The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Me too. Though a single pint has hit me like a sledgehammer after a 130km cycle in stunning sunshine. Once the sun drops straight into the tent.
Grasshopper warbler was today’s highlight.
If a grasshopper warbler was the highlight, have you considered ditching the bike and joining the RSPB?
They work well in tandem (geddit) - I’m a member and will drop in for a few hours while I’m touring if there is one close. + coffee and scone.
I think cycling solo is the best way to see stuff because you get a lot closer before you flush things (or they don’t consider a bicycle a threat). Corncrake on Coll a good example.
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
I thought Bulgaria were about to replace Hungary as the Pro Putin, anti EU fly in the European ointment?
He's a bit pro-Russia, but not that much. Some of the reporting has rather over-egged his position. It's more Slovakia who are now the leading Putin fans in the EU.
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
I think Labour would be silly to get rid of him personally. Not many PMs forced on the public do that much better than expected at the next GE; Major hung on, Brown lost a majority, as did May, Sunak lost one too. Who is to say the leader who won the previous GE wouldn't have done as well?
I actually think it would be good for a PM in trouble to refuse to stand down and tough it out. Society has too much of a disposable outlook.
Having an ex who left with the young kids when times got slightly rough rather than stay together and try and make it work for them has illustrated this to me personally recently. I should have known early doors, when she chucked out a perfectly good toaster because it didn't quite match the kettle!
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
A day in Sheffield for the snooker. Look at the number of bald-headed men in the audience! This seems higher than you would expect, surely (more so if you add in the man taking the picture)? Here to support Chris Wakelin perhaps.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
I'm curious. How do you decide what is centre right rather than hard right?
Cleverly wanted to reform not leave the ECHR as Kemi now does for example and was still committed to net zero by 2050 even while allowing some fossil fuel drilling in the meantime
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Anyway I am sitting in 18 degree sunshine, brilliant clear blue sky, staring at Black Combe and listening to bird song and the sheep and lambs baah-ing in the field opposite.
Apropos nothing at all.
Let me show you my balcony. In part inspired by your beautiful garden
A year ago this was a bleak non space. Then a friend said “Fucksake get some greenery out there”
So I did.
Lovely and that beige pot is an impressive fellow.
But what does the balcony overlook below? Looks like a car park with a load of crowd control fences?
It’s the endless endless endless roadworks for HS2 running through Camden and Primrose Hill. Been going on ten years now, intermittently
Longer. Dickens, IIRC, discusses the downside of railway works in the Camden area in Dombey and Son.
There's a bit of upside too in that iirc the railway provides employment to Mr Toodle.
IMO Dombey is the most underrated of his novels. It is in some senses a novel about the coming of rail and its transformative effect on Britain.
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
The Scottish countryside is also far emptier. Country pubs needed at least some people to be customers.
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
The Scottish countryside is also far emptier. Country pubs needed at least some people to be customers.
So - if I have understood this correctly. There was a weekend crisis meeting at Chequers which we were told was the absolute hard core of Starmer's now very limited set of Cabinet and senior aides still on board.
And they concluded after hours of debate that they should release a statement to the Sunday Times that they think he can win in 2028/9??
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
This is awful. Far too nice and cosy. Can someone call some else a wanker, or something.?
I have a Reform garden, native plants only and anything else is tossed into the compost. Otoh it’s only focus is insects so it’s not the prettiest, particularly my artificial bog system. Does that help?
Ah but the real test is how you handle those summer migrants; Swallows and Swifts, Warblers, Cuckoos, Painted Ladies and Silver Ys. To be a true Reform garden you would need to send them back where they came from.
I guess they are on the equivalent of a working-holiday visa?
Coming over here taking the jobs of our hard working native birds and insects. Where will it end? Tigers pretending to be badgers? Ostriches claiming they are just really big herons? It's the thin end of the wedge I tell you!
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
All true but i think kids we may have to entertain the idea that our own PM is utterly away with the fairies, clinging to an idea that not only will he write the Lab 2028 manifesto but he will be fronting the campaign and planning to be in No 10 for another four years.
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
The Scottish countryside is also far emptier. Country pubs needed at least some people to be customers.
Yup. Sheep don't go to pubs, so the Highland Clearances may have a lot to answer for in that respect.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
A day in Sheffield for the snooker. Look at the number of bald-headed men in the audience! This seems higher than you would expect, surely (more so if you add in the man taking the picture)? Here to support Chris Wakelin perhaps.
Looking at him, I expected Chris Wakelin to appear before Emily Thornberry on Tuesday Morning.
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
All true but i think kids we may have to entertain the idea that our own PM is utterly away with the fairies, clinging to an idea that not only will he write the Lab 2028 manifesto but he will be fronting the campaign and planning to be in No 10 for another four years.
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
The Scottish countryside is also far emptier. Country pubs needed at least some people to be customers.
True.
There's also a difference in the drinking culture with historically stricter licensing, earlier closing times, temperance and Sunday openings and dry areas. All leading to a drink-up-quickly attitude
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
The Scottish countryside is also far emptier. Country pubs needed at least some people to be customers.
Yup. Sheep don't go to pubs, so the Highland Clearances may have a lot to answer for in that respect.
Pub culture developed long before the Highland clearances. I doubt that was relevant.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
You keep repeating this nonsense about Johnson who, with Truss, took the conservative party to its worst GE ever
There are none so blind as those who will not see, comes to mind
And the conservatives have led labour in 7 of the last 10 polls
LDs are polling the same as 2024, it is the Tories polling 7% down on 2024 under Kemi and Labour polling 14% down since the last general election with Sir Keir
Anyway I am sitting in 18 degree sunshine, brilliant clear blue sky, staring at Black Combe and listening to bird song and the sheep and lambs baah-ing in the field opposite.
Apropos nothing at all.
Let me show you my balcony. In part inspired by your beautiful garden
A year ago this was a bleak non space. Then a friend said “Fucksake get some greenery out there”
So I did.
I can die happy now. A tree I planted decades ago has a Tree Preservation Order and @Leon has been persuaded of the glories of gardens.
The echeverias I can see are glorious. Here are mine from last summer.
If you have space and it's sunny grow a fig. They do well in pots.
If we're doing gardens this evening, this is a view of my Mum's front garden as it appeared last year. Unfortunately, she only won 2nd prize for Redbridge in Bloom 2025, but I think she should have won. She did win 1st prize the year before, mind!
Um, I er helped out with watering, and transporting car boot loads of plants from the local garden centre
Looking at those wonderful hostas at the back, your mum must have a zero tolernce for slugs and snails in a ten mile radius!
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
You keep repeating this nonsense about Johnson who, with Truss, took the conservative party to its worst GE ever
There are none so blind as those who will not see, comes to mind
And the conservatives have led labour in 7 of the last 10 polls
Boris won the biggest Conservative victory since Thatcher in 2019 and when he resigned in summer 2022 the Tories were still polling higher than they got in 2024
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
You keep repeating this nonsense about Johnson who, with Truss, took the conservative party to its worst GE ever
There are none so blind as those who will not see, comes to mind
And the conservatives have led labour in 7 of the last 10 polls
Boris won the biggest Conservative victory since Thatcher in 2019 and when he resigned in summer 2022 the Tories were still polling higher than they got in 2024
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
All true but i think kids we may have to entertain the idea that our own PM is utterly away with the fairies, clinging to an idea that not only will he write the Lab 2028 manifesto but he will be fronting the campaign and planning to be in No 10 for another four years.
That's beyond delusional.
That's outer orbit mad.
Two things:
1. He might be right. It seems extremely unlikely at the moment but it's not 100% impossible.
2. In any event, he's hardly likely to pop up and say "I can't win the next election" is he?
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
All true but i think kids we may have to entertain the idea that our own PM is utterly away with the fairies, clinging to an idea that not only will he write the Lab 2028 manifesto but he will be fronting the campaign and planning to be in No 10 for another four years.
That's beyond delusional.
That's outer orbit mad.
Two things:
1. He might be right. It seems extremely unlikely at the moment but it's not 100% impossible.
2. In any event, he's hardly likely to pop up and say "I can't win the next election" is he?
He doesn't need to say anything at all about the next election, just I'm getting on with the day job blah blah.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
There is something quite uniquely wonderful about the British country pub isn't there. I truly can't think of a comparable experience anywhere in the world.
It is a stunning spring evening. After a day of skydiving I am sitting with a pint of Otter Black and my book in the garden of the Drewe Arms in Broadhembury in the Blackdown Hills in Devon. Their delicious pork belly is on its way. I'm considering ordering a black pudding salad as an actual pudding. It's that sort of evening.
I am a curmudgeon so delighted to be alone, but the table of 9 next to me are getting gently, convivially pissed together. The birds are singing, the spring flowers are blooming, the church bells are ringing 7pm. It's warm enough to bask in the sunshine.
What a wonderful country we live in.
Having not visited often, I can't speak for Northern Ireland, or really Wales, but as far as Scotland is concerned, it doesn't really have the same tradition of lovely country pubs. It should have, given that we have some of the most stunning scenery, amazing produce, and of course world-renowned drinks, but you rarely find that relaxed country pub with an inglenook and horse brasses here. Not never, but rarely. Different tradition of rural life.
I was going to say English country pubs, but I realised that some of my other favourites are in Wales. Like you I can't speak for NI, and defer to you north of the border.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
Wales has been with England for a lot longer. And also, the latitude is different - I really do think there's a difference in how rural life has evolved in the colder north. Perhaps religion has also played a role. Maybe the local inn was less of an accepted part of the community.
The Scottish countryside is also far emptier. Country pubs needed at least some people to be customers.
Yup. Sheep don't go to pubs, so the Highland Clearances may have a lot to answer for in that respect.
Pub culture developed long before the Highland clearances. I doubt that was relevant.
It's difficult to maintain a pub culture if the customers are elsewhere or dead.
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
All true but i think kids we may have to entertain the idea that our own PM is utterly away with the fairies, clinging to an idea that not only will he write the Lab 2028 manifesto but he will be fronting the campaign and planning to be in No 10 for another four years.
That's beyond delusional.
That's outer orbit mad.
Two things:
1. He might be right. It seems extremely unlikely at the moment but it's not 100% impossible.
2. In any event, he's hardly likely to pop up and say "I can't win the next election" is he?
On your point 2, there's a difference between, "of course I'm not going to say I can't win the next election", and, "I am absolutely going to win the next election". The words spoken are the same so we have to guess whether Starmer means the first or second.
My guess is the second. He does actually believe he will turn things round without doing anything very different from what has made him the most (or second most?) unpopular Prime Minister since the birth of opinion polling.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either
There are lots of ways in which that wasn't an option.
However.
It's possible that removing BoJo before he could trash the Conservatives' reputation fully was a mistake- not because it would have ended well, but because it would have ended unambiguously.
See also Thatcher. Ditching her in 1990 saved the Conservatives in 1992. But the cost in terms of future bad blood was huge. And the lesson that many took- that a new leader is the first response to things going badly- has been misapplied a lot since then.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
Sky posed the same question today and asked Davey if it was time to give up the stunts and focus on policies
I imagine he will have pointed out he does talk policies, but no one listens apart from at the stunts.
But I do think he cannot take them further.
You can tell the Tories are rattled when they start wittering on about Ed Davey, who, if we are to believe Opinium approval ratings, is still less unpopular than Kemi Badenoch.
On a serious level, the LDs are hopefully putting in the campigning work which will pay dividends in a fortnight and if that requires a "stunt" or two, so be it. I do agree 2029 will be very different as a GE campaign but that's an eternity away for all some on here seem certain of the outcome now.
As for what might or might not happen in a fortnight, the game of expectation management is afoot -a few weeks back, I thought Labour would lose 1000 seats and the Conservatives 500 - I still think that.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either
There are lots of ways in which that wasn't an option.
However.
It's possible that removing BoJo before he could trash the Conservatives' reputation fully was a mistake- not because it would have ended well, but because it would have ended unambiguously.
See also Thatcher. Ditching her in 1990 saved the Conservatives in 1992. But the cost in terms of future bad blood was huge. And the lesson that many took- that a new leader is the first response to things going badly- has been misapplied a lot since then.
Thatcher's removal at least ended the poll tax and prevented a Kinnock win in 1992 and ensured Major won in 1992. Removing Boris did nothing for the Tories but split the right, as Farage returned to lead Reform and Labour won a landslide in 2024
Sky posed the same question today and asked Davey if it was time to give up the stunts and focus on policies
I imagine he will have pointed out he does talk policies, but no one listens apart from at the stunts.
But I do think he cannot take them further.
You can tell the Tories are rattled when they start wittering on about Ed Davey, who, if we are to believe Opinium approval ratings, is still less unpopular than Kemi Badenoch.
On a serious level, the LDs are hopefully putting in the campigning work which will pay dividends in a fortnight and if that requires a "stunt" or two, so be it. I do agree 2029 will be very different as a GE campaign but that's an eternity away for all some on here seem certain of the outcome now.
As for what might or might not happen in a fortnight, the game of expectation management is afoot -a few weeks back, I thought Labour would lose 1000 seats and the Conservatives 500 - I still think that.
Actually it was Sky who questioned why they are not breaking through and brought up his stunts
And on ratings Davey -5 and Badenoch - 6 is very close
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
No, it was the revolving door which damaged them in particular.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
I think the bit you are missing is that he couldn’t have stayed. He was going to get suspended from Parliament. For many people the parties was a huge black mark. Anyone who lost someone alone in a hospital when they weren’t allowed to visit, or couldn’t hug at a funeral etc and saw what went on was never going to forgive Johnson.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
I think the bit you are missing is that he couldn’t have stayed. He was going to get suspended from Parliament. For many people the parties was a huge black mark. Anyone who lost someone alone in a hospital when they weren’t allowed to visit, or couldn’t hug at a funeral etc and saw what went on was never going to forgive Johnson.
As I said, even after partygate the Tories were polling 30-35% in the week before Boris resigned, far higher than they got in 2024 or are on now.
Indeed most of the voters the Tories have lost to Reform couldn't give a toss about partygate and if anything thought the lockdowns were too strict
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
The prime minister says he’s focused on bigger issues than Peter Mandelson or calls for his resignation. Most Labour MPs quietly back me, he tells Josh Glancy
All true but i think kids we may have to entertain the idea that our own PM is utterly away with the fairies, clinging to an idea that not only will he write the Lab 2028 manifesto but he will be fronting the campaign and planning to be in No 10 for another four years.
That's beyond delusional.
That's outer orbit mad.
Two things:
1. He might be right. It seems extremely unlikely at the moment but it's not 100% impossible.
2. In any event, he's hardly likely to pop up and say "I can't win the next election" is he?
On your point 2, there's a difference between, "of course I'm not going to say I can't win the next election", and, "I am absolutely going to win the next election". The words spoken are the same so we have to guess whether Starmer means the first or second.
My guess is the second. He does actually believe he will turn things round without doing anything very different from what has made him the most (or second most?) unpopular Prime Minister since the birth of opinion polling.
One of the differences between Starmer's unpopularity and that of Truss is the context. At the time of Truss Britain still had two-party politics, so the zenith of her unpopularity was coincident with Labour polling well above 50%. The combination of her unpopularity, two-party politics, and FPTP meant that the Tories were on course to be atomised. They were so far behind that even the large swingback achieved following the replacement of Truss saw the Tories suffer their worst-ever election defeat.
Starmer's epic unpopularity is in the context of five-party politics. This means that Labour are currently somewhere between 4 and 11 points behind, which isn't great, but isn't the 39 point deficit Truss achieved. Putting aside what I might think personally about Starmer, an 11-point lead in mid-term is not decisive for an opposition. Miliband regularly had leads larger than that, but his coalition of chaos was not victorious at the subsequent GE.
I think Starmer would be wrong to think he can turn this around, but it's far from being the wrongest interpretation of recent British political history.
Sky posed the same question today and asked Davey if it was time to give up the stunts and focus on policies
I imagine he will have pointed out he does talk policies, but no one listens apart from at the stunts.
But I do think he cannot take them further.
You can tell the Tories are rattled when they start wittering on about Ed Davey, who, if we are to believe Opinium approval ratings, is still less unpopular than Kemi Badenoch.
On a serious level, the LDs are hopefully putting in the campigning work which will pay dividends in a fortnight and if that requires a "stunt" or two, so be it. I do agree 2029 will be very different as a GE campaign but that's an eternity away for all some on here seem certain of the outcome now.
As for what might or might not happen in a fortnight, the game of expectation management is afoot -a few weeks back, I thought Labour would lose 1000 seats and the Conservatives 500 - I still think that.
Actually it was Sky who questioned why they are not breaking through and brought up his stunts
And on ratings Davey -5 and Badenoch - 6 is very close
Where the parties are polling now and where they might be polling at a spring 2029 GE are likely going to be very different.
I do agree Davey, as with most other LD leaders, suffers from a low profile but at this stage it's less important.
At the moment, Reform and Greens are the only parties anyone wants to talk about and both are likely to fail from their own internal contradictions as the next election approaches.
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
I think the bit you are missing is that he couldn’t have stayed. He was going to get suspended from Parliament. For many people the parties was a huge black mark. Anyone who lost someone alone in a hospital when they weren’t allowed to visit, or couldn’t hug at a funeral etc and saw what went on was never going to forgive Johnson.
A 2 week suspension would have meant a recall by-election as I recall, one that he would have very likely lost.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
I think the bit you are missing is that he couldn’t have stayed. He was going to get suspended from Parliament. For many people the parties was a huge black mark. Anyone who lost someone alone in a hospital when they weren’t allowed to visit, or couldn’t hug at a funeral etc and saw what went on was never going to forgive Johnson.
A 2 week suspension would have meant a recall by-election as I recall, one that he would have very likely lost.
The Tories held Uxbridge even in the by election when Rishi was leader
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
More than half (54%) believe the government has serious problems with competence or judgement, compared to less than 1 in 10 (8%) who think it is generally competent or trustworthy.
I know I keep banging on about this, but it's pointless changing Starmer until Labour picks an ideology (if that's the right word) - what are the problems facing the UK and how do we fix them. Miliband has an ideology - do lots of Green stuff, that'll fix things. Mahmood has an ideology - deport everybody who isn't Christian or Hindu, and how dare somebody call her a racist for saying that you dirty white liberal you. Streeting has an ideology - privatise things, that'll fix things!
Miliband - Green Labour Mahmood - Blue Labour Streeting - New Labour
To be honest, I'm not convinced by any of them, but in terms of the marketplace of ideas, that's what's on the table.
Picking an ideology is the leader's job, no? "The Labour Party" can't do it because it's not a single mind, we're a disparate group of random individuals. To the extent that we express a collective opinion we do it by electing a leader.
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
I think the bit you are missing is that he couldn’t have stayed. He was going to get suspended from Parliament. For many people the parties was a huge black mark. Anyone who lost someone alone in a hospital when they weren’t allowed to visit, or couldn’t hug at a funeral etc and saw what went on was never going to forgive Johnson.
Some continue to pretend that Boris would not have led to any further polling drops, and indeed would have recovered.
Obviously anything is possible, but it is not very likely given the very reason he was ousted was because he kept fucking up and his MPs were sick and tired of it. They knew more was coming.
Would they have still done better without the revolving door? Potentially. But the chances are at least equal or beter it would have been worse.
On topic, might I offer the following advice to the Labour Party? It may not be felt welcome - may not be felt genuine - but trust me, as a Tory, we've been here. Get this wrong and you could be facing two more changes before the election. And if so, the voters will hate you for it.
Following Starmer, the very LAST thing you need as a replacement is a slightly weird, somewhat aloof, supercilious north London wanker of a guy. Be brave. Skip a generation. SERIOUSLY consider a woman. (You are fifty plus years overdue, for God's sake.) Choose someone the voters haven't already rejected. Choose someone the voters don't yet actively dislike.
You may hate the Tories. But at least learn from them.
The Tories and Labour BOTH need to up their game to prevent PM Farage. Start now.
I'd be happy for the Tories to survive and thrive as pro-European Heathites.
I have never voted Conservative and I particularly disliked the Johnson premiership but anything they do to kill the fascist parties stone dead has to be welcome.
Despite the eulogising of Badenoch on here I read her as being incredibly weak. Cleverly, despite his hubris would have been better.
Had Jenrick not journeyed from Cameroon to performatively cruel fascistic primate he would have been a great leader for the Tories.
Had Jenrick been elected leader in 2024 the Tories may have stayed ahead of Reform in the polls. Now though with he having gone Reform and Reform leading the polls it is tactical votes from Labour, LD and Green voters in Tory held seats to beat Reform the Tories need. If Kemi can’t get those in May then Cleverly might
I can't see many Labour or Lib Dem voters putting an X in the box for the Tories whilst they are so incredibly right wing. No point voting for a party that is quite likely to throw it's hat in with the fascists. At the moment at least.
Cleverly wouldn’t throw his lot in with Farage though, so as I said if Kemi can’t get many Labour or LD tactical votes Cleverly might
It is interesting that you think that someone like Cleverly can show enough ankle to attract Lib Dem and Labour switchers, without sending equal (or higher) numbers of traditional Tory voters to Reform. It would at least involve a firm commitment to Net Zero and remaining in the ECHR. Those would cause a massive hemorrhage to the right.
Traditional Tory voters have already gone Reform, Kemi has failed to win them back and indeed lost even some who voted for Rishi in 2024 to Reform.. So the Tories need to get tactical votes from LDs, Labour and Greens in Tory held seats to compensate and Cleverly is likeliest to do so, reforming not leaving automatically the ECHR and still committing to Net Zero 2050 would be enough, while allowing some North Sea oil drills
The Tories won 24% in 2024. They are now on around 19%, so they have fallen back around 5% - you are assuming that means all the right wing Tories have already left, and there are no more to go. That seems a completely unwarrantable assumption. I'd say a majority of Tory voters are righties to a varying extent - the lib dem tendency is more of a parliamentary phenomenon than a voter one. Your ideas would be an electoral catastrophe.
The larger portion of Tories are probably still more Reform adjacent than LD adjacent even now, but those who've left to Reform need to be willing to head back, and thus far that doesn't seem to be happening. So the question migth be would fishing in smaller poor of centristy types be more effective or not.
I'm not convinced it would be, but I think there's still a lot of complacency in the Tory high command about their position.
In most Tory held seats even now the combined Tory, Labour and LD vote is far bigger than the projected Reform vote. It is not a small pool
The pool of those voters who would ever vote Tory is a small pool.
Completely disagree, otherwise they would not have dominated politics for the last 50 years, with the exception of the Blair interlude. I would accept that the contents of that pool are significantly smaller than they once were.
Kemi's strategy is essentially a core vote strategy. I'd say it has stabilised the vote share rather than actively diminishing it - it hasn't won back many voters from Reform, but I see no evidence of any leftward leakage. HYU's plan is to double down on the idea of the last 14 years - assuming the existing vote is in the bag, and altering the offering to appeal to 'the centre'. It assumes that the Tories cannot lose any more voters to Reform - an assumption for which I've still seen zero evidence.
She's making the best of a bad job. As far as I can see, HYUFD wants to make the worst of a bad job.
Fine if Kemi’s strategy is working so well the Tories should beat Labour and the Greens and LDs and at least be a clear second to Reform on votes and seats in May. If not, then she is gone and her strategy will have been proved to have failed. She inherited a party still second in the polls and will have taken it to third or worse
And how could she have stopped that support leaking to Reform? By being more like Labour and the Lib Dems? How would that have worked exactly?
Kemi has tried the be even more Farage than Farage strategy and it hasn’t worked. If she doesn’t at least start getting something to show for it, ie at least a clear second in May, most Tory MPs will likely decide to dump her and focus on a clearer centre right not hard right strategy with Cleverly
No answer then. Had she pursued a more centrist continuity-Sunak policy, that Reform leakage could have been ten points not five.
When Sunak led the Tories in the 2024 general election the Tories were 10% ahead of Reform. Now under Kemi the Tories are 10% behind Reform, further Reform leakage and decline in Tory voteshare is on Kemi not Rishi
The decline is on Johnson and Truss who rartnered the brand
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
When Boris resigned the Conservatives were still polling 30% nearly double what they are now. The decline really accelerated under Truss and her hopeless budget, Rishi steadied the ship and now the party’s poll rating has declined yet further under Kemi with the Tories now third in tonight’s Opinium, not only 10% behind Reform but even behind the hopeless Starmer Labour Party too
Your spin on behalf of Sunak is comedic. He got a new leader bounce but was so useless he lost that and equalled Truss's worst poll ratings:
When Truss resigned in autumn 2022 in the week before the Tories were polling 19% with Redfield, 19% with PP, 23% with Deltapoll, 23% with Survation and 22% with Comres, all below the 24% Sunak got in 2024 with the exception of Omnisis where they were on 28%.
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
Sunak equalled Truss's worst poll ratings (note: POLL RATINGS) in the weeks running up to Election Day.
As I said the Tories should never have removed Boris in 2022 and let him lead them into the 2024 general election. If they had, Farage would never have returned to lead Reform as he did against Rishi and there would have been no Truss budget crashing the markets either and seeing the surge in switchers from Conservative to Starmer Labour
The tories didn't remove Johnson, he did it all by himself
They forced him out against his will and will probably take a generation to recover if they recover and win a general election again if they aren't taken over by Reform. Much like Labour took a generation to recover and win a general election again after removing Blair in 2007
You just confirm the damage he has done to the party
The party was more damaged by removing him than keeping him as I showed
I think the bit you are missing is that he couldn’t have stayed. He was going to get suspended from Parliament. For many people the parties was a huge black mark. Anyone who lost someone alone in a hospital when they weren’t allowed to visit, or couldn’t hug at a funeral etc and saw what went on was never going to forgive Johnson.
Some continue to pretend that Boris would not have led to any further polling drops, and indeed would have recovered.
Obviously anything is possible, but it is not very likely given the very reason he was ousted was because he kept fucking up and his MPs were sick and tired of it. They knew more was coming.
Would they have still done better without the revolving door? Potentially. But the chances are at least equal or beter it would have been worse.
Even if he didn't do anything dodgy for the rest of his time, he would have faced all the same headwinds of fuel crisis, inflation, poor growth, general people tired of the Tories being in power. Starmer who had his number of how to set him up every week into lying about something.
Anyway I am sitting in 18 degree sunshine, brilliant clear blue sky, staring at Black Combe and listening to bird song and the sheep and lambs baah-ing in the field opposite.
Apropos nothing at all.
Let me show you my balcony. In part inspired by your beautiful garden
A year ago this was a bleak non space. Then a friend said “Fucksake get some greenery out there”
So I did.
I can die happy now. A tree I planted decades ago has a Tree Preservation Order and @Leon has been persuaded of the glories of gardens.
The echeverias I can see are glorious. Here are mine from last summer.
If you have space and it's sunny grow a fig. They do well in pots.
I bought a beautiful Monterey cypress. “Goldcrest”. Apparently great in a pot and likely to thrive on a south facing Camden balcony
But then I got two sudden travel assignments in a row - Turkey and Ulster - and we had a massive dry spell - in April! - and when I got back the tree was dead. Every green branch turned crispy and yellow
A good lesson in the fragility of plant life. Honestly this thing was 70cm high and looked totally fine. Killed by ten days of dry and then dry and sun
I’ve just bought an olive as a replacement as I figure the microclimate on my balcony is closer to Cannes than Cannock
Gardening advice before I go to bed.
1. If you have pots use pot feet. See my photo. It means the water drains as most plants hate being left in water for prolonged spells.
2. If you go away for a short time or regularly, get an automatic irrigation system or put saucers under the pots filled with water. Or get a friend round to water.
3. Even if it rains, you need to water your pots. Not enough water will get into pots even with heavy rain.
4. Best plants for pots where you can ignore watering for long periods - - succulents, agaves, cacti etc - Agapanthus: utterly glorious - Hostas - Euphorbia myrsinites - Sedums Beth Chatto's garden and her website has loads of great ideas. She created a gravel garden where she did no watering at all.
5. And finally if a plant dies, it dies. Replace it. No point being sentimental. Put it in a compost heap and it will go on to help another plant. Gardeners have to be ruthless.
More than half (54%) believe the government has serious problems with competence or judgement, compared to less than 1 in 10 (8%) who think it is generally competent or trustworthy.
Comments
Acknowledge that you're off, and whatever authority you have left is shot.
I think cycling solo is the best way to see stuff because you get a lot closer before you flush things (or they don’t consider a bicycle a threat). Corncrake on Coll a good example.
I wonder why Wales has them and not Scotland? As you say, they have all the makings of it.
I actually think it would be good for a PM in trouble to refuse to stand down and tough it out. Society has too much of a disposable outlook.
Having an ex who left with the young kids when times got slightly rough rather than stay together and try and make it work for them has illustrated this to me personally recently. I should have known early doors, when she chucked out a perfectly good toaster because it didn't quite match the kettle!
IMO Dombey is the most underrated of his novels. It is in some senses a novel about the coming of rail and its transformative effect on Britain.
Am I alone? Have we been facing a Putin/Iran hack???
Reform 27%
Labour 19%
Conservatives 17%
Greens 15%
LDs 12%
And they concluded after hours of debate that they should release a statement to the Sunday Times that they think he can win in 2028/9??
I mean - fuck off,
However, Kemi is doing fine and certainly better than any other conservative mp would achieve
She and the party needs the time and she has 3 years
That's beyond delusional.
That's outer orbit mad.
- Ref 28% (+2)
- Lab 19% ( -3)
- Con 17% (N/C)
- Gre 15% (N/C)
- Lib 12% (+1).
Approval ratingsRIP
There are none so blind as those who will not see, comes to mind
And the conservatives have led labour in 7 of the last 10 polls
“Age limits on social media are a dead end”
Public authorities should focus on regulating algorithms and imposing stricter controls on data collection instead, argues researcher.
https://www.uio.no/english/research/research-news/articles/2026/age-limits-on-social-media-are-a-dead-end.html
But I do think he cannot take them further.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/rishi-sunak-tories-record-low-rating-prime-minister-jeremy-corbyn-poll-b1152246.html
1. He might be right. It seems extremely unlikely at the moment but it's not 100% impossible.
2. In any event, he's hardly likely to pop up and say "I can't win the next election" is he?
Though yes the real damage was when Boris was forced to resign as even when he left office in summer 2022 the Tories were polling about 30%+, higher than Truss, Sunak or Kemi polled
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_Kingdom_general_election#2022
My guess is the second. He does actually believe he will turn things round without doing anything very different from what has made him the most (or second most?) unpopular Prime Minister since the birth of opinion polling.
.
Aside from that it’s brilliant. So funny. My sides have well and truly split
However.
It's possible that removing BoJo before he could trash the Conservatives' reputation fully was a mistake- not because it would have ended well, but because it would have ended unambiguously.
See also Thatcher. Ditching her in 1990 saved the Conservatives in 1992. But the cost in terms of future bad blood was huge. And the lesson that many took- that a new leader is the first response to things going badly- has been misapplied a lot since then.
On a serious level, the LDs are hopefully putting in the campigning work which will pay dividends in a fortnight and if that requires a "stunt" or two, so be it. I do agree 2029 will be very different as a GE campaign but that's an eternity away for all some on here seem certain of the outcome now.
As for what might or might not happen in a fortnight, the game of expectation management is afoot -a few weeks back, I thought Labour would lose 1000 seats and the Conservatives 500 - I still think that.
Keir Starmer ...
🔴... is in touch with ordinary people (net -46%)
🔴... represents what most people think (net -45%)
🔴... is likeable (net -42%)
And on ratings Davey -5 and Badenoch - 6 is very close
Nigel Farage on the "abuse" he gets from Keir Starmer, how the next election may be his last "big shot" at becoming PM, and what its like being a sex symbol at 62.
https://x.com/kateferguson4/status/2048120537369440610?s=20
Indeed most of the voters the Tories have lost to Reform couldn't give a toss about partygate and if anything thought the lockdowns were too strict
If he's replaced by literally anyone, Labour will draw level with Reform IMHO.
Starmer's epic unpopularity is in the context of five-party politics. This means that Labour are currently somewhere between 4 and 11 points behind, which isn't great, but isn't the 39 point deficit Truss achieved. Putting aside what I might think personally about Starmer, an 11-point lead in mid-term is not decisive for an opposition. Miliband regularly had leads larger than that, but his coalition of chaos was not victorious at the subsequent GE.
I think Starmer would be wrong to think he can turn this around, but it's far from being the wrongest interpretation of recent British political history.
I do agree Davey, as with most other LD leaders, suffers from a low profile but at this stage it's less important.
At the moment, Reform and Greens are the only parties anyone wants to talk about and both are likely to fail from their own internal contradictions as the next election approaches.
https://x.com/OpiniumResearch/status/2048129924947718534?s=20
Labour got a bit of a brand problem now, given their sales pitch was we ain't sexy or exciting, but we will be competent.
Obviously anything is possible, but it is not very likely given the very reason he was ousted was because he kept fucking up and his MPs were sick and tired of it. They knew more was coming.
Would they have still done better without the revolving door? Potentially. But the chances are at least equal or beter it would have been worse.
1. If you have pots use pot feet. See my photo. It means the water drains as most plants hate being left in water for prolonged spells.
2. If you go away for a short time or regularly, get an automatic irrigation system or put saucers under the pots filled with water. Or get a friend round to water.
3. Even if it rains, you need to water your pots. Not enough water will get into pots even with heavy rain.
4. Best plants for pots where you can ignore watering for long periods -
- succulents, agaves, cacti etc
- Agapanthus: utterly glorious
- Hostas
- Euphorbia myrsinites
- Sedums
Beth Chatto's garden and her website has loads of great ideas. She created a gravel garden where she did no watering at all.
5. And finally if a plant dies, it dies. Replace it. No point being sentimental. Put it in a compost heap and it will go on to help another plant. Gardeners have to be ruthless.