Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
I meant in the context of demos tbh. Don't get me wrong, he's had a "colourful" history in the courts, but as far as I can see he's never been nicked for incitement or similar.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
WRT the header, Is Burnham really in the lead for next Labour leader/next PM?
William Hills quote thus: Next Labour Leader: Rayner 15/8, Burnham 11/4. Next PM: Rayner 9/4, Burnham 7/2.
If there is value I suggest Cooper, 14/1 for next Labour leader. You never know, there might be an outbreak of sanity.
Cooper is 25-1 on Betfair (next PM).
Burnham 4.2 Rayner 4.7 Streeting 8.2 Farage 13.5 Miliband 17 Cooper 26 Mahmood 27 Bar 34
The thing is... Cooper's not very good.
She's like a female Starmer. She lacks the ability to foresee if something is a good or a bad idea, or if it is likely to be electoral poison.
She might not *quite* be as tone deaf as him (albeit he's right up there with Yoko Ono), so she might be a slight improvement. But what has she achieved in almost 30 years in partlament?
Cooper is exactly the sort of figure who could just get the crown by default if the other prospective candidates damage themselves. I think she’d be a mistake, because although she never comes across that badly her record in government is decidedly underwhelming, and doesn’t suggest any great political talent. It’s all a bit pound shop Theresa May, and May herself struggled with the office.
I think only people who know about Millom and have spent time here should be PM.
Oh @algarkirk the hub of the place is not the train station - though its museum and cafe are nice. There is a very good cafe in town with excellent coffee and cakes and a new tea and cake shop has opened and a gym. Plus two excellent seaside cafes on Silecroft and Haverigg beaches.
Anyway that puts me and my husband, planning barrister with intelligent thoughts about planning, local government and house building and also Chair of the Norman Nicholson Society, in pole position. Closely followed by @algarkirk.
We could probably create an intelligent and competent Cabinet from PB'ers, with Away Days in my garden.
I have. Fourth interesting fact. The oldest amateur Rugby League club in the world is Millom.
It also has a brilliant independent butcher.
There's a Millom in Warwickshire, Millom le Flos, which inspired George Eliot's famous novel...
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
WRT the header, Is Burnham really in the lead for next Labour leader/next PM?
William Hills quote thus: Next Labour Leader: Rayner 15/8, Burnham 11/4. Next PM: Rayner 9/4, Burnham 7/2.
If there is value I suggest Cooper, 14/1 for next Labour leader. You never know, there might be an outbreak of sanity.
Cooper is 25-1 on Betfair (next PM).
Burnham 4.2 Rayner 4.7 Streeting 8.2 Farage 13.5 Miliband 17 Cooper 26 Mahmood 27 Bar 34
The thing is... Cooper's not very good.
She's like a female Starmer. She lacks the ability to foresee if something is a good or a bad idea, or if it is likely to be electoral poison.
She might not *quite* be as tone deaf as him (albeit he's right up there with Yoko Ono), so she might be a slight improvement. But what has she achieved in almost 30 years in partlament?
Cooper is exactly the sort of figure who could just get the crown by default if the other prospective candidates damage themselves. I think she’d be a mistake, because although she never comes across that badly her record in government is decidedly underwhelming, and doesn’t suggest any great political talent. It’s all a bit pound shop Theresa May, and May herself struggled with the office.
Surely she would have the advantage over May that there wouldn't be an enormous ego, convinced that he should have the job, destablising her at every mom...
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
I know that you have good links into the party, but I am not so sure that Starmer is going to acquiesce that easily. He won a historic landslide less than two years ago. Why should he not be allowed the time to get Labour back on the front foot?
There’s not a chance he will PM for much longer. He will quit.
So you don't buy into the reports of his proposed relaunch at the end of this week?
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
So Starmer trailing way behind Davey and Polanski, even amongst those who voted for his party with him as leader only two years ago!
Don't kid me that Thursday's results are going to be anything other than catastrophic for Labour.
-2000 and counting councillors.
I think you're trying to manage expectations with the -2000 figure.
Anything over a thousand is very, very bad for Labour. I expect double that, and the loss of the Senedd to RefCon or Plaid with c and s from Labour.
Make no mistake it will be a bloodbath. The Conservatives will only lose a few hundred councillors. They will by comparison do OK. Big winner will be Nigey.
Simon French @Frencheconomics · 7m Another asymmetric movement higher in UK bond yields - speaks to the double jeopardy of events in the Gulf and (post election) political risk in the UK at the end of the week. Spread of UK 10-year Gilts over rG7 max up to 64bp - a new high.... Not a great look.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
We overstate the level of Joe Public’s political awareness and engagement to an absurd degree. I am obviously quite interested, and thought the locals were last Thursday! It seems crazy to attach too much importance to them, let alone sack leaders on the back of the results
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
I know that you have good links into the party, but I am not so sure that Starmer is going to acquiesce that easily. He won a historic landslide less than two years ago. Why should he not be allowed the time to get Labour back on the front foot?
There’s not a chance he will PM for much longer. He will quit.
Why not both? He could announce his resignation but carry on indefinitely as PM because Labour can't settle on a replacement.
WRT the header, Is Burnham really in the lead for next Labour leader/next PM?
William Hills quote thus: Next Labour Leader: Rayner 15/8, Burnham 11/4. Next PM: Rayner 9/4, Burnham 7/2.
If there is value I suggest Cooper, 14/1 for next Labour leader. You never know, there might be an outbreak of sanity.
Cooper is 25-1 on Betfair (next PM).
Burnham 4.2 Rayner 4.7 Streeting 8.2 Farage 13.5 Miliband 17 Cooper 26 Mahmood 27 Bar 34
The thing is... Cooper's not very good.
She's like a female Starmer. She lacks the ability to foresee if something is a good or a bad idea, or if it is likely to be electoral poison.
She might not *quite* be as tone deaf as him (albeit he's right up there with Yoko Ono), so she might be a slight improvement. But what has she achieved in almost 30 years in partlament?
She put out possibly the worst campaign leaflet in labour party leadership history: i.e. a picture of herself, a bit of little text, and the big word 'rubbish'. There was that.
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
I know that you have good links into the party, but I am not so sure that Starmer is going to acquiesce that easily. He won a historic landslide less than two years ago. Why should he not be allowed the time to get Labour back on the front foot?
There’s not a chance he will PM for much longer. He will quit.
So you don't buy into the reports of his proposed relaunch at the end of this week?
It is conceivable that he stays around longer after having announced his departure. But he will have to do that first.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
Or someone else...
Indeed: a Tesla robotaxi will (inevitably) kill a child at some point. It may well be that the accident is completely unavoidable, and no amount of LIDAR would have saved said kid. But it will inevitably result in a 'no autonomous taxis without LIDAR backlash'. (As an aside, Tesla also does some really dumb things; they have a setting on autopilot to let the car travel at dangerous speed. Yeah, I get it, it's funny. But it will undoubtedly be a PR nightmare when someone gets killed.)
WRT the header, Is Burnham really in the lead for next Labour leader/next PM?
William Hills quote thus: Next Labour Leader: Rayner 15/8, Burnham 11/4. Next PM: Rayner 9/4, Burnham 7/2.
If there is value I suggest Cooper, 14/1 for next Labour leader. You never know, there might be an outbreak of sanity.
Cooper is 25-1 on Betfair (next PM).
Burnham 4.2 Rayner 4.7 Streeting 8.2 Farage 13.5 Miliband 17 Cooper 26 Mahmood 27 Bar 34
The thing is... Cooper's not very good.
She's like a female Starmer. She lacks the ability to foresee if something is a good or a bad idea, or if it is likely to be electoral poison.
She might not *quite* be as tone deaf as him (albeit he's right up there with Yoko Ono), so she might be a slight improvement. But what has she achieved in almost 30 years in partlament?
She put out possibly the worst campaign leaflet in labour party leadership history: i.e. a picture of herself, a bit of little text, and the big word 'rubbish'. There was that.
So, you're saying she has self awareness? Well, I guess that's a step up from Starmer.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
If I hadn't made the Coronation Streeting gag a few days ago, I'd be doing so now.
I can't see it though. The soft left+ must have sufficient numbers to put someone up against Wes.
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
I know that you have good links into the party, but I am not so sure that Starmer is going to acquiesce that easily. He won a historic landslide less than two years ago. Why should he not be allowed the time to get Labour back on the front foot?
There’s not a chance he will PM for much longer. He will quit.
So you don't buy into the reports of his proposed relaunch at the end of this week?
It is conceivable that he stays around longer after having announced his departure. But he will have to do that first.
What was the timeframe for the sort-of-coup that sort-of forced Blair to stand down?
And how quickly can the Labour whips find a tame doctor to encourage (ahem) Starmer to retire on plausible health grounds?
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
Yes but apart from that?
I am always fascinated how he seemingly has had access to large amounts of money such that he had millions in property and not needed to work for 20+ years and this predates his successful social media "infleuncer" days where he span that into a very decent income.
He has UK fans. He has MAGA fans in the US. He's been accused of taking Russian money. He's taken Bibi's money.
I was talking about before MAGA or Rebel TV guy. Before that he was going gang busters on social media and milked donations. But even prior to that he seemed to have access to significant amounts of money.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
The greens have had adequate chances to disown her but haven’t.
It's not just what Polanski does now which is the issue. It's the fact that he has a deputy leader who has been advising those suspended or disciplined for anti-semitism to take legal action against the party. Polanski has said nothing about this either. Nor has he criticised that same deputy for calling a Jewish university chaplain "filth" and being totally unconcerned that the man and his wife, who received death and rape threats, had to go into hiding. Nor has he established any sort of effective vetting procedure for Green candidates. Who actually is in charge of this party?
It is hard to know whether this is a party which is utterly naive about the risks of infiltration by those who do not share its values but see it as a useful vehicle for their own anti-Jewish obsessions and hatred and are piggy-backing on genuine understandable sympathy for Gazans.
Or whether it is cynically and deliberately targeting such groups - and those like @Fairliered who think Jews should pass a political purity test to avoid getting stabbed - to get votes while pretending to be shocked when the nastiness of those it is attracting becomes public. It seems to be more embarrassed by the publicity than the vileness of the sentiments expressed.
Either way neither Polanski nor the Greens are fit to run anything in local government, as those voters who threw them out of power in Brighton Council in 2023 could have told you.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Do you think that the main reason the Tories aren’t doing well is because of Kemi Badenoch, not their previous record in government?
Both but this is the most unpopular government in history, why isn’t the principal opposition doing better.
The Tories were polling around 25% in October 2024 when she became leader the Tories ended up in the teens.
Because our politics have changed, voters are fed up of the two main parties, and populist movements on the left and right are eating their support.
I lay very little of that at Badenoch’s door (beyond her contribution to the last government, but that’s the case for most of the leading Tory figures). There are forces at play here far greater than one individual.
There are things I will readily concede about Badenoch - she is still rough around the edges. She sometimes lacks that killer political instinct. She should be bolder at forming and communicating an economic message and philosophy (if the Tories are to mount a serious challenge at the next GE, it will be the economic argument that will see them home). But I’m not convinced anyone else in the Tory Party would be doing substantially better right now, and the cons of removing her far outweigh the pros, in my view. She needs more time.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
I meant in the context of demos tbh. Don't get me wrong, he's had a "colourful" history in the courts, but as far as I can see he's never been nicked for incitement or similar.
You don't think libelling a Syrian child, a refugee, falsely accusing him of attacking 'English girls' is incitement in the current climate regarding refugees?
Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
I meant in the context of demos tbh. Don't get me wrong, he's had a "colourful" history in the courts, but as far as I can see he's never been nicked for incitement or similar.
I think you've missed at last two deportations for entering countries illegally.
Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
I meant in the context of demos tbh. Don't get me wrong, he's had a "colourful" history in the courts, but as far as I can see he's never been nicked for incitement or similar.
2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour - that was at a mass gathering akin to a demo.
2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration - so he can’t obey the rules in the context of a demo
2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich - i.e. an illegal demo
2024: investigation into whether he incited the Southport riots
We overstate the level of Joe Public’s political awareness and engagement to an absurd degree. I am obviously quite interested, and thought the locals were last Thursday! It seems crazy to attach too much importance to them, let alone sack leaders on the back of the results
Especially as, in large swathes of the country, there are no elections this week.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
I leave that to United to show Liverpool how to play the ball !!!!!!
Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
Yes but apart from that?
I am always fascinated how he seemingly has had access to large amounts of money such that he had millions in property and not needed to work for 20+ years and this predates his successful social media "infleuncer" days where he span that into a very decent income.
He has UK fans. He has MAGA fans in the US. He's been accused of taking Russian money. He's taken Bibi's money.
I was talking about before MAGA or Rebel TV guy. Before that he was going gang busters on social media and milked donations. But even prior to that he seemed to have access to significant amounts of money.
English Defence League donations?
The mortgage fraud was of the order of half a million aiui, and the property portfolio of 5 or so rentals.
I'm not sure about where donations come from apart from Elon Musk paying legal fees. Not am I aware of the scale of merchandising income.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
I leave that to United to show Liverpool how to play the ball !!!!!!
And the hand too because you cannot win a rational argument.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
I leave that to United to show Liverpool how to play the ball !!!!!!
And the hand too because you cannot win a rational argument.
If you read the thread more than I disagree with you on Kemi and it is growing
WRT the header, Is Burnham really in the lead for next Labour leader/next PM?
William Hills quote thus: Next Labour Leader: Rayner 15/8, Burnham 11/4. Next PM: Rayner 9/4, Burnham 7/2.
If there is value I suggest Cooper, 14/1 for next Labour leader. You never know, there might be an outbreak of sanity.
Cooper is 25-1 on Betfair (next PM).
Burnham 4.2 Rayner 4.7 Streeting 8.2 Farage 13.5 Miliband 17 Cooper 26 Mahmood 27 Bar 34
The thing is... Cooper's not very good.
She's like a female Starmer. She lacks the ability to foresee if something is a good or a bad idea, or if it is likely to be electoral poison.
She might not *quite* be as tone deaf as him (albeit he's right up there with Yoko Ono), so she might be a slight improvement. But what has she achieved in almost 30 years in partlament?
She put out possibly the worst campaign leaflet in labour party leadership history: i.e. a picture of herself, a bit of little text, and the big word 'rubbish'. There was that.
Well it was still a leaflet that got her third place
In a way she is Starmeresque- but in a good way, in that she has a very broad hinterland, which is a great deal more than can be said for Wes Streeting whose ambition is limitless, but whose entire life has been politics.
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
I know that you have good links into the party, but I am not so sure that Starmer is going to acquiesce that easily. He won a historic landslide less than two years ago. Why should he not be allowed the time to get Labour back on the front foot?
There’s not a chance he will PM for much longer. He will quit.
So you don't buy into the reports of his proposed relaunch at the end of this week?
Is says Bessent berated Reeves for her criticism of this stupid war, and Reeves stood her ground and told him to piss off, in slightly more polite words.
Not sure how the exchange is meant to reflect badly on Reeves, as reported.
Lots of seats in play at this election, some, like Edinburgh Northern, and Edinburgh North Eastern it isn't clear who the main challenger is (prob Lib Dem in the former and Lab/Green in the latter)
Voters in Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith have the choice of Green candidate Kate Nevens, who has advocated for the abolition of prisons
There is a very faint murmur of a modest Tory revival as we get closer to polling day, but it looks far too late in the campaign to do serious damage to Reform. Speaking of Reform, a lot of their hopeful MSPs appear to be classic paper candidates. I think a number of them are going to get a fair shock this weekend when they are elected to Holyrood via the list. I've seen evidence that some in some seats the Reform candidate has a decent social media profile, and in others, you wouldn't even know they had a candidate standing.
One thing that hasn't really been touched on is the likelihood for Reform to scoop up more votes than expected in working class areas from ex SNP voters. We generally think of Reform as hoovering up almost exclusively previous Labour and Tory voters, it will be interesting to see where they poll the strongest. Generally speaking, areas where the Greens are strong (Edinburgh), Reform are weak, and vice versa
In the Highlands, if the SNP do lose a few seats, then they could score 1 or 2 replacements via the list. Outside of that, the only other area the SNP realistically have a chance to get a list seat is South, and maybe Edinburgh if they lost Central, Northern and East Lothian Coast.
As ridiculous as it sounds, Labour could win 0 constituencies on Thursday if their vote is spread too thinly. They polled 21.5% in the constituencies in 2021, and are currently polling between 17 and 20%. They should at least win Edinburgh Southern but that depends heavily on continued Tory tactical voting
Rural areas are looking by far the trickiest for the SNP, in part due to the weakness of Labour in the central belt. The Lib Dems are coming back into play in their former heartlands, and should regain some list seats too
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
Or someone else...
Indeed: a Tesla robotaxi will (inevitably) kill a child at some point. It may well be that the accident is completely unavoidable, and no amount of LIDAR would have saved said kid. But it will inevitably result in a 'no autonomous taxis without LIDAR backlash'. (As an aside, Tesla also does some really dumb things; they have a setting on autopilot to let the car travel at dangerous speed. Yeah, I get it, it's funny. But it will undoubtedly be a PR nightmare when someone gets killed.)
I think the arrogance of the companies is going to be a problem. Look at Waymo’s reaction to criticism of them parking in cycle lanes.
for the upcoming Holyrood adventure, I've been doing some deep dive analysis of polling/MRP, odds tracking, reporting analysis and so on to produce a region by region breakdown giving (for each constituency): Constituency, Current MSP/successor, Boundary inheritance, 2021 notional, Best placed challenger, YouGov MRP signal, Rating.
I can format each region into tables and paste here if there is an appetite for it, I don't want to spam if not.
On the back of the data I've also stuck my neck out and forecast the following:
SNP largest but short of a majority; Reform narrowly second; Labour dependent entirely on list seats. SNP + Green majority.
SNP - 60 Ref - 21 Lab - 15 Con - 13 Grn - 10 LD - 10
Based on purely on a vibes:
SNP - 56 Ref - 25 Lab - 15 Con - 13 Grn - 15 LD - 5
I think the Greens will do better than suggested - maybe around 15 seats. Reform will get more than 20, with perhaps 4 in Central and W Lothian, but NE and Highlands really difficult to know (3 in each would be remarkable). The Lib Dems on 10 feels unrealistic to me.
If you’re Streeting then I see very little to lose by mounting a challenge after the locals, if he genuinely does have the 81 MP support (that’s a big if, IMHO. Even if he thinks he has the numbers now, that can change if there’s a big rally round the leader effort).
Waiting doesn’t suit him. Waiting allows Burnham to get back into Parliament and Rayner to get the HMRC stuff resolved. If we are going to see a challenge from Streeting, surely we will see it in the coming days.
At risk of being a broken record, if Starmer chooses not to fight any contest, look for who the party might see as a unifying safe pair of hands to enter the contest at that point.
Streeting has a very good chance IMO.
I still think a coronation that doesn’t go to the membership is likely.
I know that you have good links into the party, but I am not so sure that Starmer is going to acquiesce that easily. He won a historic landslide less than two years ago. Why should he not be allowed the time to get Labour back on the front foot?
There’s not a chance he will PM for much longer. He will quit.
So you don't buy into the reports of his proposed relaunch at the end of this week?
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
TSE just hates black women who happen to be Tories.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
Or someone else...
Indeed: a Tesla robotaxi will (inevitably) kill a child at some point. It may well be that the accident is completely unavoidable, and no amount of LIDAR would have saved said kid. But it will inevitably result in a 'no autonomous taxis without LIDAR backlash'. (As an aside, Tesla also does some really dumb things; they have a setting on autopilot to let the car travel at dangerous speed. Yeah, I get it, it's funny. But it will undoubtedly be a PR nightmare when someone gets killed.)
I think the arrogance of the companies is going to be a problem. Look at Waymo’s reaction to criticism of them parking in cycle lanes.
Move fast and break things doesn't work when the things you're breaking are humans.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
Not sure I agree with this. The 5 parties today were around in 2022, notwithstandjng reform/Brexit. Saying there were only 3 main parties is covering up the fact of the 2 main parties both doing a lot worse.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
TSE just hates black women who happen to be Tories.
On a serious note - Badenoch consistently polls above the Conservative Party.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
TSE just hates black women who happen to be Tories.
I remember the good old days when leader ratings were considered as important an indicator as VI.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
TSE just hates black women who happen to be Tories.
I remember the good old days when leader ratings were considered as important an indicator as VI.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
Not sure I agree with this. The 5 parties today were around in 2022, notwithstandjng reform/Brexit. Saying there were only 3 main parties is covering up the fact of the 2 main parties both doing a lot worse.
Well you're not making an unreasonable point, but there's a bit of chicken and egg here - is it Ref and Green doing better or Lab and Con doing worse? Perhaps a bit of each. But it becomes a little self-fulfilling - once Ref and Green are big enough to be realistic alternatives, that in itself draws voters away from the big parties. Most of the Lab amd Con vote in the past has been 'best party to beat the other big party' - that is no longer necessarily the case. And this is not just a UK phenomenon.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
Or someone else...
Indeed: a Tesla robotaxi will (inevitably) kill a child at some point. It may well be that the accident is completely unavoidable, and no amount of LIDAR would have saved said kid. But it will inevitably result in a 'no autonomous taxis without LIDAR backlash'. (As an aside, Tesla also does some really dumb things; they have a setting on autopilot to let the car travel at dangerous speed. Yeah, I get it, it's funny. But it will undoubtedly be a PR nightmare when someone gets killed.)
I think the arrogance of the companies is going to be a problem. Look at Waymo’s reaction to criticism of them parking in cycle lanes.
Move fast and break things doesn't work when the things you're breaking are humans.
Waymo have consistently taken a very cautious, conservative approach to their rollouts. Limited areas at first, very restricted driving, lots of publicly available data at each step.
The comments on cycle lanes are actually very unlike the rest of their behaviour to date.
FPT Just to make clear I thought the residents of Millom showed remarkable common sense in the naming of their leisure centre. Anything else would just have been plain silly.
for the upcoming Holyrood adventure, I've been doing some deep dive analysis of polling/MRP, odds tracking, reporting analysis and so on to produce a region by region breakdown giving (for each constituency): Constituency, Current MSP/successor, Boundary inheritance, 2021 notional, Best placed challenger, YouGov MRP signal, Rating.
I can format each region into tables and paste here if there is an appetite for it, I don't want to spam if not.
On the back of the data I've also stuck my neck out and forecast the following:
SNP largest but short of a majority; Reform narrowly second; Labour dependent entirely on list seats. SNP + Green majority.
SNP - 60 Ref - 21 Lab - 15 Con - 13 Grn - 10 LD - 10
Based on purely on a vibes:
SNP - 56 Ref - 25 Lab - 15 Con - 13 Grn - 15 LD - 5
I think the Greens will do better than suggested - maybe around 15 seats. Reform will get more than 20, with perhaps 4 in Central and W Lothian, but NE and Highlands really difficult to know (3 in each would be remarkable). The Lib Dems on 10 feels unrealistic to me.
Low turnout = challenger parties do well.
5 feels a little low for the LDs. Even after boundary changes they should hold 4 constituency seats, with a reasonable chance of picking up either Caithness or Edinburgh Northern.
And I would expect 1 or 2 list seats this time around, simply because of more fragmentation.
I think 7 is probably their most likely outcome, albeit it's hard to see how they could get more.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
Or someone else...
Indeed: a Tesla robotaxi will (inevitably) kill a child at some point. It may well be that the accident is completely unavoidable, and no amount of LIDAR would have saved said kid. But it will inevitably result in a 'no autonomous taxis without LIDAR backlash'. (As an aside, Tesla also does some really dumb things; they have a setting on autopilot to let the car travel at dangerous speed. Yeah, I get it, it's funny. But it will undoubtedly be a PR nightmare when someone gets killed.)
I think the arrogance of the companies is going to be a problem. Look at Waymo’s reaction to criticism of them parking in cycle lanes.
We (as in my insurance company) deal with them all the time. I have a pretty positve view of Waymo, because they pay their claims in a timely fashion.
(Their claims, by the way, are almost entirely due to them pulling up alongside parked cars, telling the riders they can get out, and not realising that the gap between the door and the parked car is relatively small.)
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
She’s got a great deal to be negative about.
The trend is her friend.
Needs more time. Will the party collapse in panic when Reform easily eclipses them on Thursday, or hold on for the long haul?
Oh Kemi, defending Tommy Robinson is not a good look, there’s a reason why even Farage avoids him like the plague.
"There is something very specific happening to Jewish communities”
Conservative leader Kemi Badenoch says she supports a moratorium on pro-Palestinian marches but not for the march led by far-right activist Tommy Robinson later this month
If you’re going to ban one then you ban the other aswell .
What's Robinson done that's actually illegal, other than the contempt of court stuff? I grant you he's good at dog-whistling to thugs, but I think he's fairly careful not to do anything that would get him nicked for incitement.
The issue with the pro-Palestinian marches is that there's been a lot of stuff which crosses that line, and the plod don't seem very interested in doing anything about it.
What's Robinson done that's illegal? This is stuff he's been found guilty of in court, unless otherwise specified.
2003: assaulted a police officer 2011: threatening, abusive or insulting behaviour ("Robinson reportedly led the group of Luton fans and played an integral part in starting a 100-man brawl, during which he chanted, "EDL till I die."") 2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration 2011: assault (of another EDL member) 2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich 2012: use of a false passport 2012: mortgage fraud 2017: contempt of court (filming and posting about an ongoing trial) 2018: another contempt of court 2018: libelled a Syrian refugee child 2020: arrested for breaking COVID-19 lockdown rules (unclear if this led to a fine, charge or what) 2021: stalking a journalist 2022: fined for failing to appear in court over proceedings related to his declaring bankruptcy in 2021 2024: investigation started into Robinson's alleged role in inciting the Southport riots - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: investigation started into his tax affairs - still ongoing AFAIK 2024: contempt of court (repeating the 2018 libel) 2024: harrassing two more journalists: charged in 2025, trial due later this year
Yes but apart from that?
I am always fascinated how he seemingly has had access to large amounts of money such that he had millions in property and not needed to work for 20+ years and this predates his successful social media "infleuncer" days where he span that into a very decent income.
He has UK fans. He has MAGA fans in the US. He's been accused of taking Russian money. He's taken Bibi's money.
I was talking about before MAGA or Rebel TV guy. Before that he was going gang busters on social media and milked donations. But even prior to that he seemed to have access to significant amounts of money.
English Defence League donations?
The mortgage fraud was of the order of half a million aiui, and the property portfolio of 5 or so rentals.
I'm not sure about where donations come from apart from Elon Musk paying legal fees. Not am I aware of the scale of merchandising income.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
She’s got a great deal to be negative about.
The trend is her friend.
Needs more time. Will the party collapse in panic when Reform easily eclipses them on Thursday, or hold on for the long haul?
I mentioned on here a few weeks ago from some reliable sources whilst if there was a VONC she’d lose it but there’s no appetite for one.
She might persuade them if she tries to pass off a poor night as a good result.
The current state of the parliamentary party is demoralised, some Tory MPs don’t fancy winning the next election because in the words of one of them we’d have to force feed the electorate the shittest of shit sandwiches in government.
A bit clickbaity. Angela Rayner has published a video of her school visit telling children about Nigel Farage and the NHS.
The Education Act outlaws ‘political indoctrination’ and the Online Safety Act says platforms should remove online misinformation, albeit with a carve-out for politicians.
UK and EU regulators have totally screwed the car manufacturing business. It’s all going to be either Tesla or China very quickly.
It won’t be Tesla, Tesla don’t want to make cars anymore - he wants to make robots (either taxis or just robots).
They’re doing private sales of the taxis, at $30k for a car that will pick you up from the pub.
The reality is that regulation is not going to be kind to Tesla robotaxis. Regulators demand zero mistakes from machines, in a way they don't from human beings, and the lack of Lidar is going to kill them.
Or someone else...
Indeed: a Tesla robotaxi will (inevitably) kill a child at some point. It may well be that the accident is completely unavoidable, and no amount of LIDAR would have saved said kid. But it will inevitably result in a 'no autonomous taxis without LIDAR backlash'. (As an aside, Tesla also does some really dumb things; they have a setting on autopilot to let the car travel at dangerous speed. Yeah, I get it, it's funny. But it will undoubtedly be a PR nightmare when someone gets killed.)
I think the arrogance of the companies is going to be a problem. Look at Waymo’s reaction to criticism of them parking in cycle lanes.
Move fast and break things doesn't work when the things you're breaking are humans.
Waymo have consistently taken a very cautious, conservative approach to their rollouts. Limited areas at first, very restricted driving, lots of publicly available data at each step.
The comments on cycle lanes are actually very unlike the rest of their behaviour to date.
Fair enough - but it shows how just one mistep can alter a perception.
Also quite appalled at how Tesla refuses to release data when of their leased cars are caught speeding, or telemetry after a fatal collision. The incentives are misaligned and they are much more concerned with cover up than anything else.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
TSE just hates black women who happen to be Tories.
Eh ... As someone who self-describes as not a Kemi fan, you seem well off target. She has no track record of achievement outside of parliament. She managed to achieve her lofty position of captain(ess) of a sinking ship as the lesser of two evils.
🔴Labour (-31) and Starmer (-37) both deeply negative. 🔵Badenoch (-6) continues to outperform the Conservatives (-15), though the gap has narrowed slightly. 🔼This is the Conservative party’s strongest brand score since before Partygate.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
She’s got a great deal to be negative about.
The trend is her friend.
Needs more time. Will the party collapse in panic when Reform easily eclipses them on Thursday, or hold on for the long haul?
I mentioned on here a few weeks ago from some reliable sources whilst if there was a VONC she’d lose it but there’s no appetite for one.
She might persuade them if she tries to pass off a poor night as a good result.
The current state of the parliamentary party is demoralised, some Tory MPs don’t fancy winning the next election because in the words of one of them we’d have to force feed the electorate the shittest of shit sandwiches in government.
It's a miracle she's doing so well with a party that would prefer the easy option of opposition.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
She’s got a great deal to be negative about.
The trend is her friend.
Needs more time. Will the party collapse in panic when Reform easily eclipses them on Thursday, or hold on for the long haul?
I mentioned on here a few weeks ago from some reliable sources whilst if there was a VONC she’d lose it but there’s no appetite for one.
She might persuade them if she tries to pass off a poor night as a good result.
The current state of the parliamentary party is demoralised, some Tory MPs don’t fancy winning the next election because in the words of one of them we’d have to force feed the electorate the shittest of shit sandwiches in government.
Given the hate Rachel and Keir have got for tentatively serving up an hors d'oeuvre de merde, that's sort of understandable. But it's the flip side of all those Labour MPs sulking because they don't want to cut things.
If we're not prepared as a country to let governments do unpleasant things for the national good, we are heading for much more than a sandwich of shit.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
She’s got a great deal to be negative about.
The trend is her friend.
Needs more time. Will the party collapse in panic when Reform easily eclipses them on Thursday, or hold on for the long haul?
I mentioned on here a few weeks ago from some reliable sources whilst if there was a VONC she’d lose it but there’s no appetite for one.
She might persuade them if she tries to pass off a poor night as a good result.
The current state of the parliamentary party is demoralised, some Tory MPs don’t fancy winning the next election because in the words of one of them we’d have to force feed the electorate the shittest of shit sandwiches in government.
It's a miracle she's doing so well with a party that would prefer the easy option of opposition.
Some Tory MPs doesn’t mean anything close to a majority.
What also depressed the bejesus out of them was not so much her gung ho comments over Iran was her attempts to deny ever saying such things.
Doing a Starmer and blaming her staff isn’t helping either.
A bit clickbaity. Angela Rayner has published a video of her school visit telling children about Nigel Farage and the NHS.
The Education Act outlaws ‘political indoctrination’ and the Online Safety Act says platforms should remove online misinformation, albeit with a carve-out for politicians.
I think what she said was perfectly acceptable. The student brought up Farage and she was just responding .
So according to the pearl clutching barrister she’s not allowed to answer the question.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
This POV gets trotted out from time to time and I think it's madness. There were only three main parties in 2022. In those circumstances you're not going to be making net gains. It's totally unrealistic. The world is totally different. It's like comparing stats with 1970 or 1951.
So in this new world what electoral benchmarks would you judge her by?
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
TSE just hates black women who happen to be Tories.
Eh ... As someone who self-describes as not a Kemi fan, you seem well off target. She has no track record of achievement outside of parliament. She managed to achieve her lofty position of captain(ess) of a sinking ship as the lesser of two evils.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
But if the Polanski song of the Greens, Your Party, Corbyn and Sultana all sink without a trace, where does that hard left vote go? Is it going to coalesce around a Burnham-led Labour Party? Seems unlikely now.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
But if the Polanski song of the Greens, Your Party, Corbyn and Sultana all sink without a trace, where does that hard left vote go? Is it going to coalesce around a Burnham-led Labour Party? Seems unlikely now.
The non-party party of Gaza independents could keep on growing.
That's beginning to smell like a bit more than just a press hatchet job, but a pattern of unserious behaviour. I appreciate that the press ARE indeed out to get him, but as the Golders Green comments demonstrate pretty clearly, there is also a lot less to him than meets the eye.
A bit clickbaity. Angela Rayner has published a video of her school visit telling children about Nigel Farage and the NHS.
The Education Act outlaws ‘political indoctrination’ and the Online Safety Act says platforms should remove online misinformation, albeit with a carve-out for politicians.
I think what she said was perfectly acceptable. The student brought up Farage and she was just responding .
So according to the pearl clutching barrister she’s not allowed to answer the question.
Fxck him and his faux outrage !
There's a whole underclass of lawyers it seems who simply abuse the legal system for their own ends.
It really undermines my view of lawyers. And thus records are set!
That's beginning to smell like a bit more than just a press hatchet job, but a pattern of unserious behaviour. I appreciate that the press ARE indeed out to get him, but as the Golders Green comments demonstrate pretty clearly, there is also a lot less to him than meets the eye.
He claimed to make women's breasts grow if he did something or other. What more evidence do you need?
Recent developments inside Russia suggest the system is struggling to cope with mounting pressures. These include growing domestic strains, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring among elites, rumours of a coup d’état, a tighter and more reactive grip on control, fears of losing that control, and increasing exposure to Ukrainian strikes and assassinations. All this is unfolding against a worsening external backdrop: a destabilised Middle East and stalemate over Iran, a distracted Trump, and a more militarised (including nuclear-oriented) Europe.
For the first time in years of war, there may be a shift.
That's beginning to smell like a bit more than just a press hatchet job, but a pattern of unserious behaviour. I appreciate that the press ARE indeed out to get him, but as the Golders Green comments demonstrate pretty clearly, there is also a lot less to him than meets the eye.
I mean, yes, but also some of us have been saying that for years. 😀
That's beginning to smell like a bit more than just a press hatchet job, but a pattern of unserious behaviour. I appreciate that the press ARE indeed out to get him, but as the Golders Green comments demonstrate pretty clearly, there is also a lot less to him than meets the eye.
He claimed to make women's breasts grow if he did something or other. What more evidence do you need?
A bit clickbaity. Angela Rayner has published a video of her school visit telling children about Nigel Farage and the NHS.
The Education Act outlaws ‘political indoctrination’ and the Online Safety Act says platforms should remove online misinformation, albeit with a carve-out for politicians.
I think what she said was perfectly acceptable. The student brought up Farage and she was just responding .
So according to the pearl clutching barrister she’s not allowed to answer the question.
Fxck him and his faux outrage !
There's a whole underclass of lawyers it seems who simply abuse the legal system for their own ends.
It really undermines my view of lawyers. And thus records are set!
It's more BBB. He went quite far right a year or two ago, and in particular obsessed about Starmer, and TV licences - amongst other things.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
People who have been in the Green Party five minutes are now attacking Caroline Lucas who was the lone MP and leader for years.
Unsurprising. Surges in support and membership pay no respect to those that came before.
What are they attacking her for? Boring on about the environment instead of Gaza?
The usual.
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
My very strong feeling is that the current Green surge (Polanski, hardish left, cult following from the hard core, pro Islamist vibe) is going to dissipate before the next election. Greenery will continue, as Labour did after Jezza, but not in the same mode. Lucas looking like an establishment moderate is a sign.
But if the Polanski song of the Greens, Your Party, Corbyn and Sultana all sink without a trace, where does that hard left vote go? Is it going to coalesce around a Burnham-led Labour Party? Seems unlikely now.
The non-party party of Gaza independents could keep on growing.
🔵Leads on 13 of 15 attributes 🔵Positive scores on principled (+2), decisive (+2) and competent (+2) 🔵 Weakest on looking like a PM (-17), though still ahead of rivals
So how many net gains do you expect Kemi's Tories to make on Thursday in the locals based on this polling?
It's not a fair comparison because you're measuring her against the greatest Tory election winner this century in Boris Johnson.
Err when these elections were fought in 2022 the Tories made a net loss of nearly 500 seats.
She should be making net gains,.
The brand is the issue, not the leader and she has gained support across the party and increasingly with the public
There are 3 years for her to recover the brand, and in that time Farage and Polanski have a mountain to climb to maintain their own support
Thursday will be judgement day on Starmer not Kemi Badenoch
You keep spinning that.
Kemi seems to trigger you for some reason, but the polling is consistent as is the trend for her which is the first requirement for her to lead a brand recovery
I see you’re playing the man and not the ball.
Maybe because you seem almost obsessively negative about her.
She’s got a great deal to be negative about.
The trend is her friend.
Needs more time. Will the party collapse in panic when Reform easily eclipses them on Thursday, or hold on for the long haul?
I mentioned on here a few weeks ago from some reliable sources whilst if there was a VONC she’d lose it but there’s no appetite for one.
She might persuade them if she tries to pass off a poor night as a good result.
The current state of the parliamentary party is demoralised, some Tory MPs don’t fancy winning the next election because in the words of one of them we’d have to force feed the electorate the shittest of shit sandwiches in government.
So Reform winning it will be Reform trying to fix things from a worsr position than 2010/24?
That's going to be fun to watch (which means I've 3 years to get abroad)..
That's beginning to smell like a bit more than just a press hatchet job, but a pattern of unserious behaviour. I appreciate that the press ARE indeed out to get him, but as the Golders Green comments demonstrate pretty clearly, there is also a lot less to him than meets the eye.
Under scrutiny Polanski is left wanting. I am sure the same will be true of Farage, but will he ever be put under the microscope?
Comments
... oh dear.
A good leader sets the agenda.
The Tories have gone backwards on her watch.
Make no mistake it will be a bloodbath. The Conservatives will only lose a few hundred councillors. They will by comparison do OK. Big winner will be Nigey.
@Frencheconomics
·
7m
Another asymmetric movement higher in UK bond yields - speaks to the double jeopardy of events in the Gulf and (post election) political risk in the UK at the end of the week. Spread of UK 10-year Gilts over rG7 max up to 64bp - a new high.... Not a great look.
https://x.com/Frencheconomics/status/2051688711394320630
The Tories were polling around 25% in October 2024 when she became leader the Tories ended up in the teens.
I can't see it though. The soft left+ must have sufficient numbers to put someone up against Wes.
And how quickly can the Labour whips find a tame doctor to encourage (ahem) Starmer to retire on plausible health grounds?
It is hard to know whether this is a party which is utterly naive about the risks of infiltration by those who do not share its values but see it as a useful vehicle for their own anti-Jewish obsessions and hatred and are piggy-backing on genuine understandable sympathy for Gazans.
Or whether it is cynically and deliberately targeting such groups - and those like @Fairliered who think Jews should pass a political purity test to avoid getting stabbed - to get votes while pretending to be shocked when the nastiness of those it is attracting becomes public. It seems to be more embarrassed by the publicity than the vileness of the sentiments expressed.
Either way neither Polanski nor the Greens are fit to run anything in local government, as those voters who threw them out of power in Brighton Council in 2023 could have told you.
I lay very little of that at Badenoch’s door (beyond her contribution to the last government, but that’s the case for most of the leading Tory figures). There are forces at play here far greater than one individual.
There are things I will readily concede about Badenoch - she is still rough around the edges. She sometimes lacks that killer political instinct. She should be bolder at forming and communicating an economic message and philosophy (if the Tories are to mount a serious challenge at the next GE, it will be the economic argument that will see them home). But I’m not convinced anyone else in the Tory Party would be doing substantially better right now, and the cons of removing her far outweigh the pros, in my view. She needs more time.
2011: re-arrested while on bail for breaking bail conditions by attending another English Defence League demonstration - so he can’t obey the rules in the context of a demo
2011: illegal protest on rooftop of the FIFA building in Zurich - i.e. an illegal demo
2024: investigation into whether he incited the Southport riots
I'm not sure about where donations come from apart from Elon Musk paying legal fees. Not am I aware of the scale of merchandising income.
In a way she is Starmeresque- but in a good way, in that she has a very broad hinterland, which is a great deal more than can be said for Wes Streeting whose ambition is limitless, but whose entire life has been politics.
https://x.com/FT/status/2051520244796043304
Reeves rowed with Bessent over Iran war criticism
Is says Bessent berated Reeves for her criticism of this stupid war, and Reeves stood her ground and told him to piss off, in slightly more polite words.
Not sure how the exchange is meant to reflect badly on Reeves, as reported.
Thankyou for all comments on this mornings thread
Lots of seats in play at this election, some, like Edinburgh Northern, and Edinburgh North Eastern it isn't clear who the main challenger is (prob Lib Dem in the former and Lab/Green in the latter)
Voters in Edinburgh North Eastern and Leith have the choice of Green candidate Kate Nevens, who has advocated for the abolition of prisons
There is a very faint murmur of a modest Tory revival as we get closer to polling day, but it looks far too late in the campaign to do serious damage to Reform. Speaking of Reform, a lot of their hopeful MSPs appear to be classic paper candidates. I think a number of them are going to get a fair shock this weekend when they are elected to Holyrood via the list. I've seen evidence that some in some seats the Reform candidate has a decent social media profile, and in others, you wouldn't even know they had a candidate standing.
One thing that hasn't really been touched on is the likelihood for Reform to scoop up more votes than expected in working class areas from ex SNP voters. We generally think of Reform as hoovering up almost exclusively previous Labour and Tory voters, it will be interesting to see where they poll the strongest. Generally speaking, areas where the Greens are strong (Edinburgh), Reform are weak, and vice versa
In the Highlands, if the SNP do lose a few seats, then they could score 1 or 2 replacements via the list. Outside of that, the only other area the SNP realistically have a chance to get a list seat is South, and maybe Edinburgh if they lost Central, Northern and East Lothian Coast.
As ridiculous as it sounds, Labour could win 0 constituencies on Thursday if their vote is spread too thinly. They polled 21.5% in the constituencies in 2021, and are currently polling between 17 and 20%. They should at least win Edinburgh Southern but that depends heavily on continued Tory tactical voting
Rural areas are looking by far the trickiest for the SNP, in part due to the weakness of Labour in the central belt. The Lib Dems are coming back into play in their former heartlands, and should regain some list seats too
SNP - 56
Ref - 25
Lab - 15
Con - 13
Grn - 15
LD - 5
I think the Greens will do better than suggested - maybe around 15 seats. Reform will get more than 20, with perhaps 4 in Central and W Lothian, but NE and Highlands really difficult to know (3 in each would be remarkable). The Lib Dems on 10 feels unrealistic to me.
Low turnout = challenger parties do well.
Starmer consistently polls below the Labour Party
The Green Party leader was also not a full member of the National Council of Hypnotherapy despite claiming to be to potential clients
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/politics/article/zack-polanski-british-red-cross-spokesman-zlc27s80l
The comments on cycle lanes are actually very unlike the rest of their behaviour to date.
https://x.com/treesey/status/2051666193992335696?s=61
https://x.com/treesey/status/2051666193992335696?s=61
And I would expect 1 or 2 list seats this time around, simply because of more fragmentation.
I think 7 is probably their most likely outcome, albeit it's hard to see how they could get more.
(Their claims, by the way, are almost entirely due to them pulling up alongside parked cars, telling the riders they can get out, and not realising that the gap between the door and the parked car is relatively small.)
She might persuade them if she tries to pass off a poor night as a good result.
The current state of the parliamentary party is demoralised, some Tory MPs don’t fancy winning the next election because in the words of one of them we’d have to force feed the electorate the shittest of shit sandwiches in government.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMScnkYCuEQ
Blackbelt barrister.
A bit clickbaity. Angela Rayner has published a video of her school visit telling children about Nigel Farage and the NHS.
The Education Act outlaws ‘political indoctrination’ and the Online Safety Act says platforms should remove online misinformation, albeit with a carve-out for politicians.
Also quite appalled at how Tesla refuses to release data when of their leased cars are caught speeding, or telemetry after a fatal collision. The incentives are misaligned and they are much more concerned with cover up than anything else.
Owen Jones
@owenjonesjourno
·
1h
Are you campaigning for the Green Party in the elections?
How much are the attacks cutting through on the doorstep?
Please DM me - obviously it's in confidence.
https://x.com/owenjonesjourno/status/2051694123816501724
===
"the attacks" !
Criticising the Great Leader. Or even expressing a view that they ought to do something different.
Same as we saw with Boris and Jeremy and are seeing with Nigel.
You can make a case for supporting any of them. But if you support anyone uncritically, you're a fool. Nobody is that good.
It's virtually a condition of membership more often than not.
Latest data on party vs leader brands:
🔴Labour (-31) and Starmer (-37) both deeply negative.
🔵Badenoch (-6) continues to outperform the Conservatives (-15), though the gap has narrowed slightly.
🔼This is the Conservative party’s strongest brand score since before Partygate.
https://x.com/opiniumresearch/status/2051693403969397043?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
If we're not prepared as a country to let governments do unpleasant things for the national good, we are heading for much more than a sandwich of shit.
What also depressed the bejesus out of them was not so much her gung ho comments over Iran was her attempts to deny ever saying such things.
Doing a Starmer and blaming her staff isn’t helping either.
So according to the pearl clutching barrister she’s not allowed to answer the question.
Fxck him and his faux outrage !
It really undermines my view of lawyers. And thus records are set!
Edit: (And not the obvious)
Tatiana Stanovaya
@Stanovaya
Something Is Shifting Inside Russia
Recent developments inside Russia suggest the system is struggling to cope with mounting pressures. These include growing domestic strains, behind-the-scenes manoeuvring among elites, rumours of a coup d’état, a tighter and more reactive grip on control, fears of losing that control, and increasing exposure to Ukrainian strikes and assassinations. All this is unfolding against a worsening external backdrop: a destabilised Middle East and stalemate over Iran, a distracted Trump, and a more militarised (including nuclear-oriented) Europe.
For the first time in years of war, there may be a shift.
https://x.com/Stanovaya/status/2051694196826743121
That's going to be fun to watch (which means I've 3 years to get abroad)..