Shortly there will NOT be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority
Shortly there will NOT be an election, in which Labour will increase its majority– politicalbetting.com
As I predicted at the weekend (and before) Andy Burnham, iff he wins the Makerfield by-election and becomes Prime Minister, would not call a snap general election, why risk a majority of over 170 for the next three years for at best being largest party at a snap general election.
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If you are a right minded person the mission is to stop Reform. Let him get on with it for everyone's benefit.
Our mini-Trump wants a mini Jan-6th.
Governments can do what they want provided they have a large enough majority. 2 things worth considering
1) circumstances change so things that made sense at an election may not make sense now. On your logic you need an election before resolving a bond / government finance issue
2) if we don’t like how a government works we can punish them at the next election - see the Tories in 2024 or the Lib Dems in 2015
And it's always good to see 'iff' used. It's a really useful concept.
https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/39291777/ed-miliband-labour-net-zero-bacon-sarnies/
Ed is never going to live that down.
Both Government and the Opposition up a little in this week’s MiC voting intention as Reform lead Labour by 7
➡️ REF UK 29% (-1)
🌹 LAB 22% (+2)
🌳 CON 21% (+2)
🔶 LIB DEM 12% (nc)
🌍 GREEN 10% (-3)
❓OTH 2% (-1)
🟡 SNP 2% (-1)
https://x.com/LukeTryl/status/2062065038798577935
I'M RIPPING UP STARMER'S MANIFESTO.
What can other Parties do, call a vote if no confidence LOL
Okaaaay....
Game on.
Okaaaay...
I wonder if Nigel Farage will bring private prosecutions against the rioters in Southampton.
https://bbc.co.uk/weather/articles/clypk7j0qqdo
The first general election held in the 2030s could be conducted under AV.
The only way to deliver that is to attract the world's millionaires and billionaires and corporations, then get them all to pay us some tax.
Labour's route is instead to stand and wave wealth goodbye at Heathrow.
#r4today Reform UK's candidate for Makerfield Robert Kenyon: "... i dont know what nationalistic pish means"; Chris Mason: "you tell me, you wrote it"...oh dear
https://x.com/tyrelwallace/status/2062069359120384135?s=61&t=LYVEHh2mqFy1oUJAdCfe-Q
Heh.
https://x.com/tendar/status/2062028490061287788
Putin’s due on stage shortly to open the SPEIC conference, in front of half the Politbureau and hundreds of international attendees. Ukraine was kind enough to put on a fireworks show for them all!
My understanding is both George Osborne and Ed Balls think it was a mistake for Labour not to call a snap election in 2007.
The symbiosis of all this is a golden policy opportunity, semaglutides all round!!!
Lower meat and dairy consumption, fewer knee replacements, lower rates of diabetes and other obesity related diseases, people off the sick... CO2 emissions, NHS treatment costs and benefits bill all mitigated. The government should just put it in the water supply.
Just had a marketing email from one of the local pubs claiming that I’ve never had a pint as cheap as the £4.99 offer they currently have on Madri (not that I would touch it if other options are available).
Um what about in 2024 when it was £3.90?
Equally never compete on price as Wetherspoons will always win
Own it, LibDems.
Democracy is now a fig leaf for a quasi-Big Brother show.
I’m half waiting for them to do a symbolic reenactment of four decades ago by landing a drone in Red Square.
https://theaviationgeekclub.com/the-story-of-mathias-rust-the-german-teenager-who-humiliated-the-soviet-war-machine-by-landing-his-cessna-172-in-moscows-red-square/
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/2062073364143829416
https://x.com/bohuslavskakate/status/2062077481910169933
https://x.com/andysch64494719/status/2062050689866498548
Edit: rumours of the naval base on fire too!
https://x.com/exilenova_plus/status/2062069372332708167
Circumstances can render it null and void
War
Disease
Climate Crisis
Economic Crisis
Global Dictators
Etc
It's not the Magna Carta
It's got to be, should be, must allowed to be flexible.
Any Government can be challenged by a Vote of No Confidence...
I suspect if Burnham wins he will new commitments and explain why....
This notion a manifesto is written in stone is a fucking classic right wing trope when right not in power, something they plainly ignore themselves when on power
Corbyn 262 seats
Because whilst he will not face planned riots like his thugs organise, I think it's pretty safe to guarantee he will face the biggest wave of peaceful civil disobedience, withdrawal of labour and protest that this Country has seen since the 20s and 30s...make no mistake about that.
Back to "teaching Stodge about oil prices" this morning.
I read one of the reasons we have yet to plunge over the much touted abyss is "demand destruction" - now I was schooled by @Malmesbury about "inelasticity of demand" a few weeks ago but it does appear sales of fuel have been down about 10-12% since the Gulf crisis (do we call it a war?) began.
There are other developments - it seems non-Gulf suppliers have been stepping up exports - the US is exporting more oil than ever and as our primary supplier of oil, it probably explains why we've avoided shortages thus far - the bluff old cynic in me might also argue this is one of the reasons for Washington being quite happy with the status quo. The more they export at higher prices, the better for American oil companies who I suspect (and I may be wrong) are supporters of the Trump Administration.
In every war, the first thing you have to do is follow the money.
We also have countries going through their Strategic Reserves which presumably vary considerably in size and therefore longevity but there will come a point when the choke on demand through Hormuz will impact as our old friends supply and demand come to the table. Now, it's summer and the demand for oil is presumably lower than it is in winter (do we rely on renewables to provide the leccy to keep the air conditioning going in the next heatwave?) though for the 15% who live south of the Equator winter is here but at a global level, what level does increased demand in New Zealand have?
IF the reserves are depleted and demand cannot be suppressed much further due to inelasticity, the competition for what oil is out there from the US and others is likely to be intense leading to higher prices and presumably shortages so rather than stepping back from the abyss, the abyss is moving towards us....
How am I doing?
They have elections at the beginning of November, and nothing swings votes in the US as much as gas (petrol) prices.
No 2 AV 68%
Yes 2 AV 32%
Throw in "BBC bias" and you have the jackpot for the semi-literate anti-Woke, snowflake, cancel culture "Right".
Today, though, not only do they have a point but I find myself (and I've had to have a second shower this morning) agreeing with Rupert Lowe.
IF you are going to have a Question Time from a constituency in the midst of a by election, which is fair enough, and you invite the candidates to appear, you can't just pick and choose. Everyone on the ballot paper, however improbable their chance of success, has to be invited to appear on the QT panel.
Now, any candidate can choose not to appear and that's their right - I think their reason for not appearing should be read unedited to the audience - but every candidate should be invited and have equal time to be part of the debate.
We all know it will be akin to herding cats (look at the early debates for the Democrat or Republican nominations) but if you want to hold something which is effectively a Hustings, then it should be conducted like a Gustings with everyone eligible invited.
Handcuffing is a use of force, and must be capable of objective justification; it's not automatic or necessary for an arrest.
And underestimate the LibDems offer to the voters of a turd.
Country first, Party political interest second.
If they focussed on running the country and did a half decent job then Reform will be neutered.
I've got somewhere else to live but God help all those who will have to live under these creatures some of whom we saw in action yesterday
Serious respect to Burnham if he does win though, just can't see where he can get the votes even if LD and Green are fully squeezed.
The electorate is perfectly entitled to take umbrage at blatant manifesto breaches (and often do so).
Their recourse lies at the next election.
That is how it's always been.
The real offence is that, thanks to the vagaries of FPTP, we now seem doomed to be governed by large majorities, voted for by only a relatively small section of the electorate.
[03/05/2025, 05:15:55] Pat McFadden: But how do we fight Reform?
[03/05/2025, 06:05:48] Pat McFadden: And what do we give people to rally round?
[03/05/2025, 08:17:08] Peter Mandelson: Fight Reform by being Successful Labour not Blue Labour ie through policy delivery notably in turning economy round. You rally people round winning for Britain.
There won't be weight-loss drugs in the water, since too many medical conditions contra-indicate.
Transportation
Electricity production
Industrial purposes
I'd say that there is quite a bit of scope still available for UK domestic vehicle petrol/diesel use reduction (albeit with likely electoral effects).
But how big a proportion of UK oil consumption that is I have no idea.
And I suspect that many 'experts' are not as knowledgeable as they think.
We are not after all a couple of months into a de facto lockdown from fuel shortage as per one prediction.
In spite of the PB view that all Reform supporters are beyond the pale, lowlife, trash, most really just want a govt that works for them whoever the party.
The same applies to the Labour voters who’ve fled the other way. To the Greens.
I don’t think Labour get this nor Burnham. The talk is already of changing the electoral system to their advantage. But they need to be careful as it may not.
I’d suspect PR would be bad for all of the three main parties in the UK and there’d be an emergence of several other parties across the spectrum.
The chances of a Conservative majority would be nil which would mean having to "do deals" with other parties perhaps the Liberal Democrats and others to have a share in the Coalition Government.
What would probably happen under any kind of PR system is analogous to what we have now - to use the parlance from Europe, a "red" bloc of parties recognisably what some on here still quaintly call "the left" and a "blue" bloc of what others (equally quaintly) call "the right" and a few parties straddling the middle switching periodically between the one and the other.
Each Government would be a minority coalition relying on support from other parties outside the Government.
I can almost feel the sense of horror from some on here as I'm typing this - wonderful
Only for the politicians and media to talk of little else the rest of the day.
Perhaps the lesson being that out own little social bubbles are not necessarily representative of the country as a whole.
You'll either get a recognisable set of "left" and "right" parties as you see in Scandinavia and elsewhere or perhaps the emergence of "individual" parties. You could have a "Boris Johnson" list for example or a "Rupert Lowe" list where people vote for the individual rather than the party.
I do agree you could see "new" parties emerge as existing ones fragment. The LDs could split between a classically Liberal grouping (think Orange Bookers) and a Social Liberal Party - one would sit squarely with the "right" group of parties, the other more on the "left" side.
(b) With PR you get more, smaller parties that are more idealogically more narrow and these lead to coalitions AFTER the election.
Arguably we have arrived at the point of (b) without a change to the voting system. This led to a ridiculously skewed vote share vs seats at the last election (Greens and LD had similar vote share but a very different seat outcome, Labour had a pretty poor vote share for a winning party but a huge majority of seats).
So unless politics goes back to the larger party model, we really ought to change the voting method, or we will continue to see 'unfair' majorities. People broadly seemed happy in 2024 as it was the Tories getting kicked out and
Change UKsorry Labour that came in, but if similar happens again favouring the racists then the country will not be a happy place.Semaglutides at the moment are, AFAIK, peptide based drugs so are very prone to hydrolysis, and would not last in the ecosystem (too many microbes would eat them).
I guess we will find out in about ten to fifteen years !!
I can see NHS are likely to require weight-loss as first step and pre-requisite for a knee replacement.
Also what proportion are gout-related arthritis which could have been avoided by uric acid reducing medication
https://x.com/angelshalagina/status/2062091063817298406
https://x.com/nexta_tv/status/2062081977667166523
Russian corvette Boykiy reportedly hit in Kronstadt
This is the same vessel that escorted ships from Russia’s shadow oil fleet through the English Channel in 2025.
Everything is going according to plan! The Boykiy (“Lively”) has successfully completed an accelerated demilitarization program and has now been reclassified as the Vyalyi (“Sluggish”).