural expanse.
People in small towns are Reform voters. They feel like they don't get anything from government, compared to the investment that goes into big cities, both from the public and the private sector. They score maximum on reliance on the car, and it being annoying to be reliant on the car because of traffic, with very poor public transport alternatives. Lower rates of government employment, no universities.
Years ago the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands were identified in an article on here as the swing seats in British general elections. Big cities were Labour. Rural areas were Tory. The towns were in between. Now those towns are for Reform.
Labour leapfrog into second in this week’s voting intention on 22%. Reform’s lead drops to 7 on 29%, with the Tories third on 20%.
➡️ REF UK 29% (-2) 🌹 LAB 22% (+2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 10% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
MoreInCommon N = 2,016 | 23 - 25/01| Change w 21/01
Leader approvals - it’s very close at the top with Davey on -12 and Badenoch and Farage on -14. Starmer is far behind on -41 though this is higher than he’s been since Autumn, which from qual seems to reflect a recurring international affairs bounce."
Good poll for Starmer, again shows a swing from Reform to Labour after the Jenrick and Rosindell defections and included a bit of the post Burnham blocking and Braverman defections which also don't seem to have damaged Labour much and not helped Reform either.
Greens down 1% as well will be positive for Labour ahead of Gorton and Tories will be concerned that Kemi is losing her pre Christmas bounce with the Conservatives falling to 3rd again behind Labour as well as Reform
Burnham has single handedly managed to arrest the improvement and further diminish Labour. What a tit!
Er...Labour up 2?
I think you credit Burnham with far more ability to make the political weather than he has.
Does the polling imply that voters believe Farage less able to deliver on policy than even Starmer ?😲
If it is like 2005 then implication is that if Farage supports it then enough voters think it must be a bad idea and they'll switch support for it to make a material difference.
The problem for Reform is Farage is marmite. Some love him but plenty despise him due to Brexit. They won’t overcome that and that will harm them.
I don't think they just despise him due to Brexit. It's also the racism and grifting.
Personally I think its his highly punchable face, but whatever.
Definitely something about his demeanour, mannerisms, and general oddness that puts people off imo.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940) Attlee 4 Macmillan 6 Wilson 3 Thatcher 4 Blair 6 Sturgeon 4 Corbyn 5 Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after Truss 0 (just very odd) Sunak 3 Starmer 3 Badenoch 5 Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable) Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
How the fuck do you get to '5' for KB and rate her above Atlee?
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
The MPs she's losing are however toxic to some people.
Remember she's lost the Home Secretary that allowed over a million immigrants in (granted not all were illegal) and the person who transformed your town's old but posh hotel into a Refugee centre...
I wouldn't call either of those examples a loss to the tory party...
If they were a net negative then why didn't she kick them out? Why does she have to wait for Big Nige to decide who should and shouldn't be in the tory party?
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
Pet owners are angry at the price hikes and attempted upselling by monopolistic veterinary practices. All the vet practices within a 15 miles radius of us except one are owned by the same private equity group. The high prices are just a function of the lack of competition, not the root cause of pet owners’ dissatisfaction.
I think vet bills are instructive - they illustrate the 'real' price of NHS care for humans.
The ground rent policy and the vet bills policy are quite smart bits of politics.
Ground rent policy doesn’t come into effect until 2028 and does nothing, I can see, that tackles high service charges although it is not to say it is not a good step forward. It is.
The vet bills policy less so. I cannot see what the gain is. If they just list prices so people can shop around. People can do that anyway.
Btw hope you’re well. Nice to see you back
The Ground Rent policy could have some unforeseen impacts I think, because it reduces it to issues around single units rather than mixed blocks (meaning blocks ie areas rather than blocks of flats). I think it will be beneficial, but it should be imo CPI increases not a cash freeze.
One canary in the coalmine will be local independent shops where charges are currently held artificially low.
Time will tell.
On a separate note, I have not seen whether it is retrospective, or applies to commercial properties.
For vets, aiui the problem is that it is turning into an oligopolistic market. 60% of the market is owned by 6 corporate groups, with vertical integration. 15 year ago it was 10% of the market.
Private Equity likes to look at a market with significant barriers to entry and lots of small players that need rationalised. Have been PE adjacent for the last 20 years through family connections and see how they operate. They are very sharp though not always successful as they can choose the odd moneypit or two. Once you are a PE target you get pimped to another PE every 3-5 years.
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
I think Ground Rent tends to be British financials and property rather than PE.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
What are the barriers to entry for vets ?
Part of the problem seems to be a shortage of vets which helps drive the prices up.
There's a significant shortage of vets, with many practices refusing to take new patients, exacerbated by the significant jump in pet ownership during covid that has only slightly subsided. My own vets seems to have an ever-changing rota of young vets from Commonwealth countries coming here for the travel and experience.
But the real drivers of rising prices are a mixture of the same factors that are pushing up the costs of human healthcare - increasing costs of medication, increasing use of technology, use of ultrasound and MRI etc. - and the progressive capture of the veterinary sector by private equity, which buys up smaller and family owned practices and chains and ruthlessly sets about maximising profit, both by hard-selling scans and other tests that the pet doesn't really need, and through pricing - for example there's one drug my pet is currently on that costs twice as much from the vet as it does with a private prescription that I can collect and pay for at Boots.
As with human care we can (and vets offer) do more for our pets. When my dog had a cancer diagnosis a couple of years back, if I'd wanted we could have had an MRI. For a dog.
Now I loved that dog, but at the end of the day it might have lived a couple more years. In the end we blindly treated with chemotherapy (1000 a month for 4 doses) that actually put her into remission and gave her another 18 months.
Twenty years ago we would probably have managed pain until euthanasia.
Some years back, my Mum needed an MRI and the cat also could've benefitted from an MRI. My Mum (jokingly) suggested she go to her NHS appointment and just have the cat on her while she's in the machine. Kill two birds with one stone, so to speak...
None of this will help Labour in May, as they're fighting on four fronts.
Against Reform in the Metropolitan boroughs, and Red Wall.
Against the Conservatives in wealthier parts of Greater London.
Against the Greens in urban left constituencies.
And, against Plaid in Wales.
The central mystery though...
What happens in middle England? The boring suburbs, the sort-of OK small commuter towns? Provincial, but without the chip on the shoulder?
At the moment, nobody is really speaking to them, though they are probably the lens through which Starmer's blurred vision makes most sense.
And there's flipping loads of them.
My impression is that Reform has swept through small towns. I think they score very highly in the East Midlands, which is sort of a proxy for small towns as I think it's the region with fewest large cities or rural expanse.
People in small towns are Reform voters. They feel like they don't get anything from government, compared to the investment that goes into big cities, both from the public and the private sector. They score maximum on reliance on the car, and it being annoying to be reliant on the car because of traffic, with very poor public transport alternatives. Lower rates of government employment, no universities.
Years ago the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands were identified in an article on here as the swing seats in British general elections. Big cities were Labour. Rural areas were Tory. The towns were in between. Now those towns are for Reform.
Labour’s best attack line is that the Tories broke Britain.
This is why I’m not convinced of the wisdom of recruiting a load of them into Reform.
Reform have the same challenge as Labour right now - its easy to say that the Tories broke Britain (and you can argue about the role of Covid and Ukraine and Brexit and whether it is fair, but the same was used against Labour by the Tories, so what goes around, comes around).
What's harder is actual policies to fix things. Reform seem to be planning on fixing the blame on immigrants, trying to deport loads of them and hoping no-one notices that nothing as improved (or probably got worse). Labour are tinkering at the edges (getting rid of leasehold problems, banning U16's from social media) but everytime they try to do anything big, they cave to the back benches.
"Smash the Gangs" he said. Well, we're still waiting.
People, well maybe not here but the wider public, want the boats stopped. Reform promise that.
But that’s all.
We don’t know what their main policy platforms are. We do with the Greens now. Reform have simply coasted off the back of not being one of the main parties with little scrutiny.
Labour leapfrog into second in this week’s voting intention on 22%. Reform’s lead drops to 7 on 29%, with the Tories third on 20%.
➡️ REF UK 29% (-2) 🌹 LAB 22% (+2) 🌳 CON 20% (-1) 🔶 LIB DEM 13% (nc) 🌍 GREEN 10% (-1) 🟡 SNP 3% (+1)
MoreInCommon N = 2,016 | 23 - 25/01| Change w 21/01
Leader approvals - it’s very close at the top with Davey on -12 and Badenoch and Farage on -14. Starmer is far behind on -41 though this is higher than he’s been since Autumn, which from qual seems to reflect a recurring international affairs bounce."
The teal balloon is definitely deflating (presumably leaking Zyklon-B). Probably a combination of the tory asylum seekers, the MAGA adjacency and attenuation of the novelty factor.
I do find it tricky to believe Reformers returning to Keir’s soggy embrace though. So I presume some other dynamic at work.
Labour’s best attack line is that the Tories broke Britain.
This is why I’m not convinced of the wisdom of recruiting a load of them into Reform.
Reform have the same challenge as Labour right now - its easy to say that the Tories broke Britain (and you can argue about the role of Covid and Ukraine and Brexit and whether it is fair, but the same was used against Labour by the Tories, so what goes around, comes around).
What's harder is actual policies to fix things. Reform seem to be planning on fixing the blame on immigrants, trying to deport loads of them and hoping no-one notices that nothing as improved (or probably got worse). Labour are tinkering at the edges (getting rid of leasehold problems, banning U16's from social media) but everytime they try to do anything big, they cave to the back benches.
"Smash the Gangs" he said. Well, we're still waiting.
People, well maybe not here but the wider public, want the boats stopped. Reform promise that.
But that’s all.
We don’t know what their main policy platforms are. We do with the Greens now. Reform have simply coasted off the back of not being one of the main parties with little scrutiny.
Everyone wants the boats stopped! Well bar the smugglers.
Comments
Article today in The Guardian by George Monbiot on the threat to Britain's security from environmental degradation:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2026/jan/27/uk-government-report-ecosystem-collapse-foi-national-security
(BTW, his Dad was a stereotypical pin-striped City Tory. I think junior somewhat reacted)
Greens down 1% as well will be positive for Labour ahead of Gorton and Tories will be concerned that Kemi is losing her pre Christmas bounce with the Conservatives falling to 3rd again behind Labour as well as Reform
The Telegraph is reporting 27. There are several I had not considered. The most vintage is Alan Amos 1987 - 1992.
(Full article link)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/gift/9575acedc4ef761f
Jacob in any case said he would back a Tory candidate if selected but the Tories were 5th in Gorton and Denton in 2024 even when they were 2nd nationally and it was Reform second in Gorton and Denton so only Reform can likely win there and no Tory candidate has been selected yet
The woman who recorded Alex Pretti's shooting tells @andersoncooper she has still not been contacted by anyone in the federal government as part of its investigation.
https://x.com/kaitlancollins/status/2016324770158055646
Trump's Justice Department has decided there will be no civil rights investigation of the fatal shooting of Alex Pretti, and instead two units of DHS will investigate their own officers and the man they killed, according to three people briefed on the steps and internal records reviewed by MS NOW.
https://x.com/kylegriffin1/status/2016217164571631662
Another family member is now involved with a PE backed company who interestingly are looking to exit in 2027 rather than 2028 as planned. The 2028 capital markers are looking a bit choppy. They are not sure interest rates will be stable enough to get their acquisition away successfully.
What does "aspiration" look like in the second and third decades of the 21st Century? It may not be individual material acquisition but, for example, good schools, hospitals and transport.
As for "property owning", we all know that's at the heart of any and every Conservative message because home owners (or mortgage holders if you prefer) tend to be Conservative whereas renters don't. However, the price of houses versus the income of those aspiring to buy them means either crippling mortgage payments (and condequent vulnerability to rises in interest rates) and keeping the asset price treadmill running.
I'm not sure I agree with the focus on "business" - IF I were a Conservative strategist, I'd be be more focused on the consumer and the customer and especially in terms of utilities but other sectors, asking some searching questions about how these organisations treat their customers.
For vets at least a couple of the players are PE, I think.
The restructuring looks quite like the funeral market from the 1980s to me.
https://x.com/Dennynews/status/2016428326173171968?s=20
Similarly, I'd be happiest to see the Greens win, but for the LibDems it's probably better that Labour wins it.
He looks to be somewhere between Jack Duckworth and late stage Stan Ogden.
Perhaps he needs some different glasses.
But as has been said above, it won't be welcome by the Spanish (or my rather illiberal Spanish family who ironically spent decades working as Gastarbeiter in Switzerland)
The Tory candidate was a poor 5th, behind even Galloway's Party and the Greens. There is zero chance of the Tories winning the seat and the Tories didn't even win it in their 2019 landslide victory. Reform though have a shot and in seats where Tories can't win a Reform MP is more likely to back Kemi to be PM in a hung parliament whereas a Labour or Green MP would back a minority Labour government staying in office
The LD’s have spent so long targetting Reform, who are no real threat but it polls well, they need to wake up to the Greens threat too.
I do expect if the Greens win the by election this will be a game changer and Labour, who have started tackling the Greens, and the Lib Dem’s will focus on the Greens more.
Be absolutely tragic for the Lib Dem’s to lose rural seats in the South as the Greens peel away some of their vote !!
What was interesting was how they absolutely battered the Greens in a local council by election in a rural ward last week.
Conservatives aspire for financial prosperity at an individual and family level.
Labour aspire for a more equal and fairer society
Reform aspire for a whiter, more Christian country of their childhood.
LDs aspire for everyone getting along a bit more
Greens aspire for protecting the planet and peace in Gaza
Providing a platform for financial prosperity is a noble and popular goal you can build a party around. But it cannot be achieved coherently with a reduction in the tax base given our demographics, otherwise other important areas, like justice, health, defence, that matter to conservatives inevitably fail.
Part of the problem seems to be a shortage of vets which helps drive the prices up.
Badenoch: “My Conservative party has moved to the right every day since I became leader.”
This is a genuine trailed quote from her speech.
Cue another distant cheer from Lib Dem HQ.
I think 'national treasureness' is a quality too many politicians are missing. I am not saying successful political leaders need to be at Judi Dench, David Attenborough, levels of NT-ness but a bit more in that vein wouldn't go amiss.
Here's my score out of 10 of National Treasure-ness for various current and past politicians:
Churchill 9 (post 1940)
Attlee 4
Macmillan 6
Wilson 3
Thatcher 4
Blair 6
Sturgeon 4
Corbyn 5
Johnson 6 before partygate, 2 after
Truss 0 (just very odd)
Sunak 3
Starmer 3
Badenoch 5
Davey 6 (maybe not a serious politician but likeable)
Farage 2
I suspect others will disagree.
What we need is someone with Carney's or Arhern's level of appeal. But then again, Hitler was undoubtedly a '10' in 1930s Germany.
They are also fighting the SNP on a fifth front in Scotland
Hope it wasn't fermented MAGA juice that he squirted on her.
https://x.com/deviIette/status/2016332649376125006?s=20
But the real drivers of rising prices are a mixture of the same factors that are pushing up the costs of human healthcare - increasing costs of medication, increasing use of technology, use of ultrasound and MRI etc. - and the progressive capture of the veterinary sector by private equity, which buys up smaller and family owned practices and chains and ruthlessly sets about maximising profit, both by hard-selling scans and other tests that the pet doesn't really need, and through pricing - for example there's one drug my pet is currently on that costs twice as much from the vet as it does with a private prescription that I can collect and pay for at Boots.
https://archive.spectator.co.uk/article/18th-january-1997/22/that-night-on-the-heath
However I do think in some areas the Greens are a threat to the Lib Dem’s as they are to Labour in others.
Reform are the right wing NOTA, the Greens the left wing NOTA.
Since the questions were set 8 days ago Burnham MP has moved from remote possibility to likely, to remote again, IMO.
Winner: Liberal Democrats (Janet Grauberg)
Result:
LibDems: 1,176 votes (54.4%, +15.4)
Labour: 458 votes (21.2%, –23.4)
Conservative: 222 votes (10.3%, –6.3)
Reform UK: 155 votes (7.2%, new)
Green: 152 votes (7.0%, new)
Outcome: Liberal Democrat GAIN from Labour
On the Tory side, Ken Clarke, and Ruth Davidson did amazingly well in Scotland for a Conservative.
Charles Kennedy for the LibDems.
Your business surviving Covid might have been expected to play better for Sunak. But it was expected, without any gratitude. Ditto the help with the cost of living crisis and fuel bills. There was no gratitiude at the ballot box. And instead we have a country burdened with debt we are struggling to repay.
I think voters' expectations of what government can provide them are currently unrealistic. It makes governing damned near impossible. So we move from one reviled Tory government to another Labour one. If they get that far, Reform will be even more reviled as they promised the moon - and will end up closing hospitals.
Reform takes votes mainly off the Tories so are a blessing for the Lib Dems in Tory/Lib Dem marginals.
The Greens take votes directly off the Lib Dems so are a threat.
But the Lib Dems shouldn't attack the Greens. They should seduce and squeeze Green supporters, not antagonise them.
I believe he was very bitter at being dropped by the Tories in Hexham after his Hampstead experience.
• Cut taxes
• End "welfare addiction"
• Curb immigration
• Anti-net zero
The message is, basically: we're Reform, but we've done our homework.
The message is, also: centrists are not welcome.
Badenoch: "I won't apologise to those walking away because they don't like the new direction. We only want Conservatives."
No compromise with the party, no compromise with the electorate.
I can see the Greens losing the LibDems South Devon, for example.
The Kembollah on here are just amazing. She's at 17 in the polls and is losing one MP per week at the moment.
How migrants are buying fake jobs to stay in the UK illegally
A burgeoning industry offers skilled worker visa sponsorships for positions that do not exist. A Times undercover investigation exposes those behind the schemes
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/law/article/skilled-visas-for-sale-no-work-required-9pjhc3xfw
A fake 'skilled worker' sponsorship costs £13k it seems.
1) +25
2) +2
3) 51
4) 42
5) Ref 15%
6) 22%
7) 13
8) Starmer
9) No
10) £133.7 billion
11)1.5%
12) England
#competition
@Benpointer
Too high on Macmillan.
Final verdict.
Other than that, I have no idea - or indeed what is meant by "national treasureness", since in her very odd way, I'd have thought Truss might now qualify...
At the last GE, Lib Dems got 22,000 votes and a 7,000 majority over the Tories in South Devon. The Greens got just 1,500 votes. You can see the bar chart.
In leaflets and on the doorstep I suspect the Lib Dem message to Greens will be:
"The Tories/Reform is our common enemy. The Greens and Lib Dems share a passionate interest in protecting the environment. The Green Party has no chance in this constituency (produce bar chart). A vote for the Green Party is totally wasted here and may allow the Tories/Reform to win this seat. So will you please lend us you vote?"
No attack lines against the Green Party or its leader.
Probability of a Lib Dem hold in South Devon - at least 95%.
Tony Benn, in his later years would have scored above zero. Provided Jacob Rees-Mogg doesn't come close to any sort of power or influence again he might also rise above nothing on the scale. Dennis Skinner was at least regarded as a treasure by Parliamentary sketch writers - but did that ever extend across the nation? I'm not so sure.
Truss is indeed a glorious failure which fits into a long and proud British tradition, and so could become a limited national treasure, were she to remain safely very far away from power. If she becomes at all politically rehabilitated then very much not so.
Remember she's lost the Home Secretary that allowed over a million immigrants in (granted not all were illegal) and the person who transformed your town's old but posh hotel into a Refugee centre...
I wouldn't call either of those examples a loss to the tory party...
Anyway, it's all just a bit of bollocks for a winter Wednesday morning/
https://x.com/FennellJW/status/2016153850147651695
The Greens are now becoming a Corbynite tribute act. I cannot see anti Landlordism/wealth tax now/free Palestine and their other policy platforms being as well received in the leafy shires whereas in university seats and inner city seats I can see it hoovering up votes.
So, just as with human medicine, not enough training places?
Now I loved that dog, but at the end of the day it might have lived a couple more years. In the end we blindly treated with chemotherapy (1000 a month for 4 doses) that actually put her into remission and gave her another 18 months.
Twenty years ago we would probably have managed pain until euthanasia.
What happens in middle England? The boring suburbs, the sort-of OK small commuter towns? Provincial, but without the chip on the shoulder?
At the moment, nobody is really speaking to them, though they are probably the lens through which Starmer's blurred vision makes most sense.
And there's flipping loads of them.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czx32yxnvzro#comments
This is why I’m not convinced of the wisdom of recruiting a load of them into Reform.
Given that the price of a trip across the Channel in a RIB is in the thousands, a plane ride with a real visa is obviously worth far more.
Note also the startling expansions in business offering “visa handling”, “foreign recruitment” etc etc…
What's harder is actual policies to fix things. Reform seem to be planning on fixing the blame on immigrants, trying to deport loads of them and hoping no-one notices that nothing as improved (or probably got worse).
Labour are tinkering at the edges (getting rid of leasehold problems, banning U16's from social media) but everytime they try to do anything big, they cave to the back benches.
"Smash the Gangs" he said. Well, we're still waiting.
People in small towns are Reform voters. They feel like they don't get anything from government, compared to the investment that goes into big cities, both from the public and the private sector. They score maximum on reliance on the car, and it being annoying to be reliant on the car because of traffic, with very poor public transport alternatives. Lower rates of government employment, no universities.
Years ago the Middle England Towns and Their Hinterlands were identified in an article on here as the swing seats in British general elections. Big cities were Labour. Rural areas were Tory. The towns were in between. Now those towns are for Reform.
I think you credit Burnham with far more ability to make the political weather than he has.
But that’s all.
We don’t know what their main policy platforms are. We do with the Greens now. Reform have simply coasted off the back of not being one of the main parties with little scrutiny.