Why the mainstream parties will be swept aside next week – politicalbetting.com
Why the mainstream parties will be swept aside next week – politicalbetting.com
On a recent thread a very valid question was asked. These voters who the polls and betting markets suggest will vote Reform and Green next week: “what do these people actually want?”
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I am curious about when the first proposals to curtail democracy as “enabling extremism” will be made.
That said, I'm bearish on Reform's performance in Scotland. I expect them to underperform the polls by a notable margin.
‘You’d be ashamed to bring someone here’: The struggling billionaire-owned high street that shows Reform’s road to No 10
https://www.theguardian.com/society/ng-interactive/2026/jan/28/newton-aycliffe-county-durham-high-street-decline
This is both emblematic of, and a significant cause of political disillusionment.
Government has fiddled round the margins for a decade or more, but has offered no real solutions. And local government simply doesn't have the resources to address the decline of our regional towns.
Nope.
It’s fine.
Kent may be, others may be, but Durham is doing just fine. So far.
What were Labour doing for these areas in the Seventies?
Politics is hard. Politics involves compromise. People who simply vote for nice things and not to have anything bad are part of the problem.
I've been plenty critical of lots of politicians for not leading. For not being honest. But democracy dies if people act as though it is something done only by politicians. It needs the voters to cop on and reject the same old clichés and platitudes and easy answers.
I can understand people feeling desperate and searching around for change, but they need to have a bit of self-respect and responsibility too.
It is a mess of politicians not speaking to truth and the electorates not liking the truth
I do not expect to see a resolution in my remaining time on this planet, so I just concentrate on what is good and be grateful for all my blessings
My wife is not well at present, and depending on hospital investigations, should recover over time but she is the centre of everything for me at present
Right?
https://x.com/spacex/status/2049487420177977847
But I don’t see how Reform in Durham are a failure or one of the two worst Reform councils in the U.K.
They are doing fine. AFAIC.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/europpblog/2016/06/20/cornwall-and-wales-benefited-from-eu/#:~:text=In recent years, the European,received them in the past.
It's not just easy, it is unfortunately the truth to a large extent.
Politicians may well need to ask themselves how they get voters to stop voting against their own interests, but they're battling right wing media operations promoting simplistic, xenophobic solutions
If I was Jewish I would absolutely not feel safe in the UK. Not at home, not in the synagogue, not walking the streets
And the left have enabled this in different ways
But I think that rather misses the point.
It's not a party political problem so much as a political problem.
National politicians - and civil service policy makers - have little interest in run down regional towns. Nor do most PBers, most of the time, I suspect ?
That shows in government investment priorities over the years, and is little influenced by which party is in government.
Reform is unlikely to address that - and whatever you think of their draconian deportation policies, they are unlikely to do much for Newton Aycliffe, if you look at its demographics.
Two boosters landing back on the pad from where they departed eight minutes earlier, only seconds apart.
AstraZeneca makes surprise U-turn with £300m pharma investment in UK
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2026/apr/29/astrazeneca-makes-surprise-u-turn-with-300m-pharma-investment
Well. A £5 million gift from a crypto billionaire would be nice.
But let's leave aside the Israeli/Jewish conflation. There are something like 60,000 Russian born people in the UK. The Russian state has been engaged in the worst war in Europe since 1945 and has far less rightful claim to be defending itself than Israel does. So far as I am aware there is no real threat to that community. Now admittedly many of them would be anti Putin. But there has obviously been an anti Russian sentiment in Britain since 2022. The difference is that those people angry at Russia are much less likely to think they are justified in using violence. Instead you'd rather focus on the small stuff.
Radical ideas are going to run into the same iron laws of economics that non-radical ones do.
https://x.com/revishvilig/status/2049460433203925470
So, Kremlin, where did all your military equipment go? Do you have nothing left? LOL
The last two decades, across the developed world, have been shit. Now, not shit in absolute terms; no one is starving. But shit in relative terms, with the historic pattern of progress, and children wealthier than their parents breaking down.
This economic discontinuity has happened in the US, in Europe, and in Japan.
The only places it has not happened are Australia and Canada (and perhaps Norway).
It's happened where there is lots of immigration. And it's happened where there's been essentially none.
And it is the result of three interconnecting factors.
Firstly, dependency ratios. In the 60s, 70s and 80s, people were having fewer children, and there weren't many old people. The amount of 'work' that was spent on the retired and kids was diminishing. This was combined with women spending more time in work, which meant economic output only went in one direction.
Secondly, from the mid 1970s and the oil shock, the cost of commodities went into long-term decline, driven by a combination of increased efficiency and new resources (often in the developed world). The amount of money spent on heating homes and powering cars kept on going down, leaving more money for other things.
Thirdly, the developed world first had a monopoly on making things, particularly expensive things. The developing world shipped commodities to Europe, the US and Japan, who made those commodities into expensive goods. And people in the developed world were rich, and people in the developing world were poor.
Then each of those boosts became a drag.
Demographics turned negative, as the number of old people grew relative to the number of workers. Every year, more money had to be taken out of workers paychecks to pay for the pensions and healthcare of old people.
Commodities got expensive, thanks to the developing world.. well.. developing. And wanting their fair share of coal and oil and gas and copper.
Governments in the late 1990s discovered that you could temporarily get out of the hole by borrowing and importing. It turns out
that selling an imported iPhone is economic activity! And that worked for a while.
But ultimately, we ceased to do anything useful at exactly the same time that demographics came to smack us around the head.
To make things worse, politicians in the West attempted to solve the demographic issues with migration. Birth rate of 1.2? Population pyramid inverted? Simply import more people. Which led to a breakdown in social cohesion and more expensive housing. Not least because too many of our leaders thought it better to hide the issues in front of us.
Candidly, we need politicians who can tell us the truth.
The problem, as South America has shown over the last seventy years, is that we don't want to hear the truth. Nobody gets elected by actual identification of the issues.
They get elected by whispering the most seductive words in the English language: "it's not your fault".
However I find nothing to disagree with you in your comment, and reforms deportation policy as it stands is something thst makes me less inclined to vote for them,
Should also add cost of living. Relentless.
And if inflation seriously took off again - as in 1970s - then your fears of what comes slouching towards Bethlehem after Farage are well founded.
So those blessed with vast mineral wealth? Clearly not the only factor - or places like Democratic Republic of Congo and Colombia would be in that list.
"They get elected by whispering the most seductive words in the English language: "it's not your fault". "
Even more seductive - and dangerous - are "It's his." That is where the danger lies when the Reforms of this world fail.
A very well-made point.
Interestingly the study I linked to seems to suggest that while the EU regen funding to the most deprived areas could lift them to the level where they were no longer in the most deprived category, when they then lost that funding they declined again. The regeneration doesn't stick, so either the regeneration needs to be an even higher level, for longer, or there's some other underlying issue. Clearly continuing funding to a region once it is less deprived than other regions is politically difficult (unless you're the Conservatives funding Tunbridge Wells etc).
Sunak admission https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-62436193
https://x.com/bphillipsonmp/status/2049467614229835814
Rupert Lowe is no supporter of women. His track record speaks for itself.
Only Labour will tackle violence against women and girls.
If after the poisonings, murders and the invasion of Ukraine, if someone stabbed some Russians for being Russian, would it be the fault of the
- racist stabbers
- the Russian Government
?
(Incidentally, I think Mark Gatiss, who cropped up in the previous thread, comes from Newton Aycliffe ?)
Yes the 2008 Crash and Covid impact still affects but it is easing and the rising price of fuel after the Iran strikes is Trump's fault not that of the UK government. Even net immigration is now falling thanks to tighter measures on visas brought in by the Sunak government. AI could be a worry or a great benefit, too early to tell.
As for the mainstream parties being 'swept aside' next week, a bit presumptious. Reform will undoubtedly win most seats and votes next Thursday but I expect Labour and the Conservatives to still come second and third. The LDs will still do better locally than nationally but face falling behind the Greens who will take votes in big cities and university towns from Labour but little in the county councils and ex industrial and a few market towns voting next week.
I never remember so many incidents pre both the Gaza and Iran wars . Of course anytime anyone mentions this they get paraded as anti-Semitic .
The media are now so terrified to even discuss this .
Attributing the rise in attacks due to the situation in the Middle East isn’t justifying violence it’s simply stating the bleeding obvious !
Labour can't blame the Tories for that.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4BlXzB8E8h4
I wonder what the planned increase in Britain's defence budget is?
Africa can be such a clash of styles....
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/2049502307587432791
Gorilla permits are severely limited and cost $1500 a day per per person - for an hour with the gorillas - but they’re still very popular, so you have to book a year ahead. Akegawa is genuinely superb in its wildlife quality. Today I saw lions fighting buffalo and rhinos grumbling at waterbuck, zebras, giraffe, hyenas, impala, warthogs
Nonetheless you can do the whole trip for about £30,000 a head or even less, so it’s excellent value
The old are using their democratic clout to hammer the young through the cost of education; the cost of housing; and the burden of tax. Will they give up their many benefits and allowances - only from their cold dead hands.
Always the question that if you fell in, could you swim faster than a croc with or without the jacket (as debated by someone who didn't want to wear one on a Tanzanian lake).
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c14548m75vlo
A man has been arrested on suspicion of arson with intent to endanger life after a fire at a packed-out LGBT+ nightclub.
That's actually a bit higher than I thought.
I’ve worked very very hard all my adult life. And I’ve had a modestly successful career.
But my parents had waaaay more fun than I did and were relatively speaking a lot better off than I have been
The challenge is the fact that the old paid off those before them and didn’t save enough for themselves. So there is going to be an element of transfer payments - unfair though that might seem - but is disproportionate at the moment
And the same for the Starmer arson stuff and the Jewish ambulances as well.
The optimal solution is probably to reinforce success in the big cities (which for Britain means massive investment in transport infrastructure to link the Liverpool-Manchester-Sheffield-Leeds area) and then manage the depopulation of most towns gracefully.
The towns only grew because people moved to them for work. If the work is no longer there then let people move to where the work is, and let the towns shrink to a more sustainable size.
On a broader point, the characteristics of those carrying out attacks on Jews and synagogues are rather different to those protesting in the street. The problem here is murderous Islamist psychos*, not middle class sandal wearers making a fuss about Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
*I think there is a chance some of the arsonists are just some stupid kids making a quick buck off the IRGC via TikTok.
The IRGC previously attempted to recruit UK people to carry out attacks on this basis - see the Siege of Chiswick Park.
He did not seem impressed
It won’t last.
Come back and tell me how wrong I was at the next election. But right now I am calling this as the “beginning of the end”.
Just like Ali Disaster Area claiming racial persecution by the Met, didn’t invalidate all other claims of racism by the Met.
Andy Burnham says Labour must take a “different course” after the local elections. He declines to back Keir Starmer staying on, signals he’ll make another run for Parliament and argues defence spending should be taken out of the fiscal rules to fund a rise through borrowing.
“It’s got to be a moment of reflection,” Burnham says in a Bloomberg interview today, warning the results will be “challenging.” He says in the aftermath it means “starting to now pull through on a different course.”
“I understand the real frustration people have got with politics and politicians. I honestly, I really understand that. And they’re right to say politics just hasn’t been working,” the Greater Manchester Mayor tells @flacqua.
Burnham makes clear he intends to run again for Parliament.
“The politics we’ve pioneered as mayors: place first, not party first — that needs to go national, and so we do need to reform Westminster. I can’t remove the kind of feeling that someday I will try and go back. I’m not ruling it out.”
Asked if Starmer should stay after May 7, Burnham declines to answer. Instead he says the PM deserves more “credit” for the job he’s done.
And he suggests defence spending should be taken out of the fiscal rules in what would be a major change to UK policy to fund an increase in defence spending through borrowing.
While he suggests the fiscal rules “will stay in any context,” he says “there’s certainly a case, when we look at the pressure on defence spending, to consider that exceptionally outside of the rules.”
Get on with it.