If there a contest soon then is it Ed Miliband’s time? – politicalbetting.com
If there a contest soon then is it Ed Miliband’s time? – politicalbetting.com
Exc – MPs from Labour’s left are expected to urge Ed Miliband to consider a leadership bid in the coming daysIf Wes Streeting mounts a challenge then MPs say they would rather back Miliband than Rayner. Team Streeting deny anything is in motion.https://t.co/b0NSNvqrVV
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I'm on the other brother at 1000, can we get a groundswell behind him?
Lammy out of the running?
You can see from PB that so many people despise not just the Reform voters but these communities as a whole.
At least Reform talk to and listen to them. They may fail, they may not.
As a lapsed Conservative, it makes me quite nostalgic for the old days.
I think he was one of the if Sir Keir falls under a bus candidates.
One thing in his favour I was told after the bet is that nobody hates him, which isn't true of all the candidates.
Labour has never recovered in Scotland and, in fact, has declined further ever since. They are trending towards complete disappearance
Why should WWC in England and Wales go back to Labour? Labour are the party of London, and some BME voters. And parts of the public sector. That’s it
Labour will never offer policies that appeal to the WWC. So this means Labour are crippled forever
https://england.shelter.org.uk/housing_advice/benefits/benefits_for_under_35s_in_shared_housing
It is also not a party to the left Labour is losing most of its seats to, the Greens were a poor fifth on Thursday. It is Reform, a party of the right, who won most seats on Thursday and the centrist LDs and centre right Conservatives were third and fourth on seats won ahead
of the Greens
It would reveal not hide the fight.
Her instinct to force people to join the contest was bang on.
“The full New State Pension: £241.30/wk. Requires 35 qualifying years of NI.
The Pension Credit floor: £238/wk. Requires nothing.
UC claimants get Class 3 NI credits automatically. 35 years on UC = full state pension. Same as a 35-year career banker.”
Taking in other benefits, UC claimants of pensionable age - who may have contributed nothing - are much better off than Brits who paid NI for 35 years
Somewhere between 1.2m and 2.4m non Brits (ie born overseas) are on UC at the moment
https://x.com/greatbritishtt/status/2052650635456061877?s=46
And you wonder why Reform are prospering
They’re also used in Durham for student accomodation. Homes are bought in areas like Gilesgate and turned into HMOs.
Durham Councils approach is right.
I can understand support for Reform if you are only looking at part of the picture. Specifically I understand, though I disagree with it, the argument that says our problems stem from immigration and if only we would get a grip on immigration we'd be better off. I can entirely understand why many of the country would only look at part of the picture, and be convinced by the sentence above given that the alternatives offered by Labour and the Tories seem to have achieved nothing. I have a great deal of sympathy for the kinds of places Cookie mentioned in his visit to 'Reformland'.
However, to me this argument relies on a fundamental dehumanising view of immigrants. I don't in any way buy the 'all immigrants are basically 25 year old terrorists in waiting posing as 16 year old kids'. I start from the position that all humans have equal worth, and people do things for good reasons. So in my view, morally, immigrants are to be celebrated for their bravery in often defying horrendous odds to try to escape persecution, poverty etc and to better their lives and that of their families. This, to me, is the other part of the picture that I refer to above.
In my view the counterargument to this can only be an acceptance of failure. The argument would go: we should be strong, wealthy and generous enough to be able to accommodate significant immigration. However, because our political and economic system tends to make the least advantaged members of society deal with the brunt of immigration, and because we aren't willing to invest in the public services required to assimilate immigrants properly, the least worst option is to prevent them arriving. The argument 'they're safe in France' is a variant of this, in my view.
The only alternatives is can see to this is:
1. Unalloyed racism: Brits are more worthy of wealth and prosperity.
2. A (in my view up unjustifiable) commitment to nationalism: just because I was born on this side of the border I should get prosperity and those unfortunate enough to be on the other side shouldn't.
Is all of the above right? Or am I missing something? To be clear, I'm not asking the average voter to engage in this convoluted argument, but I am interested in those on who would seek to intellectually justify a Reform position.
@Leon given you seem to be up and about I'm particularly interested in your take. @Luckyguy1983 yours too. @taz I don't think you're a Reform supporter but I think I'm right that you have some sympathy for the immigration arguments.
There is much discussion on here of Con/Ref mergers and Grn/Lab mergers but to me the most obvious merger would be Con/Lab.
Effective 17th August 2026.
The policy change effectively makes them much harder.
https://www.durham.gov.uk/article/34149/News-New-Article-4-measures-confirmed-to-control-HMOs
She wants a woman to stand so Rayner chance ?
I was in a 5bed where the neighbouring house had been split into 7 "bedsits" and the landlord was charging up to 100% higher rent.
Starmer: no comment
Kemi: flagship wins hide poor national results
Davey: LibDems replaced as NOTA by Reform & Greens
Farage: £5 million
Polanski: houseboat, Red Cross and so on
Swinney: lost Holyrood majority
But I’ll give you the short brutal answer. Yes, I believe many of our problems (obvs not all) come from immigration legal and illegal. From the surging rape rates to new sectarian politics to the crippling benefits bill to the threat of terror to the pressure on housing and public services, and much much more (too much to go into)
Only one party seems to have the cullions to deal with this. Reform. The Tories have lost my trust after 14 years, especially after the Boriswave (for which Boris should go to jail)
That’s it
On terms of migration I don’t like their recently announced policy on asylum seekers. I do think people with no right to remain should be removed and we don’t do that anywhere near enough. Their policy is a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
I am in a part of Durham that did not elect a Reform councillor although the one I voted for defected.
I get tired of the argument this country/city was built on immigrants thst is perpetuated. I even argued that with the moron @JosiasJessop who assumed it was racist to object to that argument.
It totally devalues the contribution of the indigenous people. It was a team effort.
We have had mass inward migration of unskilled workers which harms, not helps, job prospects at the bottom of the chain.
However it is not just migration. The issue is job opportunities, deprived communities, left behind communities and Reform talks to these communities. Doesn’t say these problems are down to immigrants alone but down to the Uniparty approach that has neglected these communities.
Why should communities like Hartlepool and Bishop Auckland lose their young people to other parts of the country because there are no opportunities there.
I’m not convinced to go Reform but Labour have lost my vote.
Two trains of thought this morning; firstly why do so many claim to 'hate' Sir Keir? He's not the best, or most charismatic Prime Minister of my lifetime, far from it. But 'hate'? Mrs C and I just don't get it.
Secondly, Ed Miliband; slightly odd looking bloke I admit, and a strange accent, but it's got some good ideas and in Government over the past two years he's got on with them. His problem in 2015 was the rise of the SNP; if Labour had not lost so many seats in Scotland he'd have been PM.
And would have done a much better job than Cameron did.
I'm a party member but I don't particularly want a vote on it. I'll give it my best shot if it comes to it but I'd rather not have to.
IMO it's Labour MPs who are best placed to judge. It's a big risk going to the membership to choose a PM. Liz Truss is the embodiment of that.
Ok so Labour members are on the whole more clued up and judicious than Tory members (like I say, I am one) but still. Bad idea.
So I'd like to see the transition (timing, process, outcome) worked out at Westminster. I don't know how realistic a prospect that is.
They aren’t desirable. I wouldn’t want one where I live.
Blimey. This is as far from one of the Usual Suspects as it's possible to be.
https://x.com/dpjhodges/status/2053399166999527693?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
“Now the final results are just about in, comparing the council results to our final projection. Struck that all parties perform gains/losses broadly in line (within ~50 seats) of the projections, Greens a little under.”
https://x.com/luketryl/status/2053197837513470252?s=46
Bravo to More in Common. That’s amazing accuracy
We’re experiencing a transition into a more fragmented European-style multi-party system. Labour and the Tories are facing competition for their core vote in a way they never have before. As a result they are struggling to identify strategies that allow them to retain previously loyal voters, while appealing to the centre, as Reform and the Greens hoover up the right and left bloc votes. The result is a paralysis of indecision and an increasingly dissatisfied electorate. And so the cycle continues, made worse by an electoral system unsuited to our new politics that encourages a narrow tactical approach from parties.
He also comments that, whilst Reform polled well in many areas, there are sufficient missed targets (Bexley, Swindon, Harlow, Bromley) to suggest that their vote and organisation are currently insufficient to point to a likely majority in a GE. He also observes that Reform's NEV share is down 4% from the 2025 locals.
He observes the symmetry emerging between the LibDems, who are the 'left' party of choice in areas that are too genteel to vote Labour, and the Tories, who are the 'right' party of choice for those areas too genteel to vote Reform. He sees the Greens underperformance arising from lack of organisation and campaigning nouse - an impression I'd certainly share from having seen them try and target the IOW.
For the next GE, he surmises that if the LibDems maintain a hold on say 70 seats and the Greens are limited by their current pitch to gunning for maybe 50 mostly urban seats, SNP/PC dominant but limited by their geography, and with the government unpopular, it's quite likely that none of the left parties will enter the election realistically able to land a majority, and coalition talk could come to dominate the campaign.
He thinks Labour will be pushed to renegotiating Brexit as its attempt at a 'get out of jail' card, because the geopolitical and economic pressures are such that it has little other option to try and re-energise its voters.
Finally he notes the irony that the different PR systems in Wales and Scotland have delivered results that are more likely to lead to stable administration than has FPTP for many local councils or that current FPTP projections look likely to deliver for the country. He says the case for PR for national elections "is now overwhelming". (he misses the opportunity that embracing PR could give Labour as another 'big idea' that doesn't have a significant financial cost)
Ed Miliband has the chance but Catherine West wants a woman to be labour PM
To push you one stage further, though: do you think the problems with immigration are down to immigrants having an inherent tendency to create these problems or from lack of effort to provide adequate assimilation?
https://x.com/johnrentoul/status/2053398139852206517?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
Particularly without massive government spending.
“Projected share:
2025: Reform lead +10
2026: Reform lead +9
Reform share fell by 4 vs 2025 but Labour share fell 3.
Ppl can argue peak Reform. I’m unconvinced. But doesn’t really matter whilst Lab share is half what it was in 2024.
TLDR: Lab needs an answer to Green surge.”
https://x.com/keiranpedley/status/2053391236317278366?s=46
So where do people live?
Britain needs well-built, affordable apartments in urban centres for young people to live in, and lots of roomy houses for them to move into when those young people are ready to settle down and have a family.
HMOs is what you end up with when you don't build enough housing - probably a contender for Labour's largest failing in government is the collapse in construction activity.
If you are in the category of a recipient of state largesse - i.e. the bottom end of the WWC - and suddenly there is less to go round because a new category of recipient has slotted itself in above you - you feel rather different.
I'd also add that there was a characteristically furious post from an occasional poster yesterday about the low levels of educational attainment of the average Reform voter - to which I'd say, well, of course, because people in the top brackets of educational attainment don't find themselves living next door to HMOs of immigrants in Ashton under Lyne.
I'd also add that the 'nation of immigrants argument' is true but facile. It wasn't great news for the British population when the Romans or the Anglo Saxons arrived. It wasn't great news for the Anglo Saxons when the Vikings or the Normans arrived. Almost every wave of immigration has resulted in the existing population - particularly those at th bottom end of the scale - becoming materially poorer.
Reform are taking historic Labour voters with them because the see Labour as a party of cosmopolitan posh boys, whilst they see beer drinking Farage's Reform as the party of working class heroes who hate foreigners.
Is there more of a cosmopolitan posh boy that Milliband?
For years the argument against PR has been that it would lead to something very like what is now happening in England – a messy multi-party system.
Ironically, we also had our first fully PR election for a parliamentary election, in Wales, and it produced an emphatic two-party result, with Plaid and Reform miles ahead of anyone else. One of the benefits of PR is it gives voters clarity about their options rather than forcing them to try and figure out the best tactical vote. Had the election been fought under first past the past, the results would likely have been more fragmented as people felt they needed to vote Lib Dem or Labour in some seats to beat Reform.
I’ve thought for a long time that we will eventually end up with PR for national elections but that it will probably require a couple of messy hung parliaments for it to happen. That it still probably true but the case is now overwhelming – it is just not reasonable to expect voters to navigate a multi-party system like this. We had seats won on 20% of the vote this time. More importantly than the complexity, the inability to identify broad-based political strategies that work across multiple types of battleground is paralysing our politicians. If we don’t change we can look forward to an endless string of election campaigns built around narrow tactics, demographic targeting, and fear of the alternative.
So the poor are supposed to put up with sharing resources, lower wages, and less job security, while living cheek to jowl with the new competition and not complain else be called racist, while the rich get a massive increase in potential labour, and get richer by watching the warring factions undercut each other for work.
1) can they prosper without Nigel Farage?
2) can they make hay with deriding the main parties for having wrecked Britain once Reform has established its own record at council level?
Because there's chuffing loads of them round here. And they haven't resulted in much more than grumblings about pressure on school places. Because the Indians and Hong Kong Chinese are much like us: middle class families with two kids living in semi detached houses and doing middle class jobs. Their daughters play football and cricket with my daughters.
If you live in Cheetham Hill or Moston the picture is rather different.
I’ll put it my own way. The problem is not humans it’s more like CULTURES. Some cultures are much more easy to assimilate than others. Japanese and Polish and Korean and American and Danish immigrants bring almost no problems at all, and probably lots of benefits
Other cultures are more problematic. The obvious biggest problem is fundamentalist Islam (which must be separated from more western secular Islam - immigrants from the UAE aren’t a problem, either)
It is pretty obvious that conservative Islam does not assimilate. It is deeply resistant. It is also aggressive and sectarian and brings multiple other problems. We saw all this in the election last week with the dubious “Gaza independents” and the actual convicted terrorist who nearly won a seat
And there is clear evidence of anti-Reform tactical voting, which here on the island not only prevented their majority but also saved the one Labour ward everyone expected them to lose
I voted for him, somewhat reluctantly, in 2015 but I think he's much improved since then and would be happy to see him as PM. I think comparisons to William Hague are apt in that they both became LotO before their time.
I would also be fairly happy with Streeting too, though he's less tested and a bit of a riskier option.
I understand that the Renters' rights act, tax changes and other new regs have resulted in flat prices dropping significantly in my area.
So flats may become affordable for youngsters again.
I'm still not sure it answers the question of why immigrants should be less able to access the opportunities that exist in the UK than people born here.
Thanks for the reply.
I think what has been agreed across the board, including by Starmer, is that the 'Boriswave' has seen immigration on a scale where successful integration (let alone assimilation) is simply not possible. That isn't a judgement on people, it's just a fact. Neither our welfare system nor our society can cope with immigration at that speed, in those numbers, from those places. So regrettably, those people must return home.
With regard to the wider point about Reform's attitude to immigration, Reform are civic nationalists. They don't care about colour or religion (prominent figures are Muslim), but loyalty to the State. So religion is something for the private sphere, strict crackdown on Sharia, probably banning the Burqa and Niquab, and end to the 'community policing' approach that has let some communities police themselves, but if you choose to be 'one of us' you are welcome. I cannot disagree with this approach. There simply cannot be any long-term sense in giving bunk space to large numbers of people whose loyalty lies with either a different state, or a concept like a global caliphate. What happens when there's a war (God forbid) and everyone needs to sign up? A nation needs some sort of glue to hold it together.
I also don't take your point that 'Brits are more worthy of wealth and prosperity = unnalloyed racism'. It is not that we are more worthy of it, but we should certainly expect that our Government prioritises it over the wealth and prosperity of other peoples - that is what any Government must do, and it seems to be a uniquely British approach that the wellbeing of non-British subjects should be prioritised above those of British ones. It breaks the social contract.
This civic nationalism approach is different to Restore, which has very prominent supporters and figures (not their actual policies as yet) who are ethno-nationalists. They believe in a particular sense of belonging here for those with British descent, and that mass migration as a whole needs to be reversed, and the country of The Haywane and Miss Marple 'restored'.
Shape up. This is PB
I made it clear before the election I would be using the BBC/Curtice ratings as I would for the PB predictions competition back in January
6) Labour’s Projected National Share of the vote based on the 2026 local elections according to the BBC?
https://www.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2026/01/20/pb-predictions-competition-2026/
I trust Sir John Curtice and his team implicity, they work on the exit poll which are usually very accurate.
Firstly, they were starting from a relatively low base, so losing on top of losses 4 years ago isn't a good look for a start.
Secondly, the London results were so much better for them than the rest of the country:
Overall: 801 seats, down 563; a reduction of 41%
London: 407 seats, up 3
Rest of England: 394 seats, down 566; a reduction of 59%
Add to that, losing three quarters of their (nominal) seats in Wales and two thirds in Scotland, all I can conclude is that (aside from London)...
IT WAS A TERRRRRRIBLE NIGHT FOR THE CONSERVATIVES!
Tough shit, Boris. You shouldn’t have allowed it. You were PM