My favourite part was perhaps "To top it all off, Moitra Sarkar says, the Home Office vans left the restaurant car park without paying – non-customers are usually charged £2.". Though there are so many lowlights.
That story is insane. Sounds like something out of Trump's America.
Truer than (perhaps) you think
In the story, “AI” was used to create the list of books to ban.
Probably ChatGPT.
“AI” is actually just a really fancy way of guessing an output, based on the input. The guess is based on a vast amount of examples, which are used to create the model.
The vast majority of reports of “problematic books” and sites about problematic books, in English, are from Christian Right types on the US.
The training data for most AIs consists of scraping the internet.
So if you give a list of books to an “AI”, it will list as “problematic” those that offended MAGA type Americans.
A very good clue is that the list of banned stuff included Terry Pratchett and various Goth Vampire juvenile books - both are disliked, by such people, for writing about magic and monsters as if they aren’t super evil.
Yes, that occurred to me too. But what is most disturbing is that there's no justification for any of this, and we seem to be importing a completely alien version of far right cultural warfare. In the US, school boards have hijacked legal procedures to impose censorship; here, they're just making it up wholesale.
..“The fact it’s gone through safeguarding means Emily will never be able to work in a school again,” Roche from the SLG said. During their investigations, the school referred to their statutory obligations under the government’s Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance documents and said that materials in the school should align to them. There is in fact no statutory guidance for school libraries because there is no obligation in law to have either a school library or a school librarian. Following Index’s investigation into school library censorship in 2024, many librarians and supporting bodies have spoken to Index about the confusion this causes, with support for librarians and their books left to the whim of their schools’ senior teams... ..When Emily first started at the school, books like Heartstopper and Black Flamingo were in the library, but there wasn’t much in the way of an LGBTQ+ offering. On an open evening, she put those two books on a table. She says a parent complained to the school that he “didn’t want his son exposed to gender bending”. “The school defended me and defended those books and their right to be in there, and then two years later, completely forgot about it and changed their mind and said they’re inappropriate,” she said. Index believes this story is of huge public interest. It is an unprecedented attack on the freedom to read and intellectual freedom, where important safeguarding measures have been misused to threaten and target a school librarian. This librarian is no longer able to do her job. Without this story being surfaced and changes being made, the risk is that it will happen again...
A major feature of The Process State is that the Process is the Punishment.
“You have done nothing wrong. But under section 13.1.3.4 (b) we have to fuck your entire life.”
Another major feature is that it provides an opportunity for people of certain mindsets. Those that love ever more rules. Perhaps most of all, those who love using ever extending rules to tell people what to do. And those that adore using rules to inflict pain.
C.S. Lewis was exactly on the button on this. See “That Hideous Strength”
Not everything fits your pet theory. The school wasn’t following a Process here, is what the article says.
Inventing new process (often illegal/bullshit) is exactly how the Process State goes.
If you don’t tread on this, there will be a “charity” organising book banning, and calls for government funding, quite shortly.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
Popularity is a fickle thing, Depends on who you ask, and you can select the result you want to believe.
Bozos supposed great trade deal with Australia allowed them 35,000 tonnes of tariff free beef into the UK a year rising to an unlimited amount over 15 years .
The EU just concluded a trade deal with Australia where they’re allowed a total 16,830 tonnes of beef a year spread of course over 27 countries !
Farmers who voted for Brexit are to be blunt morons !
Farmers and fishermen must be among the biggest gullible idiots alive.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
27% approval is hardly stellar, though. After all, the Worst Prime Minister In Living Memory is on 22% approval.
And high membership approval didn't do Corbyn much good in general elections.
You are right to say that any Conservative leader would have a problem, because their record hangs round them like a particularly smelly albatross. That's going to be a problem until someone not associated with the 2019-24 government breaks through. In the meantime, someone who doesn't seem to get all their takes from social media, and who has the gumption to disagree with Nick Timothy might be progress.
And whilst I don't agree with everything that HYUFD or Eagles say, I'm pretty sure they're worth listening to, if only because they have more political contact with voters than I do.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Much as I think the Greens are peddling fantasies, the purpose of politics is to provide solutions to people's problems. Same with Reform, who are a more malign version of the same thing. The other parties need to work harder.
Quite.
Yes - I'm tempted by the Greens not because I think their policies add up but because they've taken the necessary first step of recognising the failure of existing policies to offer much hope to people struggling. In addition, they haven't bought into the proposed surge in military spending, which seems to me unlikely to be either useful or needed (I know that most contributors here disagree). If they start to look as though they'll get into a governing coalition, I anticipate some quiet adjustment to their promise-everything approach.
Labour seems to be governing a month at a time, trying out different policies with no particular overall direction. I wouldn't consider Tories or (shudder) Reform for a moment, and the LibDems seem even vaguer on overall policy than Labour. I'd stay Labour if we had a clear sense of direction, even if I didn't agree with all of it (cf. Blair and Brown).
Would I vote for someone else to keep disgusting Reform out? Maybe - but it doesn't arise in rural Oxfordshire. With the exception of Didcot (which has an urban feel), they're not visible locally. A lot of local calculations like that will be playing out where there are elections (not here this year).
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
Kemi has taken the Tories to FOURTH on today's Yougov a full 7% lower than even Rishi got in the landslide Tory defeat of 2024 If that is replicated in May Kemi is gone, unlike Labour Conservatives don't do sentiment in their leaders
To be fair they banned Twilight which is utter shite.
One young girl's choice between a life of necrophilia or a life of bestiality.
Good grief!! The thing that stands out to me about this is the stereo-typing of neurodiverse people having difficulty in human to human interaction, the librarian described as autistic is clearly far more empathetic and logical than the school leadership. It seems to be those, ny implication neuro normal(?) median(?) who can't relate to and have difficulty interacting with others.
It’s about people who are terrified by other people doing things without rules.
So they must create a rule. Because relying on morality and judgement in a responsible person is Wrong.
Once they have created a rule, it is Heresy to Go Against The Rules. Even (or especially) if the rule is obviously bolllocks.
In the lighter vein - see the almost desperate attempts to stop people rolling cheeses down a hill.
In the darker vein - the response to the Supreme Court ruling on trans. Some organisations seemed to take a delight in imposing the most extreme interpretation they could.
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
That story is insane. Sounds like something out of Trump's America.
Truer than (perhaps) you think
In the story, “AI” was used to create the list of books to ban.
Probably ChatGPT.
“AI” is actually just a really fancy way of guessing an output, based on the input. The guess is based on a vast amount of examples, which are used to create the model.
The vast majority of reports of “problematic books” and sites about problematic books, in English, are from Christian Right types on the US.
The training data for most AIs consists of scraping the internet.
So if you give a list of books to an “AI”, it will list as “problematic” those that offended MAGA type Americans.
A very good clue is that the list of banned stuff included Terry Pratchett and various Goth Vampire juvenile books - both are disliked, by such people, for writing about magic and monsters as if they aren’t super evil.
Yes, that occurred to me too. But what is most disturbing is that there's no justification for any of this, and we seem to be importing a completely alien version of far right cultural warfare. In the US, school boards have hijacked legal procedures to impose censorship; here, they're just making it up wholesale.
..“The fact it’s gone through safeguarding means Emily will never be able to work in a school again,” Roche from the SLG said. During their investigations, the school referred to their statutory obligations under the government’s Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance documents and said that materials in the school should align to them. There is in fact no statutory guidance for school libraries because there is no obligation in law to have either a school library or a school librarian. Following Index’s investigation into school library censorship in 2024, many librarians and supporting bodies have spoken to Index about the confusion this causes, with support for librarians and their books left to the whim of their schools’ senior teams... ..When Emily first started at the school, books like Heartstopper and Black Flamingo were in the library, but there wasn’t much in the way of an LGBTQ+ offering. On an open evening, she put those two books on a table. She says a parent complained to the school that he “didn’t want his son exposed to gender bending”. “The school defended me and defended those books and their right to be in there, and then two years later, completely forgot about it and changed their mind and said they’re inappropriate,” she said. Index believes this story is of huge public interest. It is an unprecedented attack on the freedom to read and intellectual freedom, where important safeguarding measures have been misused to threaten and target a school librarian. This librarian is no longer able to do her job. Without this story being surfaced and changes being made, the risk is that it will happen again...
A major feature of The Process State is that the Process is the Punishment.
“You have done nothing wrong. But under section 13.1.3.4 (b) we have to fuck your entire life.”
Another major feature is that it provides an opportunity for people of certain mindsets. Those that love ever more rules. Perhaps most of all, those who love using ever extending rules to tell people what to do. And those that adore using rules to inflict pain.
C.S. Lewis was exactly on the button on this. See “That Hideous Strength”
Not everything fits your pet theory. The school wasn’t following a Process here, is what the article says.
Inventing new process (often illegal/bullshit) is exactly how the Process State goes.
If you don’t tread on this, there will be a “charity” organising book banning, and calls for government funding, quite shortly.
I'd be interested in Ydoethur's take on this... is this just an example of how poor School management, SLT, can be?
Even if the Tories squeeze some of those softer Tory Lib Dem switchers with Cleverly that’s not going to do a great deal for their polling .
Wouldn’t they be better trying to find someone who wasn’t in previous Tory cabinets which might offer a cleaner break .
The other alternative is to stick with Badenoch and hope Reform implode closer to the next GE .
Oh for goodness sake, it is Tory to Labour switchers on this poll. Badenoch if she has taken the Tories to 4th would be taking the Tories to ultimately being taken over by Reform anyway and 'fresh face' Katie Lam would be the same.
No if Kemi bombs in May it would have to be a heavyweight ex great office of state holder who replaces her or the party goes extinct within a decade unless we get PR. It would then.be Cleverly or bust, Cleverly the Michael Howard to Kemi's IDS
You have this strange view about Cleverly that you had with Johnson and we all know how that ends
And using a poll 2 years old says all about how you try desperately to justify your views
Johnson led the Conservatives to their biggest landslide win since Thatcher in 1987 and even when he resigned the Conservatives polled nearly doubled their current voteshare
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
To some extent the figures can be overlooked. The reasons for the figures and the likely futures are the matters of political, power and betting interest.
The Tories problem is not the 4th place and 17%. It's that as things stand, at the next GE the are not the right answer to any sensible question.
Do you want a Right of Centre radical government without years of government failure in your record? Vote Reform.
Do you want a One Nation Tory government? Not on the menu
Do you want to ensure Reform don't govern? Vote tactically for Lab/Greeen/LD/Nat
Do you want a Reformlite bunch of confused people who may or may not keep a Reform government in power but won't tell you which and if they did you would not believe them, and have zero chance of getting power themselves? Vote Tory.
The chances therefore of a Left Of Centre government 2029 are high. (Reform government low). It is hard to say much more than that. But I expect Labour to recover a lot of ground.
Cleverly could get more anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats than Kemi is, that is pretty clear
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
I know, i know, but the YouGov figures for East, SE and SW (Rest of South) are....
Ref 22 Con 19 LD 19 Grn 18 Lab 16
Good luck modelling that
Does that include London or not? If it does, that Labour figure is astonishing.
No, thats South excl London, London is Grn 30, Lab 27, Con 17, Ref 15 LD 9 (subsample alert required again)
Yes, it's that time when the sub samples get rolled out.
It's also worth stressing GE vote shares aren't the same as vote shares for local elections and deciding your party leader on the basis of a notional vote share is just absurd.
We don't yet know how many candidates will be put up by the various parties and we won't for a couple of weeks.
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
Younger people have been betrayed. The thing I find very annoying is the lecturing they’re subjected to by those who had free tuition fees , lower house prices etc .
Younger people find it almost impossible now to get on the housing ladder unless they have parental help or are in very high paying jobs.
You get the lecturing whereby they’re told they spend too much , shouldn’t go on holidays or socialise but the reality is they have lost hope because even if they did those things they’d never save enough for a deposit because each year the goalposts are widened .
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
To some extent the figures can be overlooked. The reasons for the figures and the likely futures are the matters of political, power and betting interest.
The Tories problem is not the 4th place and 17%. It's that as things stand, at the next GE the are not the right answer to any sensible question.
Do you want a Right of Centre radical government without years of government failure in your record? Vote Reform.
Do you want a One Nation Tory government? Not on the menu
Do you want to ensure Reform don't govern? Vote tactically for Lab/Greeen/LD/Nat
Do you want a Reformlite bunch of confused people who may or may not keep a Reform government in power but won't tell you which and if they did you would not believe them, and have zero chance of getting power themselves? Vote Tory.
The chances therefore of a Left Of Centre government 2029 are high. (Reform government low). It is hard to say much more than that. But I expect Labour to recover a lot of ground.
Cleverly could get more anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats than Kemi is, that is pretty clear
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Explain how Dura (and perhaps Foxy) fit in that analysis.
The Greens have moved to the left, and downgraded the exclusive attention to environmental issues. So far, they've hung onto most of their rural middle-class environmentalist vote anyway, because they remain somewhat interested and nobody else does, but I can see that getting squeezed.
They are, principally, a party of hope, which appeals both to people on the margins and to middle-class idealists. The traditional parties are all in grim stick-it-out mode. One can see why, when looking at the global situation, but it doesn't appeal to those groups, especially as the traditional parties have proved fairly useless to them in practice.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
Even if the Tories squeeze some of those softer Tory Lib Dem switchers with Cleverly that’s not going to do a great deal for their polling .
Wouldn’t they be better trying to find someone who wasn’t in previous Tory cabinets which might offer a cleaner break .
The other alternative is to stick with Badenoch and hope Reform implode closer to the next GE .
Oh for goodness sake, it is Tory to Labour switchers on this poll. Badenoch if she has taken the Tories to 4th would be taking the Tories to ultimately being taken over by Reform anyway and 'fresh face' Katie Lam would be the same.
No if Kemi bombs in May it would have to be a heavyweight ex great office of state holder who replaces her or the party goes extinct within a decade unless we get PR. It would then.be Cleverly or bust, Cleverly the Michael Howard to Kemi's IDS
You have this strange view about Cleverly that you had with Johnson and we all know how that ends
And using a poll 2 years old says all about how you try desperately to justify your views
Johnson led the Conservatives to their biggest landslide win since Thatcher in 1987 and even when he resigned the Conservatives polled nearly doubled their current voteshare
So what - he then went on to destroy himself and the party's reputation not least with the Boriswave and his behaviour
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
The Tories need to be on the move up in to a GE, not a year and three quarters in to the parliament with 2 disatisfaction/protest parties running riot (and now declining). Reform have shown us the danger of burning bright too early.
TL:DR the regime are lying about anything and everything to do with nuclear enrichment and missile capabilities, there’s a lot of backchanneling between the US and opposition groups in Iran, the IRGC have missed two pay cheques so far, the plan is to sideline the mullahs and effect regime change.
The story about being able to send a bomb to London from Tehran was brilliantly debunked yesterday. But a great example of how right wing posters like yourself end up misleading unsuspecting innocents like readers of PB. Com.........,................
It first appeared in the Daily Mail plucked out of someone's backside. It was completely false according to a weapons expert who examined the claim later on Sunday.. It was repeated on Laura K' on Sunday morning without the BBC having checked it . Then onto the juvenile site that you have just quoted on here and it gets 'liked' by the two right wing clowns 'Casino' and 'Felix' (now calling himself Scampi)
..........God knows where it'll aopear next. Maybe scratched in the sand infront of Scampi's beachfront apartment in Benidorm.?
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Thing is, she's not likely to do any of those things, is she? Becuase as things stand, she's nowhere near being on track to be PM after the next election.
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Putting as much distance as possible between himself and Trump/Netanyahu is the gift that will keep on giving.
Badenoch had her chance but backed the wrong horse and Farage will always be seen as Trumps best buddy
Zack and Davey too but the market leader always benefits disproportionately and that can only be Starmer. Is it possible Labour could take the lead? I wouldn't rule it out. Trump is way beyond insane and Netanyahu is genuinely evil.
The British media have entirely invented a stand-his-ground Keir Starmer that bears zero relation to reality. He tried to give Trump access to the bases, the cabinet blocked him, then he invented a legal fig leaf and access was granted. This stuff is professional malpractice.
Is this the same British media that have propelled Farage to the brink of government with absolutely no scrutiny whatsoever?
You are right they are a bunch of Charlatans.
The 'British media' reference seems to me flawed in two ways. Firstly, whatever this media are doing only about a quarter of voters plan to support them. The other 75% seem immune to this media thingy. Secondly, I am a consumer of British media, including: BBC, ITV, Ch 4, LBC, Times Radio, Guardian, Economist, New Statesman, Private Eye, and use PB to link to a multitude of stuff.
I almost never see/hear anything at all giving reasoned, or even unreasoned, support to Reform. If you take out the Express, Mail, GB News, which most people don't read/see, who are these people bringing Farage to the dizzy heights of 27%?
I know, i know, but the YouGov figures for East, SE and SW (Rest of South) are....
Ref 22 Con 19 LD 19 Grn 18 Lab 16
Good luck modelling that
Does that include London or not? If it does, that Labour figure is astonishing.
No, thats South excl London, London is Grn 30, Lab 27, Con 17, Ref 15 LD 9 (subsample alert required again)
Yes, it's that time when the sub samples get rolled out.
It's also worth stressing GE vote shares aren't the same as vote shares for local elections and deciding your party leader on the basis of a notional vote share is just absurd.
We don't yet know how many candidates will be put up by the various parties and we won't for a couple of weeks.
Obviously the Tories wont be doing that based on NEV, despite HYUFDs conviction that they will. Although i expect them to come second anyway.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
My daughter is at uni and seems to be leaning Green. My 16yo son seems to favour the Lib Dems, of all things. I think he is a classical orange book style liberal.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Explain how Dura (and perhaps Foxy) fit in that analysis.
The Greens have moved to the left, and downgraded the exclusive attention to environmental issues. So far, they've hung onto most of their rural middle-class environmentalist vote anyway, because they remain somewhat interested and nobody else does, but I can see that getting squeezed.
They are, principally, a party of hope, which appeals both to people on the margins and to middle-class idealists. The traditional parties are all in grim stick-it-out mode. One can see why, when looking at the global situation, but it doesn't appeal to those groups, especially as the traditional parties have proved fairly useless to them in practice.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Much as I think the Greens are peddling fantasies, the purpose of politics is to provide solutions to people's problems. Same with Reform, who are a more malign version of the same thing. The other parties need to work harder.
Quite.
Yes - I'm tempted by the Greens not because I think their policies add up but because they've taken the necessary first step of recognising the failure of existing policies to offer much hope to people struggling. In addition, they haven't bought into the proposed surge in military spending, which seems to me unlikely to be either useful or needed (I know that most contributors here disagree). If they start to look as though they'll get into a governing coalition, I anticipate some quiet adjustment to their promise-everything approach.
Labour seems to be governing a month at a time, trying out different policies with no particular overall direction. I wouldn't consider Tories or (shudder) Reform for a moment, and the LibDems seem even vaguer on overall policy than Labour. I'd stay Labour if we had a clear sense of direction, even if I didn't agree with all of it (cf. Blair and Brown).
Would I vote for someone else to keep disgusting Reform out? Maybe - but it doesn't arise in rural Oxfordshire. With the exception of Didcot (which has an urban feel), they're not visible locally. A lot of local calculations like that will be playing out where there are elections (not here this year).
I like @NickPalmer and enjoy his contributions. But, unfortunately, the kind of sentiment expressed here ("I'm tempted by the Greens not because I think their policies add up but because they've taken the necessary first step of recognising the failure of existing policies to offer much hope to people struggling") is why we are facing such dangerous times.
The grim truth is that there are no easy answers, and snake-oil salesmen on the populist right and left, taking full advantage of people's dissatisfaction risk making matters much worse, by destabilising the country, undermining its institutions, and crashing its economy. Culture wars of the type offered by Farage and Polanski are the politics of despair. While there is a lot of ruin in a country like the UK, you could also say the same about the USA, and look where that is now.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
To some extent the figures can be overlooked. The reasons for the figures and the likely futures are the matters of political, power and betting interest.
The Tories problem is not the 4th place and 17%. It's that as things stand, at the next GE the are not the right answer to any sensible question.
Do you want a Right of Centre radical government without years of government failure in your record? Vote Reform.
Do you want a One Nation Tory government? Not on the menu
Do you want to ensure Reform don't govern? Vote tactically for Lab/Greeen/LD/Nat
Do you want a Reformlite bunch of confused people who may or may not keep a Reform government in power but won't tell you which and if they did you would not believe them, and have zero chance of getting power themselves? Vote Tory.
The chances therefore of a Left Of Centre government 2029 are high. (Reform government low). It is hard to say much more than that. But I expect Labour to recover a lot of ground.
Cleverly could get more anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats than Kemi is, that is pretty clear
'Tory held seats' is no use at all. There are only 116 currently. They need 210 more - 326. Among their multitude of problems is that the most obvious anti Reform tactical vote is the party of the current MP. In 404 seats that's Labour.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Thing is, she's not likely to do any of those things, is she? Becuase as things stand, she's nowhere near being on track to be PM after the next election.
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
You mean spending decreasing and tax reduction generating growth
Much as I think the Greens are peddling fantasies, the purpose of politics is to provide solutions to people's problems. Same with Reform, who are a more malign version of the same thing. The other parties need to work harder.
Quite.
Yes - I'm tempted by the Greens not because I think their policies add up but because they've taken the necessary first step of recognising the failure of existing policies to offer much hope to people struggling. In addition, they haven't bought into the proposed surge in military spending, which seems to me unlikely to be either useful or needed (I know that most contributors here disagree). If they start to look as though they'll get into a governing coalition, I anticipate some quiet adjustment to their promise-everything approach.
Labour seems to be governing a month at a time, trying out different policies with no particular overall direction. I wouldn't consider Tories or (shudder) Reform for a moment, and the LibDems seem even vaguer on overall policy than Labour. I'd stay Labour if we had a clear sense of direction, even if I didn't agree with all of it (cf. Blair and Brown).
Would I vote for someone else to keep disgusting Reform out? Maybe - but it doesn't arise in rural Oxfordshire. With the exception of Didcot (which has an urban feel), they're not visible locally. A lot of local calculations like that will be playing out where there are elections (not here this year).
Morning, Nick, and as always a cogent and well-argued contribution.
There was a time in the dim and distant when I thought the Greens an attractive alternative to the LDs and to be fair environmental politics is (or rather has always been to butcher my tenses) the coming thing.
I hope the Super El Nino due this year will once again thrust climate politics back up the agenda but the boatloads (presumably) of illegal migrants crossing the Channel from spring onwards will be the only thing about which most will be exercised. The remarkable heat being seen in the United States now (July temperatures in late March) is, I fear, a taste of things to come and the idea of 10 days of temperatures above 40c in London isn't something to be relished.
I've always believed in the power of human ingenuity and if I were to have an environmental policy agenda, it would be to do everything in our power to promote that ingenuity within the British Isles through education and innovation. We need to be at the forefront of finding solutions, testing them and showing the world there is an alternative economic model which is much less damaging to the environment.
I agree on military expenditure - I just don't see the "threat" from Russia in particular in the neo-apolocyptic terms envisaged by some. There are clear areas (such as cyber defence) where resources are needed and there are those who might argue recent events have shown a convergence between security and environmental agendas in terms of moving to greater self-reliance for energy, both renewable (primarily) and otherwise.
At the core of all this, however, is the inability of political parties to develop or enunciate a response to the social, economic, technological and demographic shifts of the 21st Century beyond regurgitating 20th century policy options which have been tried and failed.
Environmental politics could be that response but unfortunately it too has fallen into the redundant thinking of the 20th century. We need to start thinking more about the kind of society in which we want to like and the relatationship of the State and the citizen - it's that fundamental.
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
My daughter is at uni and seems to be leaning Green. My 16yo son seems to favour the Lib Dems, of all things. I think he is a classical orange book style liberal.
I'm not sure about my 22 year old lad (who has finished uni and is now working in a well-paying job in London). Definitely not Reform, but I could see him voting for any of the others, and he certainly will vote.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Why bring class into this?
Because I think it helps to explain their actions.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
The question is how all this largesse from Badenoch and Stride is to be funded. Dishing out the sweeteners (or the carrot) in advance is all well and good but at some point they will need to say which taxes will be raised, or, more likely, which services will be cut and by how much.
Vague notions about "reducing welfare" or "cutting waste" simply won't wash - we will need some detailed costings or it will be argued the Conservatives are still as addicted to high tax and spend as the other social democratic parties.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
They concluded that there were more votes to be had in fluffing the over-60s. The core text is "The Triumph of Janet";
And in the short term, they were right. As for the long term...
That's a great read. Would be great to have a lot of that data somewhere updated regularly. I thought this section was politically significant:
"Even beyond the raw and cynical electoral politics, Labour Party activists don’t even focus on equitable housing and childcare costs in rhetoric or activism.
The party of the worker is far more interested in noble but ultimately parochial social and international politics. This is not at all to denigrate the importance of improving transgender rights or seeking peace in the Middle East, for example.
But the energy spent on subjects like these relative to housing and economic growth policy is entirely outsized given the depth and breadth of the damage done to society by the topics discussed here."
I think this happened because the Labour Party under Blair essentially gave up on economic issues. They didn't mind if people became filthy rich (i.e. collected economic rent) as long as they paid their taxes, so economic policy faded away as the focus of politics, to be replaced by social and international policy. Even Corbyn didn't seem particularly interested in economic policy, compared to the opportunity to grandstand on single issues.
Today, we can see that Reform is a reaction to the Tory failure on economic policy by making a turn towards social and international policy (i.e. against immigration, against Islam, against Europe, fawning over Trump). It's a similar dead-end.
The Greens actually do seem to be different. They're proposing to implement different economic policies. I don't think they're the mirror image of Truss - they have an awareness that the bond market imposes constraints that they have to operate within, for example.
So the challenge for the other parties - mainly* the Tories and the Lib Dems - is whether they can rediscover a focus on economic issues, to provide a different set of economic policies as an alternative to the Greens?
* I'm assuming that Labour, in government, won't be able to do this. It's hard enough when in opposition to correctly analyse the problems and come up with solutions, but even more so when already pitched into the day-to-day trauma and firefighting of government. I'm also assuming that Reform/Farage don't have the remotest interest in doing so. They're simply a bunch of spivs and chancers who want to direct the profits from economic rents their way, Trump-style.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Thing is, she's not likely to do any of those things, is she? Becuase as things stand, she's nowhere near being on track to be PM after the next election.
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
You mean spending decreasing and tax reduction generating growth
Then you have to spell out what spending, because the ideas on student fees and defence (in as much as they are ideas) are going to cost. And if you want economic activity, cutting taxes on inheritance and property are almost certainly not where to start. (A shiny sixpence, based on experience, says that any cuts in stamp duty will feed through to higher house prices in about 47 minutes.)
I can't get my head around this sort of thing. I know Ireland is nominally neutral, but it likes to say it is strongly supportive of Ukraine, and yet it's helping supply the Russian defence industry.
I can't think of a previous war where there's been so much trade with the enemy.
From the Shannon to Siberia: How alumina from a Limerick refinery enters Russia’s weapons supply chain
Ireland is the specific example in this case, but it applies across Europe in various other ways. Surges in sales of chips to the Central Asian republics that find their way across the border into Russian missiles is another notable example.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Regarding the young, I'm not young, I guess, but I'm in the cohort that has been below the Tory voting age for the past four elections.
Stamp duty - largely irrelevant to the young, they dream of affording a house where stamp duty is going to be important
Farmers' IHT - relevant, possibly, in the distant future, to the few young with land owning farmer parents
Student loans - a change in interest which will be irrelevant to those many who never pay off the loan (and short term no difference in payment deductions)
Boats - a distraction, if/where immigration is affecting young job prospects it's legal immigration
Drill in the north sea - good for those who might have careers in that area and some of the local communities, but pretty irrelevant in the big picture (I'm fairly ambivalent on this either way)
Prioritise defence - I'm not clear on what's different about the Con offering here, other than following Trump headlong into wars with no clear objectives or exit strategy
It's thin gruel. The other parties are not much better, but the Tories have a real young person problem and probably need to try harder. The difficulty is they seem frit of Reform and pensioners - and there is risk there, to be fair.
Just had a Reform leaflet which my wife put immediately into todays recycling
The hypocrisy of a reform bi-lingual leaflet when Farage says Welsh is a foreign language and wants to bin the Senedd
Farage and Reform disgust me and these little englanders have no place in Wales and need to go back to Epping
It’s like when they wanted to leave the EU but wanted to be elected as MEPs . Why should any Welsh person vote for a party that wants to bin the Senedd ? Bizarre !
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Thing is, she's not likely to do any of those things, is she? Becuase as things stand, she's nowhere near being on track to be PM after the next election.
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
You mean spending decreasing and tax reduction generating growth
Then you have to spell out what spending, because the ideas on student fees and defence (in as much as they are ideas) are going to cost. And if you want economic activity, cutting taxes on inheritance and property are almost certainly not where to start. (A shiny sixpence, based on experience, says that any cuts in stamp duty will feed through to higher house prices in about 47 minutes.)
Stamp duty is the one tax that affects mobility and growth
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
My daughter is at uni and seems to be leaning Green. My 16yo son seems to favour the Lib Dems, of all things. I think he is a classical orange book style liberal.
I'm not sure about my 22 year old lad (who has finished uni and is now working in a well-paying job in London). Definitely not Reform, but I could see him voting for any of the others, and he certainly will vote.
In London he has the luxury of an opportunity to vote for Count Binface.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
The question is how all this largesse from Badenoch and Stride is to be funded. Dishing out the sweeteners (or the carrot) in advance is all well and good but at some point they will need to say which taxes will be raised, or, more likely, which services will be cut and by how much.
Vague notions about "reducing welfare" or "cutting waste" simply won't wash - we will need some detailed costings or it will be argued the Conservatives are still as addicted to high tax and spend as the other social democratic parties.
I think that's fair comment. The Tories best option is to work up detailed policies, and double-down on Kemi's "I'm an engineer" schtick as a way of differentiating. It will mean taking some risks but the greater risk is in remaining vague. They need to pick some fights, but pick them carefully. Obvs welfare spending will have to be up there.
Just had a Reform leaflet which my wife put immediately into todays recycling
The hypocrisy of a reform bi-lingual leaflet when Farage says Welsh is a foreign language and wants to bin the Senedd
Farage and Reform disgust me and these little englanders have no place in Wales and need to go back to Epping
I'm not a reform supporter. But nothing little Englander about wanting to get rid of devolution in Wales. It's been a complete waste of time and money. About 25 percent back it's abolition, so they have every right to be represented, as much as the small minded nationalists who push for it to have ever more power.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Thing is, she's not likely to do any of those things, is she? Becuase as things stand, she's nowhere near being on track to be PM after the next election.
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
You mean spending decreasing and tax reduction generating growth
Then you have to spell out what spending, because the ideas on student fees and defence (in as much as they are ideas) are going to cost. And if you want economic activity, cutting taxes on inheritance and property are almost certainly not where to start. (A shiny sixpence, based on experience, says that any cuts in stamp duty will feed through to higher house prices in about 47 minutes.)
Stamp duty is the one tax that affects mobility and growth
Binning it is one of the ways to growth
Replacing it with LVT probably would lead to growth, just binning it or cutting it creates asset inflation that benefits the property owning classes, like PB posters and MPs.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
"If the Tories are second or better" - not quite the bet on offer but I certainly don't expect the Tories to be "better than second"! So I'll agree to that.
Agreed on the terms then that the Conservatives third or worse in May leads to a VONC
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
I think that's unduly lenient on Theresa May. She chose to put party over country in her response to Brexit which turned a divisive referendum campaign into a constitutional crisis and paved the way for Johnson the charlatan to become Prime Minister.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
I think that's unduly lenient on Theresa May. She chose to put party over country in her response to Brexit which turned a divisive referendum campaign into a constitutional crisis and paved the way for Johnson the charlatan to become Prime Minister.
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
Younger people have been betrayed. The thing I find very annoying is the lecturing they’re subjected to by those who had free tuition fees , lower house prices etc .
Younger people find it almost impossible now to get on the housing ladder unless they have parental help or are in very high paying jobs.
You get the lecturing whereby they’re told they spend too much , shouldn’t go on holidays or socialise but the reality is they have lost hope because even if they did those things they’d never save enough for a deposit because each year the goalposts are widened .
That's exactly the position I was in a few years ago when my marriage ended. To buy my wife out to give stability to get my children through school I ended up with a monstrous £350k+ interest only mortgage (from fully paid off!), and I was faced with the choice of living like a monk for 5 years but then still having a monstrous £320k+ mortgage, or live a little and have a £340k mortgage. No material difference between the two, so i chose the latter.
Young people make the same choice - can't afford to get on the property ladder whatever they do, so might as well spend any spare money on something else.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
To some extent the figures can be overlooked. The reasons for the figures and the likely futures are the matters of political, power and betting interest.
The Tories problem is not the 4th place and 17%. It's that as things stand, at the next GE the are not the right answer to any sensible question.
Do you want a Right of Centre radical government without years of government failure in your record? Vote Reform.
Do you want a One Nation Tory government? Not on the menu
Do you want to ensure Reform don't govern? Vote tactically for Lab/Greeen/LD/Nat
Do you want a Reformlite bunch of confused people who may or may not keep a Reform government in power but won't tell you which and if they did you would not believe them, and have zero chance of getting power themselves? Vote Tory.
The chances therefore of a Left Of Centre government 2029 are high. (Reform government low). It is hard to say much more than that. But I expect Labour to recover a lot of ground.
I agree with yor reasoning but it's even worse for the Tories - the answer at the moment to the question 'Do you want a One Nation Tory government?' is Vote Labour (as I think from previous comments, grudgingly, you still would).
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
The idea that changing leaders produces a radical change in attitudes by itself is wrong. It prompts a quick think about whether the change signifies a fundamental change, and those who think it maybe does will give the party a boost for a couple of months. If it's just a change of face, they will probably fade away. That's why leadership changes tend to be close to elections, so that the shiny new leader effect hasn't worn off yet.
Which leader changes have produced a more lasting change in recent years? Blair, Cameron, Johnson, Farage, Corbyn, Polanski all changed their parties in significant (not always positive IMO) ways, and achieved a more durable increase in support, and also sharper drops when their new formula proved to have snags. Just changing the face doesn't do much (cf. Brown, Howard, Badenoch, even though I quite like all of them personally).
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
So is voting Reform but that just gets the voter abuse not understanding.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
Thing is, she's not likely to do any of those things, is she? Becuase as things stand, she's nowhere near being on track to be PM after the next election.
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
You mean spending decreasing and tax reduction generating growth
Then you have to spell out what spending, because the ideas on student fees and defence (in as much as they are ideas) are going to cost. And if you want economic activity, cutting taxes on inheritance and property are almost certainly not where to start. (A shiny sixpence, based on experience, says that any cuts in stamp duty will feed through to higher house prices in about 47 minutes.)
Stamp duty is the one tax that affects mobility and growth
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
To some extent the figures can be overlooked. The reasons for the figures and the likely futures are the matters of political, power and betting interest.
The Tories problem is not the 4th place and 17%. It's that as things stand, at the next GE the are not the right answer to any sensible question.
Do you want a Right of Centre radical government without years of government failure in your record? Vote Reform.
Do you want a One Nation Tory government? Not on the menu
Do you want to ensure Reform don't govern? Vote tactically for Lab/Greeen/LD/Nat
Do you want a Reformlite bunch of confused people who may or may not keep a Reform government in power but won't tell you which and if they did you would not believe them, and have zero chance of getting power themselves? Vote Tory.
The chances therefore of a Left Of Centre government 2029 are high. (Reform government low). It is hard to say much more than that. But I expect Labour to recover a lot of ground.
Cleverly could get more anti Reform tactical votes in Tory held seats than Kemi is, that is pretty clear
'Tory held seats' is no use at all. There are only 116 currently. They need 210 more - 326. Among their multitude of problems is that the most obvious anti Reform tactical vote is the party of the current MP. In 404 seats that's Labour.
Sod trying to win the next general election, the main aim at the moment is for the Tories to keep more than 100 MPs and not go extinct!
In this sublime Court of Appeal judgment there is something for everyone, apart from lawyers with starving wives and children to feed, to hate. Will GB News etc find the stamina to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it?
skims but lightly over the overwhelming nature of how process and the rule of law works in extreme cases. A tale for our times. PBers collectively will be paying for all the lawyers.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
Kemi is also an Essex MP and right of Cleverly, so again you are wrong
That story is insane. Sounds like something out of Trump's America.
Truer than (perhaps) you think
In the story, “AI” was used to create the list of books to ban.
Probably ChatGPT.
“AI” is actually just a really fancy way of guessing an output, based on the input. The guess is based on a vast amount of examples, which are used to create the model.
The vast majority of reports of “problematic books” and sites about problematic books, in English, are from Christian Right types on the US.
The training data for most AIs consists of scraping the internet.
So if you give a list of books to an “AI”, it will list as “problematic” those that offended MAGA type Americans.
A very good clue is that the list of banned stuff included Terry Pratchett and various Goth Vampire juvenile books - both are disliked, by such people, for writing about magic and monsters as if they aren’t super evil.
Yes, that occurred to me too. But what is most disturbing is that there's no justification for any of this, and we seem to be importing a completely alien version of far right cultural warfare. In the US, school boards have hijacked legal procedures to impose censorship; here, they're just making it up wholesale.
..“The fact it’s gone through safeguarding means Emily will never be able to work in a school again,” Roche from the SLG said. During their investigations, the school referred to their statutory obligations under the government’s Relationships and Sex Education (RSE) and Keeping Children Safe in Education guidance documents and said that materials in the school should align to them. There is in fact no statutory guidance for school libraries because there is no obligation in law to have either a school library or a school librarian. Following Index’s investigation into school library censorship in 2024, many librarians and supporting bodies have spoken to Index about the confusion this causes, with support for librarians and their books left to the whim of their schools’ senior teams... ..When Emily first started at the school, books like Heartstopper and Black Flamingo were in the library, but there wasn’t much in the way of an LGBTQ+ offering. On an open evening, she put those two books on a table. She says a parent complained to the school that he “didn’t want his son exposed to gender bending”. “The school defended me and defended those books and their right to be in there, and then two years later, completely forgot about it and changed their mind and said they’re inappropriate,” she said. Index believes this story is of huge public interest. It is an unprecedented attack on the freedom to read and intellectual freedom, where important safeguarding measures have been misused to threaten and target a school librarian. This librarian is no longer able to do her job. Without this story being surfaced and changes being made, the risk is that it will happen again...
A major feature of The Process State is that the Process is the Punishment.
“You have done nothing wrong. But under section 13.1.3.4 (b) we have to fuck your entire life.”
Another major feature is that it provides an opportunity for people of certain mindsets. Those that love ever more rules. Perhaps most of all, those who love using ever extending rules to tell people what to do. And those that adore using rules to inflict pain.
C.S. Lewis was exactly on the button on this. See “That Hideous Strength”
Whatever the rights and wrongs of the Sandie Peggie case you can see how that played out there. The process has meant a nurse with 30 years experience no longer working, and a young doctor leaving the country.
All because of people following process and from NHS Fife forgetting that when you grant consent to a transwoman to use an all womans space, not every woman will be happy and has the right to complain.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Explain how Dura (and perhaps Foxy) fit in that analysis.
I'm a member because they are the only party that takes animal welfare seriously and that is the most important issue for me. I don't give a shit about all that spreadsheet wanker economics bollocks. Everybody is wrong about it all the time anyway.
You also get a fascinating cross section of the population in the membership...
holy moly Trump has been a Kharg Island Crank for FORTY YEARS:
He sketched out the first outlines in 1987, spending $94,801 to place a full- page advert in three US newspapers. Trump declared the world was "laughing" at America's leaders over the Gulf crisis triggered by the Iran-Iraq war.
As the US then escorted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Washington was trying to "protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help".
Appearing a few weeks later at a New Hampshire rotary club event in 1987, Trump sneered at how the Iranian navy - "little runabouts with machine guns" — had held America to ransom. "Why couldn't we go in there and take some of their oilfields near the coast?" he asked.
The then 41-year-old businessman put it even more starkly in a 1988 interview with the Guardian: "One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it."
I'd say the main thing REF and GRN supporters have in common is a feeling that Britain is broken - in which case it makes sense to reject the old parties because they've been in power forever. You're looking for something new and which 'new' appeals depends on who and what you're blaming for things being so utterly shit. Here's where the left/right split kicks in. On the left flank of Populism (GRN) the perceived bogeyman is a system rigged in favour of the rich. On the right (REF) it's the influx of foreigners. Immigration. GRN voters want a new country. REF voters want their country back. This latter sentiment found an outlet with opposition to EU membership but of course that cause is no longer available.
Just had a Reform leaflet which my wife put immediately into todays recycling
The hypocrisy of a reform bi-lingual leaflet when Farage says Welsh is a foreign language and wants to bin the Senedd
Farage and Reform disgust me and these little englanders have no place in Wales and need to go back to Epping
Epping itself has a Tory MP and mainly LD councillors
My old MP no less, who was ousted on boundary changes by a rather dim neighbouring MP (who promptly lost) sending Dr Hudson, vet, carpet bagging. Decent bloke.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
holy moly Trump has been a Kharg Island Crank for FORTY YEARS:
He sketched out the first outlines in 1987, spending $94,801 to place a full- page advert in three US newspapers. Trump declared the world was "laughing" at America's leaders over the Gulf crisis triggered by the Iran-Iraq war.
As the US then escorted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Washington was trying to "protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help".
Appearing a few weeks later at a New Hampshire rotary club event in 1987, Trump sneered at how the Iranian navy - "little runabouts with machine guns" — had held America to ransom. "Why couldn't we go in there and take some of their oilfields near the coast?" he asked.
The then 41-year-old businessman put it even more starkly in a 1988 interview with the Guardian: "One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it."
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
Younger people have been betrayed. The thing I find very annoying is the lecturing they’re subjected to by those who had free tuition fees , lower house prices etc .
Younger people find it almost impossible now to get on the housing ladder unless they have parental help or are in very high paying jobs.
You get the lecturing whereby they’re told they spend too much , shouldn’t go on holidays or socialise but the reality is they have lost hope because even if they did those things they’d never save enough for a deposit because each year the goalposts are widened .
I think to an extent both things can be true. I have no doubt of how hard it is to get on the housing ladder (certainly London and the South-East). Prices are high, wage growth has been poor.
But it is also true, I think, that some people do spend more than perhaps their grandparents or parents generations did. Mainly because there is more to spend it on.
Take mobile phones. Most people have mobiles (arguably its hard to function without one now). But thats a cost that I didn't have in my early twenties. Take TV streaming. Take the rise of coffee shops and meal deals. Previous generations didn't spend 10 a day on coffee from St%rbucks or Pret. So you can also save money.
But I get the issue - owning the house is so distant that you just think 'feck it, I'll have that latte with the bun'. And I'm sure I would too, if I was in their shoes.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
I think that's unduly lenient on Theresa May. She chose to put party over country in her response to Brexit which turned a divisive referendum campaign into a constitutional crisis and paved the way for Johnson the charlatan to become Prime Minister.
How did she do that?
She kept deciding what Brexit was going to be entirely to herself, rather than reaching out to try and build a national consensus. This was partly an attempt to use immigration/voting leave as a wedge issue to win over some Labour voters and give her a landslide majority.
One of the reasons she ultimately failed is that she was unable to even build support for her approach within her own party, because she seemed to expect people simply to support whatever she presented to them, and so she created a situation in which there was deadlock and enough people were desperate enough to get the thing done and sorted that they were willing to support Johnson, without looking at any of the details.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Why bring class into this?
Because I think it helps to explain their actions.
What was Liz Truss? What was Theresa May? Ans didn't Blair go to public school too?
In this sublime Court of Appeal judgment there is something for everyone, apart from lawyers with starving wives and children to feed, to hate. Will GB News etc find the stamina to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it?
skims but lightly over the overwhelming nature of how process and the rule of law works in extreme cases. A tale for our times. PBers collectively will be paying for all the lawyers.
I skim read that but have to ask Wtf wasn’t he deported while in prison or at least kept in prison until he was returned to Turkey
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
You are not listening to wise council on here from fellow conservatives and sensible thinking left contributors leading amongst them @NickPalmer who are agreed changing leader does not make election prospects better and in Kemi's case she has 84% member support
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
You are not listening to wise council on here from fellow conservatives and sensible thinking left contributors leading amongst them @NickPalmer who are agreed changing leader does not make election prospects better and in Kemi's case she has 84% member support
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Conservatives were polling 30% when Boris resigned, they are now polling just 17% today with Kemi
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Why bring class into this?
Because I think it helps to explain their actions.
What was Liz Truss? What was Theresa May? Ans didn't Blair go to public school too?
holy moly Trump has been a Kharg Island Crank for FORTY YEARS:
He sketched out the first outlines in 1987, spending $94,801 to place a full- page advert in three US newspapers. Trump declared the world was "laughing" at America's leaders over the Gulf crisis triggered by the Iran-Iraq war.
As the US then escorted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Washington was trying to "protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help".
Appearing a few weeks later at a New Hampshire rotary club event in 1987, Trump sneered at how the Iranian navy - "little runabouts with machine guns" — had held America to ransom. "Why couldn't we go in there and take some of their oilfields near the coast?" he asked.
The then 41-year-old businessman put it even more starkly in a 1988 interview with the Guardian: "One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it."
Well he has the means now.
But he's still all talk.
Hope so. Donald Trump talking is an awful experience for everyone but it's a lot better than him actually trying to do things.
Just to contribute to the discussion; my eldest granddaughter, a public servant in her mid-thirties, was, until recently, a Labour voter, but she's now turning Green, as is, I think, her partner, who is in some sort of high-powered selling job. Last time I discussed these matters with her brother and his wife, both teachers, they were Labour.
We've four more grandchildren of voting age but three of them live abroad and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the other didn't vote.
At the forthcoming County elections I, and I think Mrs C, will vote Green because we know, like and admire the work of, our current Green councillor. Come the General, if I'm still about, if current conditions apply it'll be tactical; whoever's most likely to beat Reform, probably provided it isn't Priti Patel. If Reform have sagged badly it'll probably be LD. But it might be Labour.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
You are not listening to wise council on here from fellow conservatives and sensible thinking left contributors leading amongst them @NickPalmer who are agreed changing leader does not make election prospects better and in Kemi's case she has 84% member support
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Another difficult May? We’ve only just recovered from Theresa.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
You are not listening to wise council on here from fellow conservatives and sensible thinking left contributors leading amongst them @NickPalmer who are agreed changing leader does not make election prospects better and in Kemi's case she has 84% member support
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I suspect a lot of the spin operation post May will involve pretending nothing much exists outside London - perhaps places like Solihull and any counties they manage largest party in - Hampshire perhaps or one of the new Surreys if they manage that. And anywhere outside London they manage to hold on to council control - Solihull, Broxbourne and Fareham the only likely candidates
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
Younger people have been betrayed. The thing I find very annoying is the lecturing they’re subjected to by those who had free tuition fees , lower house prices etc .
Younger people find it almost impossible now to get on the housing ladder unless they have parental help or are in very high paying jobs.
You get the lecturing whereby they’re told they spend too much , shouldn’t go on holidays or socialise but the reality is they have lost hope because even if they did those things they’d never save enough for a deposit because each year the goalposts are widened .
I think to an extent both things can be true. I have no doubt of how hard it is to get on the housing ladder (certainly London and the South-East). Prices are high, wage growth has been poor.
But it is also true, I think, that some people do spend more than perhaps their grandparents or parents generations did. Mainly because there is more to spend it on.
Take mobile phones. Most people have mobiles (arguably its hard to function without one now). But thats a cost that I didn't have in my early twenties. Take TV streaming. Take the rise of coffee shops and meal deals. Previous generations didn't spend 10 a day on coffee from St%rbucks or Pret. So you can also save money.
But I get the issue - owning the house is so distant that you just think 'feck it, I'll have that latte with the bun'. And I'm sure I would too, if I was in their shoes.
People of earlier generations went out and spent frivolously too - cinema, pub, records, etc (and a lot of those sorts of things were arguably cheaper in the past too).
The big difference, as data in the link about Janet shows, is that young people today have vastly higher housing costs. The Baby Boomers started out paying 8% of their net income on housing costs, whereas for Millienials that was 22%. The young simply have less money left over after housing costs.
holy moly Trump has been a Kharg Island Crank for FORTY YEARS:
He sketched out the first outlines in 1987, spending $94,801 to place a full- page advert in three US newspapers. Trump declared the world was "laughing" at America's leaders over the Gulf crisis triggered by the Iran-Iraq war.
As the US then escorted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Washington was trying to "protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help".
Appearing a few weeks later at a New Hampshire rotary club event in 1987, Trump sneered at how the Iranian navy - "little runabouts with machine guns" — had held America to ransom. "Why couldn't we go in there and take some of their oilfields near the coast?" he asked.
The then 41-year-old businessman put it even more starkly in a 1988 interview with the Guardian: "One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it."
Well he has the means now.
But he's still all talk.
Hope so. Donald Trump talking is an awful experience for everyone but it's a lot better than him actually trying to do things.
The problem is sometimes things need to be done.
Putting aside the issue of whether it was right to attack Iran, its clear that Trump is utterly unsuitable to be in command during a war.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Why bring class into this?
Because I think it helps to explain their actions.
What was Liz Truss? What was Theresa May? Ans didn't Blair go to public school too?
I think this is simply prejudice.
Truss went to a comp, May to a grammar school
We should worry more about whether they are fully compos mentis.
"An episode of the BBC’s The Repair Shop was pulled after a TV production worker objected to a “sexist” Bob Monkhouse joke.
The late comedian and presenter’s famous joke books had been brought into the studio for repair by Colin Edmonds, his former comedy partner, and Abigail Williams, his adopted daughter.
The restoration of the books was to be filmed at the show’s barn in Singleton, West Sussex, for a special tribute programme, to be aired this year.
However, a member of Ricochet, the production company that makes Repair Shop, complained about one of Monkhouse’s jokes, claiming it was sexist. Corporation bosses then decided to pull the segment."
The header is a very good description of my stepdaughter. She's been to uni, got a decent degree and is working at entry level in her chosen career in law. But the combination of a low wage and high house prices means that she won't be able to afford a place of her own for ages. A lot of her friends are in a similar position and, despite not being especially environmentally conscious, are mostly intending to vote Green. It is indeed a cry for help.
Younger people have been betrayed. The thing I find very annoying is the lecturing they’re subjected to by those who had free tuition fees , lower house prices etc .
Younger people find it almost impossible now to get on the housing ladder unless they have parental help or are in very high paying jobs.
You get the lecturing whereby they’re told they spend too much , shouldn’t go on holidays or socialise but the reality is they have lost hope because even if they did those things they’d never save enough for a deposit because each year the goalposts are widened .
I think to an extent both things can be true. I have no doubt of how hard it is to get on the housing ladder (certainly London and the South-East). Prices are high, wage growth has been poor.
But it is also true, I think, that some people do spend more than perhaps their grandparents or parents generations did. Mainly because there is more to spend it on.
Take mobile phones. Most people have mobiles (arguably its hard to function without one now). But thats a cost that I didn't have in my early twenties. Take TV streaming. Take the rise of coffee shops and meal deals. Previous generations didn't spend 10 a day on coffee from St%rbucks or Pret. So you can also save money.
But I get the issue - owning the house is so distant that you just think 'feck it, I'll have that latte with the bun'. And I'm sure I would too, if I was in their shoes.
Aspiration requires goals to be obtainable.
It would be interesting to see research into aspiration, spending patterns, savings in areas where housing is affordable and areas where it isn't.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
The ironic thing is that Green voters are probably slightly better off than average, and thus doing better under capitalism than a lot of other people.
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
You are not listening to wise council on here from fellow conservatives and sensible thinking left contributors leading amongst them @NickPalmer who are agreed changing leader does not make election prospects better and in Kemi's case she has 84% member support
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Conservatives were polling 30% when Boris resigned, they are now polling just 17% today with Kemi
I'm very impressed with current video kit, and I'm playing with a new microphone which arrives charged just by taking it out of the box, and everything pairs to the phone, including both microphones for an interview, and the button on the £8 selfie stick.
Somehow it ended up in Youtube Shorts. First 2 comments:
1 - Blatant discrimination by the Council !!! (Fair enough, but everywhere is like that and we need to work out how to skin this particular cat, and make it stay skinned). 2 - I wish I had your problems, down here in London everyone is being raped by the immigrants. (There's something there about hitting the correct niche, when Youtube throws everything at it.)
In this sublime Court of Appeal judgment there is something for everyone, apart from lawyers with starving wives and children to feed, to hate. Will GB News etc find the stamina to read, mark, learn and inwardly digest it?
skims but lightly over the overwhelming nature of how process and the rule of law works in extreme cases. A tale for our times. PBers collectively will be paying for all the lawyers.
I skim read that but have to ask Wtf wasn’t he deported while in prison or at least kept in prison until he was returned to Turkey
It's a sobering case. A few of those well publicised and Reform or worse are on the up. Old fashioned liberals who believe in the rule of law because we understand that unless it applies to bad, awkward, contrarians and trouble making people and to hard cases, it won't apply to the rest of us (see USA) will find this case a bit of a challenge.
Not the least of its charms is that it reaches the Court of Appeal at stage three of the court system ladder, (tribunal, upper tribunal, Court of Appeal) and for the keen there is yet another stage to go - our beloved Supreme Court, and that the CA has remitted it back down for further consideration, so it could come back again.
holy moly Trump has been a Kharg Island Crank for FORTY YEARS:
He sketched out the first outlines in 1987, spending $94,801 to place a full- page advert in three US newspapers. Trump declared the world was "laughing" at America's leaders over the Gulf crisis triggered by the Iran-Iraq war.
As the US then escorted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Washington was trying to "protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help".
Appearing a few weeks later at a New Hampshire rotary club event in 1987, Trump sneered at how the Iranian navy - "little runabouts with machine guns" — had held America to ransom. "Why couldn't we go in there and take some of their oilfields near the coast?" he asked.
The then 41-year-old businessman put it even more starkly in a 1988 interview with the Guardian: "One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it."
Well he has the means now.
But he's still all talk.
Hope so. Donald Trump talking is an awful experience for everyone but it's a lot better than him actually trying to do things.
The problem is sometimes things need to be done.
Putting aside the issue of whether it was right to attack Iran, its clear that Trump is utterly unsuitable to be in command during a war.
I'd replace 'a war' there with 'earthly time as we know it'.
The Greens and Reform are underrepresented on PB. The header explains why. Greens and Reform are the parties for people with few assets and little chance of obtaining them. Most on here have plenty of assets and are happy to keep them, if necessary at the expense of those without. The term that used to be used for us was boomers. A few, such as @OldKingCole, @Foxy and @NickPalmer think of the wider population, and are those at least considering the Greens. Probably not coincidentally, they are posters that seem to take more interest in the views of their families.
Yes the Polanski Greens are basically Corbyn lite attracting the same type of voters, mainly under 40 burdened by student debt and not owning a house and feeling capitalism does not work for them and willing to give tax and spend socialism a go. They are no longer the party of posh middle class environmentalists like Jonathan Porritt.
Green voters do though have some similarity with Reform voters though in that they are less likely to be financially comfortable than average
Isn't the reason that Green voters don't feel like capitalism is working for them that, in many cases, it isn't particularly? Not exclusively because it's so hard to escape the rental trap, but that being a very large factor. And that, in turn being linked to a change in small-c-conservatism from "pass a better life on to the next generation/enough evolution to prevent revolution" to "après moi le déluge".
And that's just another form of nihlism- that of the powerful, rather than the powerless.
Yes they are socialist as they don't have any capital mainly
Which raises the question: why did the Tories (2010-2024) shaft the young, rather than make little capitalists out of them?
Osborne.
And it was obvious at the time - see also triple lock pensions.
So why did so many PB Tories wave the pompoms and declare Osborne a genius when I pointed out the consequences would be disastrous.
The three posh boys, Cameron, Osborne, Johnson, really trashed this country between them.
Why bring class into this?
Because I think it helps to explain their actions.
What was Liz Truss? What was Theresa May? Ans didn't Blair go to public school too?
I think this is simply prejudice.
Truss went to a comp, May to a grammar school
We should worry more about whether they are fully compos mentis.
Why is Clegg not included with Cameron, Osborne, Johnson? As I'm sure Lib Dem inclined PBers would agree, this is yet another example of the Lib Dems not receiving their due credit!
Have we done the Tories in fourth place with YouGov?
Ref 23 (-2)
Lab 19 (+2)
GRN 18 (-1)
Con 17 (=)
LD 13 (-1)
I reckon it is the war that is behind a lot of this.
Hearing the focus groups are sympathetic to Starmer re Trump & the war.
Albeit Tories only 1% behind the Greens and only 6% separates them from top placed Reform with Yougov now.
If those are the voteshares in the NEV after the local and devolved elections in May and the Tories are 4th behind Reform, Labour and even the Greens though Kemi will be gone, there will be a VONC in her leadership from Tory MPs and she will then be replaced by Cleverly. So Kemi needs to get a better result than that, on the plus side for her Yougov have the Greens higher than most pollsters do
A £50 charity bet that Kemi either does not face a VONC by 1st September - or if she does, she survives it.
Interested?
Yes, if the Tories are 4th in May Kemi will certainly face a VONC in my view, so I will take a bet on those terms, the Tories coming third or worse in May will have a VONC. If the Tories are second or better she won't so the bet is then void
You're in the party am I'm not. But I would have thought the pressure on her was past: Tories have cleared out the mad, insane and stupid to Reform. You are a Better Party without those morons. Reform are on the slide. Plot the trendline, look at the hurdles they face. Kemi has found her rhythm - previous government a bit crap, I'm new, I'm punchy, life vs Starmer's inertia
And you want to replace her with Shithole Cleverley?
If the Tories are second to Reform in May then yes Kemi will be safe.
If Yougov is right though and the Conservatives are behind not only Reform but Labour too and even maybe the Greens I am afraid Kemi is gone and will be removed. Not only will she have failed to win back rightwing voters from Reform she will also have lost centrist swing voters to Labour, the latter the type of voters Cleverly appeals more to
What do you think Cleverly would do any different to Kemi other than take the party lower in the polls ?
Well he polls better with all voters as shown at the time of the 2024 leadership election and if the Tories are fourth as Yougov says this morning there really isn't much lower they can go Kemi hasn't already taken them
If you are using a 2024 poll then you have no case
Kemi is a gnats bollock away from losing 33% of the Tory vote in a GE that was their worst result in 100 years
She tries to out Reform as Reform lose 20% of their headline vote.
One Nation Toryism of the likes of Heseltine and Cameron would comfortably polling low to mid 20s
She has no Brand Identity Policy Vision Plan
Everything is an argument She is surrounded by busted flushes
The more people see of her the less they like.
She is irrelevant to the right, the left and in the centre.
Usual tripe from you
Kemi tops leaders approval and is on 84% approval with members
Kemi is not the problem, the brand is still suffering from Johnson Truss years but she has 3 years to recover the brand
Anyway you and @HYUFD seem to agree and like each other posts so that is the strangest of alliances on here
This is over optimistic. With Reform trending down, the Tories should be, but are not, the big gainers. The Greens' upward curve mirrors Reform's exactly.
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Kemi has announced the end of stamp duty and farmers IT, will address student loans and wants to help the young, will address the boats and fair immigration, drill in the north sea, and above all prioritise defence
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
To be honest BigG I think lefties think Kemi makes even IDS look a terrifying threat in retrospect. At the moment the only threat she poses is to Tory MPs holding their seats
You live in little england farage land and are very much a de facto supporter of the right and of course where Cleverly is an mp
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
Sorry if the Tories come fourth in May voters will have made their mind up on Kemi, that she has to go
You mean you have but her mps and party haven't
If the Tories are fourth in May most Tory MPs face losing their seats and will act accordingly
You are not listening to wise council on here from fellow conservatives and sensible thinking left contributors leading amongst them @NickPalmer who are agreed changing leader does not make election prospects better and in Kemi's case she has 84% member support
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The Conservatives were polling 30% when Boris resigned, they are now polling just 17% today with Kemi
And that is the damage he caused the party
Nope, had Boris stayed 100 Tory MPs would have kept their seats and the Tories still well ahead of Reform. Truss would never have become PM with her budget disaster and Sunak not Kemi might be Leader of the Opposition with a big poll lead
Comments
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/mar/24/restaurants-raided-britain-version-ice-immigration
My favourite part was perhaps "To top it all off, Moitra Sarkar says, the Home Office vans left the restaurant car park without paying – non-customers are usually charged £2.". Though there are so many lowlights.
If you don’t tread on this, there will be a “charity” organising book banning, and calls for government funding, quite shortly.
And high membership approval didn't do Corbyn much good in general elections.
You are right to say that any Conservative leader would have a problem, because their record hangs round them like a particularly smelly albatross. That's going to be a problem until someone not associated with the 2019-24 government breaks through. In the meantime, someone who doesn't seem to get all their takes from social media, and who has the gumption to disagree with Nick Timothy might be progress.
And whilst I don't agree with everything that HYUFD or Eagles say, I'm pretty sure they're worth listening to, if only because they have more political contact with voters than I do.
I know, i know, but the YouGov figures for East, SE and SW (Rest of South) are....
Ref 22
Con 19
LD 19
Grn 18
Lab 16
Good luck modelling that
Kemi is not addressing the central questions of Tory voters (I was one for nearly 50 years): Who do I vote for is I want a sane centre right party that that can actually form a coherent government with 326 seats?
Why should I vote Tory instead of Reform if I am one of their more right wing voters voters?
Who do I vote for tactically if I certainly want to stop Reform but I think the Tories can't form a government and might keep Reform in power?
Labour seems to be governing a month at a time, trying out different policies with no particular overall direction. I wouldn't consider Tories or (shudder) Reform for a moment, and the LibDems seem even vaguer on overall policy than Labour. I'd stay Labour if we had a clear sense of direction, even if I didn't agree with all of it (cf. Blair and Brown).
Would I vote for someone else to keep disgusting Reform out? Maybe - but it doesn't arise in rural Oxfordshire. With the exception of Didcot (which has an urban feel), they're not visible locally. A lot of local calculations like that will be playing out where there are elections (not here this year).
FOURTH on today's Yougov a full 7%
lower than even Rishi got in the
landslide Tory defeat of 2024 If that
is replicated in May Kemi is gone, unlike Labour Conservatives don't do sentiment in their leaders
So they must create a rule. Because relying on morality and judgement in a responsible person is Wrong.
Once they have created a rule, it is Heresy to Go Against The Rules. Even (or especially) if the rule is obviously bolllocks.
In the lighter vein - see the almost desperate attempts to stop people rolling cheeses down a hill.
In the darker vein - the response to the Supreme Court ruling on trans. Some organisations seemed to take a delight in imposing the most extreme interpretation they could.
Of course the conservative brand is a problem but changing the leader who is popular amongst her mps and the membership would be an act of self harm and you do have to wonder why some lefties concentrate on attacking her if they do not see her as a threat and would like her gone
I would exclude @HYUFD because he seems fairly unique in conservatives who would prefer Cleverly for reasons beter known to himself
It's also worth stressing GE vote shares aren't the same as vote shares for local elections and deciding your party leader on the basis of a notional vote share is just absurd.
We don't yet know how many candidates will be put up by the various parties and we won't for a couple of weeks.
Younger people find it almost impossible now to get on the housing ladder unless they have parental help or are in very high paying jobs.
You get the lecturing whereby they’re told they spend too much , shouldn’t go on holidays or socialise but the reality is they have lost hope because even if they did those things they’d never save enough for a deposit because each year the goalposts are widened .
They are, principally, a party of hope, which appeals both to people on the margins and to middle-class idealists. The traditional parties are all in grim stick-it-out mode. One can see why, when looking at the global situation, but it doesn't appeal to those groups, especially as the traditional parties have proved fairly useless to them in practice.
It first appeared in the Daily Mail plucked out of someone's backside. It was completely false according to a weapons expert who examined the claim later on Sunday.. It was repeated on Laura K' on Sunday morning without the BBC having checked it . Then onto the juvenile site that you have just quoted on here and it gets 'liked' by the two right wing clowns 'Casino' and 'Felix' (now calling himself Scampi)
..........God knows where it'll aopear next. Maybe scratched in the sand infront of Scampi's beachfront apartment in Benidorm.?
That's probably for the best, given that her shopping list seems to consist of tax cuts and spending increases.
I almost never see/hear anything at all giving reasoned, or even unreasoned, support to Reform. If you take out the Express, Mail, GB News, which most people don't read/see, who are these people bringing Farage to the dizzy heights of 27%?
I fully expect the mps and party to reject your calls post May
The grim truth is that there are no easy answers, and snake-oil salesmen on the populist right and left, taking full advantage of people's dissatisfaction risk making matters much worse, by destabilising the country, undermining its institutions, and crashing its economy. Culture wars of the type offered by Farage and Polanski are the politics of despair. While there is a lot of ruin in a country like the UK, you could also say the same about the USA, and look where that is now.
There was a time in the dim and distant when I thought the Greens an attractive alternative to the LDs and to be fair environmental politics is (or rather has always been to butcher my tenses) the coming thing.
I hope the Super El Nino due this year will once again thrust climate politics back up the agenda but the boatloads (presumably) of illegal migrants crossing the Channel from spring onwards will be the only thing about which most will be exercised. The remarkable heat being seen in the United States now (July temperatures in late March) is, I fear, a taste of things to come and the idea of 10 days of temperatures above 40c in London isn't something to be relished.
I've always believed in the power of human ingenuity and if I were to have an environmental policy agenda, it would be to do everything in our power to promote that ingenuity within the British Isles through education and innovation. We need to be at the forefront of finding solutions, testing them and showing the world there is an alternative economic model which is much less damaging to the environment.
I agree on military expenditure - I just don't see the "threat" from Russia in particular in the neo-apolocyptic terms envisaged by some. There are clear areas (such as cyber defence) where resources are needed and there are those who might argue recent events have shown a convergence between security and environmental agendas in terms of moving to greater self-reliance for energy, both renewable (primarily) and otherwise.
At the core of all this, however, is the inability of political parties to develop or enunciate a response to the social, economic, technological and demographic shifts of the 21st Century beyond regurgitating 20th century policy options which have been tried and failed.
Environmental politics could be that response but unfortunately it too has fallen into the redundant thinking of the 20th century. We need to start thinking more about the kind of society in which we want to like and the relatationship of the State and the citizen - it's that fundamental.
But her wanting to join the war and her NIMBYism is still something she needs to work on.
Vague notions about "reducing welfare" or "cutting waste" simply won't wash - we will need some detailed costings or it will be argued the Conservatives are still as addicted to high tax and spend as the other social democratic parties.
"Even beyond the raw and cynical electoral politics, Labour Party activists don’t even focus on equitable housing and childcare costs in rhetoric or activism.
The party of the worker is far more interested in noble but ultimately parochial social and international politics. This is not at all to denigrate the importance of improving transgender rights or seeking peace in the Middle East, for example.
But the energy spent on subjects like these relative to housing and economic growth policy is entirely outsized given the depth and breadth of the damage done to society by the topics discussed here."
I think this happened because the Labour Party under Blair essentially gave up on economic issues. They didn't mind if people became filthy rich (i.e. collected economic rent) as long as they paid their taxes, so economic policy faded away as the focus of politics, to be replaced by social and international policy. Even Corbyn didn't seem particularly interested in economic policy, compared to the opportunity to grandstand on single issues.
Today, we can see that Reform is a reaction to the Tory failure on economic policy by making a turn towards social and international policy (i.e. against immigration, against Islam, against Europe, fawning over Trump). It's a similar dead-end.
The Greens actually do seem to be different. They're proposing to implement different economic policies. I don't think they're the mirror image of Truss - they have an awareness that the bond market imposes constraints that they have to operate within, for example.
So the challenge for the other parties - mainly* the Tories and the Lib Dems - is whether they can rediscover a focus on economic issues, to provide a different set of economic policies as an alternative to the Greens?
* I'm assuming that Labour, in government, won't be able to do this. It's hard enough when in opposition to correctly analyse the problems and come up with solutions, but even more so when already pitched into the day-to-day trauma and firefighting of government. I'm also assuming that Reform/Farage don't have the remotest interest in doing so. They're simply a bunch of spivs and chancers who want to direct the profits from economic rents their way, Trump-style.
The hypocrisy of a reform bi-lingual leaflet when Farage says Welsh is a foreign language and wants to bin the Senedd
Farage and Reform disgust me and these little englanders have no place in Wales and need to go back to Epping
I was very frustrated at being denied the opportunity to vote for James Cleverly at the time of the leadership election because the MPs ballsed things up. He would have been the best choice as LOTO not least because he looks prime ministerial, is reassuring, and would have contrasted with Farage in a positive way.
However, we are where we are, and I kinda like Kemi. She definitely has a dash of stardust and can be effective.
I cannot believe that changing the leader now would be a good idea. Party would risk being seen as a laughing stock, and I'm unconvinced that there would be any kind of Cleverly "bounce". I'm afraid we just have to keep buggerin' on (as I believe WSC once said).
- Stamp duty - largely irrelevant to the young, they dream of affording a house where stamp duty is going to be important
- Farmers' IHT - relevant, possibly, in the distant future, to the few young with land owning farmer parents
- Student loans - a change in interest which will be irrelevant to those many who never pay off the loan (and short term no difference in payment deductions)
- Boats - a distraction, if/where immigration is affecting young job prospects it's legal immigration
- Drill in the north sea - good for those who might have careers in that area and some of the local communities, but pretty irrelevant in the big picture (I'm fairly ambivalent on this either way)
- Prioritise defence - I'm not clear on what's different about the Con offering here, other than following Trump headlong into wars with no clear objectives or exit strategy
It's thin gruel. The other parties are not much better, but the Tories have a real young person problem and probably need to try harder. The difficulty is they seem frit of Reform and pensioners - and there is risk there, to be fair.Binning it is one of the ways to growth
Young people make the same choice - can't afford to get on the property ladder whatever they do, so might as well spend any spare money on something else.
Which leader changes have produced a more lasting change in recent years? Blair, Cameron, Johnson, Farage, Corbyn, Polanski all changed their parties in significant (not always positive IMO) ways, and achieved a more durable increase in support, and also sharper drops when their new formula proved to have snags. Just changing the face doesn't do much (cf. Brown, Howard, Badenoch, even though I quite like all of them personally).
https://www.bailii.org/ew/cases/EWCA/Civ/2026/349.html
Rozenberg's excellent commentary
https://rozenberg.substack.com/p/one-murder-is-enough?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=79530&post_id=191888841&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1mnpci&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
skims but lightly over the overwhelming nature of how process and the rule of law works in extreme cases. A tale for our times. PBers collectively will be paying for all the lawyers.
All because of people following process and from NHS Fife forgetting that when you grant consent to a transwoman to use an all womans space, not every woman will be happy and has the right to complain.
You also get a fascinating cross section of the population in the membership...
holy moly Trump has been a Kharg Island Crank for FORTY YEARS:
He sketched out the first outlines in 1987, spending $94,801 to place a full- page advert in three US newspapers. Trump declared the world was "laughing" at America's leaders over the Gulf crisis triggered by the Iran-Iraq war.
As the US then escorted tankers through the Strait of Hormuz, Trump said Washington was trying to "protect ships we don't own, carrying oil we don't need, destined for allies who won't help".
Appearing a few weeks later at a New Hampshire rotary club event in 1987, Trump sneered at how the Iranian navy - "little runabouts with machine guns" — had held America to ransom. "Why couldn't we go in there and take some of their oilfields near the coast?" he asked.
The then 41-year-old businessman put it even more starkly in a 1988 interview with the Guardian: "One bullet shot at one of our men or ships, and I'd do a number on Kharg Island. I'd go in and take it."
But he's still all talk.
But it is also true, I think, that some people do spend more than perhaps their grandparents or parents generations did. Mainly because there is more to spend it on.
Take mobile phones. Most people have mobiles (arguably its hard to function without one now). But thats a cost that I didn't have in my early twenties. Take TV streaming. Take the rise of coffee shops and meal deals. Previous generations didn't spend 10 a day on coffee from St%rbucks or Pret. So you can also save money.
But I get the issue - owning the house is so distant that you just think 'feck it, I'll have that latte with the bun'. And I'm sure I would too, if I was in their shoes.
One of the reasons she ultimately failed is that she was unable to even build support for her approach within her own party, because she seemed to expect people simply to support whatever she presented to them, and so she created a situation in which there was deadlock and enough people were desperate enough to get the thing done and sorted that they were willing to support Johnson, without looking at any of the details.
I think this is simply prejudice.
I am expecting a difficult May, especially in Scotland and Wales, and the biggest irony of all, the leading contender for trashing of the conservative brand is your hero Johnson !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
https://x.com/energygovuk/status/2036344882109841835
We're driving forward the rollout of “plug-in" solar panels to be available in shops within months, saving people money on their bills.
This comes alongside new rules to ensure the majority of new homes are built cheaper to run, with solar panels & clean heating as standard.
Just to contribute to the discussion; my eldest granddaughter, a public servant in her mid-thirties, was, until recently, a Labour voter, but she's now turning Green, as is, I think, her partner, who is in some sort of high-powered selling job.
Last time I discussed these matters with her brother and his wife, both teachers, they were Labour.
We've four more grandchildren of voting age but three of them live abroad and I wouldn't be at all surprised if the other didn't vote.
At the forthcoming County elections I, and I think Mrs C, will vote Green because we know, like and admire the work of, our current Green councillor.
Come the General, if I'm still about, if current conditions apply it'll be tactical; whoever's most likely to beat Reform, probably provided it isn't Priti Patel. If Reform have sagged badly it'll probably be LD. But it might be Labour.
The big difference, as data in the link about Janet shows, is that young people today have vastly higher housing costs. The Baby Boomers started out paying 8% of their net income on housing costs, whereas for Millienials that was 22%. The young simply have less money left over after housing costs.
Putting aside the issue of whether it was right to attack Iran, its clear that Trump is utterly unsuitable to be in command during a war.
The late comedian and presenter’s famous joke books had been brought into the studio for repair by Colin Edmonds, his former comedy partner, and Abigail Williams, his adopted daughter.
The restoration of the books was to be filmed at the show’s barn in Singleton, West Sussex, for a special tribute programme, to be aired this year.
However, a member of Ricochet, the production company that makes Repair Shop, complained about one of Monkhouse’s jokes, claiming it was sexist. Corporation bosses then decided to pull the segment."
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/03/24/bob-monkhouse-repair-shop-bbc-axed-episode/
It would be interesting to see research into aspiration, spending patterns, savings in areas where housing is affordable and areas where it isn't.
I'm very impressed with current video kit, and I'm playing with a new microphone which arrives charged just by taking it out of the box, and everything pairs to the phone, including both microphones for an interview, and the button on the £8 selfie stick.
A mini audit of a path crossing a road:
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/q2VYSn4vkz8
Somehow it ended up in Youtube Shorts. First 2 comments:
1 - Blatant discrimination by the Council !!! (Fair enough, but everywhere is like that and we need to work out how to skin this particular cat, and make it stay skinned).
2 - I wish I had your problems, down here in London everyone is being raped by the immigrants. (There's something there about hitting the correct niche, when Youtube throws everything at it.)
Not the least of its charms is that it reaches the Court of Appeal at stage three of the court system ladder, (tribunal, upper tribunal, Court of Appeal) and for the keen there is yet another stage to go - our beloved Supreme Court, and that the CA has remitted it back down for further consideration, so it could come back again.
4.911%