Are John Rentoul and Dan Hodges right? – politicalbetting.com
Are John Rentoul and Dan Hodges right? – politicalbetting.com
There was the Makerfield by-election which the national polls indicated should be an easy Reform gain yet there’s not a Labour poilitician that appears to blunt Reform.
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We must hope for a Brexit benefit.
That side of the draw now looks much more open.
I explained that I would simply support whoever was playing Germany. Unless it was Argentina.
Like the Germans.
What's their word for schadenfreude ?
Worst part of being an impressionist?
People in interviews asking, “Is there anybody you can’t do?” You get it every single time. It’s always asked as if it’s never been asked before. The answer is David Cameron, because there’s a generic poshness to him, he’s a little entitled, and feels like someone who doesn’t want to be there.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/comedy/what-to-see/best-and-worst-jon-culshaw/ (£££)
I can't see Tice being happy in such circumstances.
Anderson is in to about 9s on BFX.
Being asked to perform on command.
With Labour we have a different issue, AB's election expenses haven't even been filed yet. When they are they are bound to be front page news and there are six months from election day to file a complaint. I find it hard to believe there won't be an application for a writ of undue election, probably emanating from Lancashire rather than Greater Manchester. Lancashire Police have an honorable track record of taking complaints seriously unlike many other forces.
I m definitely going to watch it
'I have often wondered if deep down Nigel Farage really wants to be Prime Minister, it would feel like too much hard work and he prefers to carp from the sidelines yet becoming Prime Minister would allow him to reshape the country in his own image.'
I have been absolutely sure for a wee while now that Nigel Farage does not want to be Prime Minister and simple because it would feel like too much hard work to have to become a full time 24/7 politician leading a party and the country with all the responsibility that comes with that position with and for what I now suspect for him would be a very underwhelming annual salary that would dwarf what he is now earning outside politics as an MP and party Leader at Westminster.
Farage is far more comfortable being an Opposition politician and leader carping from the sidelines part time at Reform rallies addressing the party faithful or on his GB News show unapposed by awkward scrutiny and questioning. Trying to reshape the country in his own image would take too much hard work and more importantly serious detailed policy which on the evidence of the last couple of years is not where he or his party shines.
I have never seen Farage outside his own various opposition party vehicles/fiefdoms being someone who would then settle down to the hard daily grind and graft of detailed governing of a country when he cannot even now devote himself to the full time job of being a party leader and MP at Westminster. The very fact he is now under incredible media scrutiny due to the £5M gift he accepted back in early 2024 and still arrogantly refusing to accept why it should be of such media/public interest or worthy of some tough questioning from the media suggests this is a hypocritical politician who would not thrive in No 10 being under constant scrutiny and tough questioning on his delivery rather than his comfort zone of using protesting tough single issue soundbite rehetoric from the sidelines.
The interesting question is what would happen to Reform in a post Farage era in Opposition in the longer term if Andy Burnham decides to play it long and does not go for an early snap GE with a resurgent Conservative party under Kemi Badenoch and with Rupert Lowe's Restore party mopping up disaffected Reform members as others head back to the Conservatives?
Do we have any Yorkies here?
I am told that there is (finally) a "Barrier Removal Programme" starting to move - the Council "put aside a fund"! in 2021.
I'd be interested to hear If anyone notices.
This after a friend who is a Professor at York University who has multiple sclerosis, and now uses a 3-wheeled mobility aid (having gone from cycle to stabilised cycle over the years). sued the Council under the Equality Act 2020 after they blocked the entrance to a green space (Hob Moor) with the following custom-made anti-wheelchair obstruction, which was uniquely abusive of them. They spent taxpayers' money installing barriers quite widely, at several thousand a pop to implement law breaking.
Before that he attempted to engage the Council for 3 years. They did the usual things - ignore him, ask for more time, dissemble, then cave at a cost of several thousand.
This is his own account from 2021. Only a disabled victim personally can take legal action, and in 2021 it cost £600 to get to Court. Thank-you David Cameron (mainly):
https://yorkcyclecampaign.bike/2021/03/20/taking-legal-action-on-barriers/
The problems with facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it, are covered in his article.
If you remember, he pretty much did all he could to stop Vote Leave winning too during the referendum.
Being in charge or responsible terrifies him.
Ivory Coast
£39.50
Draw
£2.00
Norway
-£24.64
Draw onside because well can quite possibly see it going to ET.
https://x.com/letsarmukr/status/2071605588635590999
This is a quadcopter that looks like a hobby drone, with upgraded radio and battery, flown by a pilot 55 miles away!
I suspect you are looking at people and thinking they cost money, volunteers know they won’t get expenses and pay their own money to be there
Tell me how the absolute hell is a train line in the South of England that goes to London and terminates up in the Midlands in Birmingham is "for the North"?
If HS2 were actually for the North then it would have made sense to start construction with the Northern legs of it and deal with the Chilterns and South of England later on, and scrap that if anything were to be scrapped. But no, it was never for us.
Only a Southerner could think that what the North is desperately crying out for is another line in London.
Got it.
The Right are hopelessly fracturing at the moment and for all what Burnham isn't what he IS , is an incredibly shrewd "politicial" and "tactician!.
Farage is losi interest, Lowe is gaining traction and then there is Kemi, god i almost feel sorry for her, the classic rabbit in the headlights.
She will work with NO-ONE , not Farage not Lowe. No one will work with her, not Farage, Jenrick, Lowe.
She drifts right right right in to a political cul de sac with narrowing bandwith.
She attacks Burnhams speech, before he speaks, and simply looks desperately LOST.
The biggest problem she has is this.
IF she canot quickly realise the fact that the Right Wing Pool is full .
There will be millions of centre ground voters, many Tories in the Midlands / North / Scotland and Wales who cannot stand Farage, aren;t in the same parish as Lowe, hated Starmer, who suddently have someone they can vote for with the sole aim of stopping Farage and Lowe.
That ain;t Kemi.....it;s BURNHAM!
He’s a disruptor. He snipes from the sidelines. Has he ever had any real,responsibility.
But yes the whole project has been a mess from start to, well clearly not finish, and the Northern routes now need to be prioritised, alongside upgrades of the E-W lines from Liverpool through Manchester to Sheffield and Leeds. Train travel in the North of England is a disjointed mess.
Her crime. Criticising Ed Miliband and his net zero politics and undermining his bid to be Chancellor. As well as ‘not doing enough to beat Reform’ even though many of its members are supporters?
So she now faces a challenge due to her wrongthink.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/jun/30/unite-union-sharon-graham-leadership-challenge-reform-uk
Out then go Germany and the Netherlands and this tournament starts to bubble along nicely. I'm on France to prevail - yes, I know, remember Agincourt, Crecy, Waterloo, Euston etc, etc.
On topic, Reform is and has never been just about Farage - all he has done is successfully articulate the often incoherent anger and frustrations of those who feel "the system" has failed them and the country. Now, whether that's because of perceptions about immigration, the economy, the British identity, our place in the world or a whole range of other gripes and whinges, I'm not sure but as long as the causes of the anger remain, that anger will find expression somewhere by someone somehow and that could be Anderson or Lowe or A.N Other.
What I found interesting about yesterday is both Burnham and Badenoch spoke and while the policies were very different as you might expect, the target audience was much the same - those who had formerly backed Labour or the Conservatives and were now with Reform. Faragists will claim it'stwo bald men fighting over a comb but I look at the Amber Valley question and I come back to it.
What will be the more important thing for the Amber Valley voter in 2029 - stopping a Labour Government or stopping a Reform Government?
I don't see where "crime" comes in; it's just how the union system works.
It would have been simpler to say that she faces a challenge from the left.
Burnham certainly has charisma and is collegiate but doesn't seem to understand that being PM is far more complex than being a mayor
He is not coming under any scrutiny, apparently avoiding any press questions until he is appointed and then what happens when his responsibilities tie him to London and Parliament
He should get a honeymoon but he is not the Messiah as some seem to think
The Andy v Kemi show will be very interesting as she continues to take labour full on much to the angst of labour supporters and as to Reform our son surprised us yesterday when he said he has been very impressed with Kemi and has become disenchanted with Reform and will vote conservative now
Lots of debate ahead but it cannot be good for democracy that Burnham will not actually appear at the dispatch box until September and then after a couple of weeks Parliament closes for conference season
Todays you gov
https://x.com/i/status/2071839346873774497
I felt it worth pointing out. There is a clear campaign to bolster Ed Miliband and his bid for the chancellorship. As we saw with Newsnight last night with Mazzucato out batting for him.
She faces a challenge due to her positioning and views.
She’s a strong advocate of members rights. She’s even been on picket lines up here.
She's reflecting on the language being used by Talarico in Texas - "A New Language of Politics" - around asserting the inclusive and multicultural nature of Texan society and culture.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wO75H_sSnO4
I think - if Andy B has a decent comms adviser - we will something similar here. I've already been calling the current far right "Traitors to British values" for some time in different fora, and there are plenty of points to apply pressure .
https://www.dailymail.com/news/article-15939083/Ed-Miliband-accused-wasting-colossal-money-eco-tycoon-says-Energy-Secretarys-department-broken-term-net-zero-scrapped.html
Edit typo.
Good morning, my fellow patriotic Britons. Silverstone could be toasty.
It's only going one way, Graham is backing the wrong horse.
The inability for a third party to take legal action makes it difficult as a) Disabled people tend to be poorer and £500 is a lot, plus there are many extra expenses, b) Imagine someone with a mental disability having to go through the Court process, c) Councils are often happier spending more money on lawyers and straight bats than it would cost to fix a problem.
If i needed to take legal action, i would need to find a disabled person who was blocked to deal with a barrier, then mentor them through the legal process, and enforcement once the Council caved - which they tend to do at the door of the Court.
To my eye, we need some approaches like consumer law, such as the RNIB being able to make a "super complaint", rather than purely case-by-case.
* "rabbit-hole" is now a verb, too.
I hope she wins.
I don't think it should be understated that Miliband is the same generation as Burnham. They were in government together at a similar time, and were in shadow government together too.
Given how important the Chancellor role is and how they become tied to the PM in a way other cabinet jobs don't, that personal connection may sway things.
The same could apply to Cooper, who seems a more cautious choice. I don't get the impression Burnham wants to go for caution.
Video of a Vacation Bible School dramatization in Lexington's Mt. Olivet Baptist Church has gone viral, drawing objections over its violent imagery.
In the video, children in the pews watch and cheer as mock commandos take aim at a figure at front of the church — a representation of the devil, according to church leaders — and open fire, all while Pastor Dewayne Walker leads a chant of "take him out, blow him up."
The “facilities designed by people who do not understand disability, or without thinking about it”
This pattern repeats - something designed and created at great expense, that is rubbish. And often breaks the rules it is supposed to enforce.
The famous Bat Tunnel was founded on a stupid idea - perfect safety for bats rather than an assessed risk. Nothing can be perfectly safe - even at infinite cost. The specification was created by someone without even a passing interest in reading about engineering and managing physical projects.
It is this deep, ingrained, lack of knowledge that causes much damage in our society.
The Union is there to protect its members, so I would expect Graham to defend oil/gas, whilst also promoting Green alternatives.
Personally, my basic view is eking out what remains of existing NS oil/gas fields , whilst not actively drilling for new ones, as I think renewables will probably cover that first. I think Miliband should concede that due to chaged geopolitics and cutting off the opposition on this question.
Badenoch's play seems to be "common sense" - now, I commented on this yesterday and it will sell well until people ask where that common sense was when there was a Government of which she was a senior member. The second problem will be when the detailed Conservative policies come out and all the intended welfare cuts stop looking like common sense.
Burnham has retailiated with what some are calling "Manchesterism" (I don't know either). As a firm believer in devolution and decentralisation, there's a lot to like about the rhetoric but people will soon ask about the costs of having two No.10 operations and all the other aspects of twin centre Government paraphenalia including the environmental impact of travelling from Manchester to London to attend the Commons.
Indeed, both "plans" seem to have some pretty huge flaws but at least there's some thinking going on and that should rattle Reform and Restore a little.
Though if the gammons are to be believed they're all African.
Whatever one thinks of what the Bible tells us about God, what it says about Man is very on-the-nail.
I'd be inclined to regard choosing Miliband as a fail.
RefUK 24%(-1),
CON 20%(nc),
LAB 20%(+2),
LDEM 13%(-1),
GRN 13%(-2)
https://x.com/SamCoatesSky/status/2071824454154424752?s=20
Just imagine if we get equal investment across the country. Council housing. Move No 10 to Manchester. Nodal energy pricing. A flat property tax. Even a reform to Barnett would be welcome, given its bizarre incentives (eg a falling population is a good thing for per capita spending).
Since Reform is made up of both ex-Conservative and ex-Labour voters (as well as those who had previously not voted), it seems reasonable to suppose were their vote to fragment, it would go several ways including to Labour, Restore and Will Not Vote rather than going en bloc to the Conservatives.
1) To amend the US constitution you need 38 states not 34. Or, you need a constitutional convention called by 34 states (which I think is where the confusion arose). I'll file both under 'not happening.'
2) If the Prime Minister chooses not to live in Chequers, that does not mean it can be randomly palmed off to somebody else. Under the terms of the bequest, the next in line would be the Chancellor, then the Foreign Secretary, then the Colonial Secretary (defunct) then the US Ambassador, then the Minister for Agriculture - only then to 'a Secretary of State'.
https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/7-8/55/schedule/data.xht?view=snippet&wrap=true
More interestingly, I think what Andy B needs to establish is something which means that Civil Service culture be established across the country (especially England). My modus operandi would be to look at establishing significant setups in clusters of cities (eg Nottm / Derby / Leicester, Liverpool / Manc, Leeds / Bradford), such that long-term stays for parts of careers are possible in those places.
I think the risk is making it resilient to Captain Cavemen Conservative doing their "blindly cut everything in sight" thing. We need the Conservatives to get over their USA-obsession, and realise that European-style society is a better and more efficient option. It remains to be seen whether the USA having become a banana republic will cure them.
Ed M is the obvious choice, alongside Yvette Cooper. He's got an economics background and Treasury experience.
Asylum seekers will be ordered to pay about £10,000 to cover their state-funded living costs or be denied settled status in the UK under a new law to be considered by MPs on Tuesday.
(If you turn your head on one side and squint a bit)
There's plenty to criticise in that reading of Texan history, but it's his a decent tactic for a Texas election, and he comes from the other tradition of US Christianity - call it William Penn vs "Reformed" (theologically) Puritan.
I'll be interested to see how Burnham handles Farage, Anderson and Lowe in the Commons.
Pointing out Yaxley-Lennon being a Putin poodle who just appeared in Moscow as Putin's useful idiot, or Farage's party having received 60% of it's entire stock of donations from one individual on the other side of the world who left the UK decades ago makes the disloyalty to the UK fairly obvious, I would say. As do the very public events around Farage.
Quite a section of the fair-weather far-right supporters who are out and about online, who are not bots, are not true believers in the politics of their leaders and are open to a nudge or two.
These policies may be ludicrous and/or impossibly expensive.
See the social engineering requirements for SMRs are a good example.
I’ve had projects at the requirements stage, where when I tried to cut out ridiculous and harmful idiocy, the push back was “but that’s X’s idea - would be rude to him to drop it”
It’s about proving they exist and have power.
”It’s all going work out, Miss, isn’t it? Please tell me it’s going to be ok!”
87% of those seeking refugee status were still not earning the national minimum wage five years later.
That in itself begs all sorts of difficult questions about the "underclass" in society - how many end up working in the black economy and how many end up effectively in indentured servitude and in truth do many people care?
I cannot imagine the trauma of rebuilding a life thousands of miles from a home to which I can never return but for many every migrant is simply another scrounger, another rapist, another child molester for whom deportation cannot come quickly enough.
But the choice itself is likely to significantly influence policy, and I am not at all convinced by Milliband's record at Energy, where his economic background doesn't seem to have led to any useful insights.
They are building roads, railways and airports at a breakneck pace. All through the Pontic mountains are new tunnels, vast arrays of diggers and construction equipment. It's impressive. But look closer and you realise why this couldn't be a recipe for Britain without cultural and regulatory changes that I'm not sure we're up for.
They don't close the road during construction, or notably cone off the works. You drive among it. That means:
1. For large stretches you're driving on unmade rough surfaces, kicking up dust (or mud in winter). I expect there are several dents and tyre blowouts from this daily. Can't imagine the British road user tolerating this. But it means they can work at great speed.
2. The health and safety implications don't bear thinking about. The whole set up looks like multiple accidents waiting to happen. But of course that will make things cheaper
Planning and property rights? Erdogan decrees, it gets built
Biodiversity and conservation? Not really something Turkey goes in for. No bat tunnels here.
And of course a low wage workforce with very few protections.
If we were a middle income country like Turkey then we could absolutely build HS2, NPR, a few new motorways and several new cities for a fraction of the cost and rapidly. The trouble is, we are not. So we need to work within What's culturally and socially acceptable.
A high speed line is a pain to design at surface level, because it has to be very flat and with long corner radii, much easier to put the whole lot underground, with little evidence on the surface bar some air vents and emergency exits.
There's also a cycleway on the way to York (old rail line) where the approach path is ridiculously narrow and with a non-dropped kerb to negotiate at the start, even though the track itself is good
Farage is on the downhill, but the reasons for the far right surge have not gone away. Farage not being centre stage leaves a horrible gap for some equally horrible people to fill, even though winning is out of the question.
As things stand only Labour can lead the next government, not because Labour are great but because the Tories are not close to being good enough. The moderate Tory middle class backbone of the country has dissolved, both in party terms and demographically.
Returning politics to sanity requires a Tory leader who, first of all, can set out an affirmative Burkean liberal and democratic vision as well as Burnham can set out his.
Central to this is, because of the far right, affirming the difference between controlling our borders (fine) and demonising millions of people who are already lawfully here (the roots of fascism). The centre right and the far right are not the same but the Tories have no really clarified the difference. I don't think Kemi is the person to do it. It needs a visionary communicator.