On Andy Burnham’s coronation day, Sky News’ Beth Rigby mentioned on three separate occasions that she had also attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
That will be the same “Christian civilisation” who hanged women in the name of the Christian god for “witchcraft”, or as we might know it, herbal medicine, being a bit odd or just because of petty feuds. And the same “Christian civilisation” that stole children from indigenous people to bring up as good Christians.
Whilst much of that is true, we shouldn't deify all native Americans as the noble savage either.
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
On Andy Burnham’s coronation day, Sky News’ Beth Rigby mentioned on three separate occasions that she had also attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Burnham is 100% going for my drone-swarm theory of policy announcements. Except these are all vote winners - he needs to follow up with the hard stuff next.
Edit - I actually think it's going to be 2027 - given the state of Reform's source of funds an early election with all the gory details about Reform's money provided Burnham is not yet voter repulsive it's a chance for him to get a clear mandate, destroy the Tories a bit more AND give him 5 years to do some of the really awkward changes that have long leadtimes.
I do not think so.
To actually do something will take years. To change the system so that doing something doesn’t have to take years… will take years.
Burnham appears to be going for - “I have a plan which means re-electing me. And here is the start of it.”
Even the best polls have Labour level pegging with Reform. That means at any election, there would be a fearful slaughter among Labour MPs, at best.
I think the Theresa May plonkety-plonk memories are still too strong.
But equally politics could change it all in a few weeks or months.
Were I in Burnham's place I'd try and quite rapidly push though on political funding and media reforms (including social media), which imo are an existential threat to this country's democratic tradition.
Adjacently I wonder if Andy B will start speaking far more clearly than did SKS about the Russian threat. I think he will be more subtle on the USA threat, which is perhaps more unapologetic and overt.
But there are other events coming that could markedly change things, for example the USA mid-term elections.
Andy Burnham could get his ten years, well, at least eight, if he governs "one nation".
What that would mean is a strong defence, security, a stable economy and good investment into public services, including basic transport and energy infrastructure.
If he trys to replay Labour's greatest hits from the 1970s, he will come unstuck quickly; the original album did not sell well.
On Andy Burnham’s coronation day, Sky News’ Beth Rigby mentioned on three separate occasions that she had also attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
A Russian Su-57 fighter jet crashed on a training flight in Moscow oblast. The pilot survived. Some in Russia are claiming it was yet another example of friendly fire.
That’s the brand new “stealth” fighter plane that hasn’t even turned up in Ukraine yet. There’s only half a dozen prototypes in existence, and now one fewer of them!
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
There's two parts to this - there's Kemi Badenoch and there's the Conservative Party brand.
Credit where's it's due - after a shaky start, Badenoch has become a much better politician. I'm even starting to see little glimpses of humanity and humour which are always welcome.
She now faces however a political operator in Burnham and she will need to raise her game as he learnt at the feet of Tony Blair who frankly would eat Badenoch as a mid-morning snack.
I'm not sure that's true.
Blair with none of other people's money to waste would have been a very different political animal from Blair with a golden economic legacy. His method of governing, of dodging every tough decision (except over Iraq, which, tellingly, was his nemesis), simply would not have worked post-2008.
We will never know what Austerity Blair would have been like, but I can't see him being remembered as such a political genius now.
That's a very important observation.
Also, concern about immigration built up over time, largely due to his administration.
A Russian Su-57 fighter jet crashed on a training flight in Moscow oblast. The pilot survived. Some in Russia are claiming it was yet another example of friendly fire.
That’s the brand new “stealth” fighter plane that hasn’t even turned up in Ukraine yet. There’s only half a dozen prototypes in existence, and now one fewer of them!
They seem to have beteween 12 & 24 built and at least a sqome in squadron in service.
It has been used in Ukraine but only to launch missiles from Russian airspace.
Whether that's because; they don't want to lose one, it isn't very good or they don't want the UKraininans to pass info on it's radar and heat signature is still a guessing game.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
Farage causing a car crash through the hatred he inspires is a great metaphor for his politics though.
I’m sure that’s what she’ll tell the magistrates.
She doesn't have too. All she has to do is apologise for calling him a wanker and say she is genuinely, deeply sorry about any offence caused to wankers and she will be fine.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
He'll pay himself just over 125k, so he has to pay the tiniest amount of top rate income tax and can legitimately call himself a top rate taxpayer
He'll continue to earn the millions that he just pays corporation tax on
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
That will be the same “Christian civilisation” who hanged women in the name of the Christian god for “witchcraft”, or as we might know it, herbal medicine, being a bit odd or just because of petty feuds. And the same “Christian civilisation” that stole children from indigenous people to bring up as good Christians.
Whilst much of that is true, we shouldn't deify all native Americans as the noble savage either.
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
No one really knows much at all about North American native culture pre-1492.
What we know about is the (estimated) 10% - 15% of the population that survived that event. A bit like the UK might have been a couple of centuries after Threads...
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
I don't know. The last Starmerite on here has been doing an almost =Vicar of Bray style series of sycophantic posts.
Alphabet beat on every headline number tonight. Revenue up 24%. Cloud up 82%. EPS of $9.11. But $6.26 of that EPS came from paper gains on Alphabet's Anthropic stake*, not from operations. Strip that out and operating EPS is about $2.85. Free cash flow went negative for the first time in Alphabet's history. Long-term debt more than doubled in six months. Stock buybacks dropped to zero. https://x.com/HedgieMarkets/status/2080035162906390756
*Actually Anthropic and SpaceX. But SpaceX is also likely way overvalued if they don't get Starship to work.
AI is here to stay, obviously. What's not obvious is the value being given to all of the companies spending tens of billions to try and dominate the market.
What's certain is that some of them will fail to do so.
The other problem is that when customers are charged more realistic prices, they might walk away.
They're already doing so, which is a problem as both OpenAI and Anthropic have enormous financial commitments that require constant, rapid growth to sustain. Despite AI's numerous problems the biggest issue was never technical, but financial. It just costs too much for the benefits it provides.
Read an interesting article about the Chinese approach.
Basically they interrogate your AI to train theirs for a fraction of the price.
It's never as good as the latest model, but usually at least as good as the last one if not better and what's more oftena lot cheaper or even free.
Whether intentionall or not they may be bleeding the US dry.
The US spends 100's of millions on a new model and to pay for it need lots of customers to use it, either upgrade or pay more. The chineses make a copy for 10's of millions and sell it or charge a far lower fee or again even make it free.
Customers have choice;
1) Pay more for the new model and hope it gives them the edge and pays for itself. 2) Stick with the current model,paying the same but risk fall behind or missing out on savings or. 3) Switch to the far cheaper just as good chinese model, which might give a marginal improvement at lower cost?
At what point and how many existing users have to take option 3 and go Chinese for the US model to be finacially unsustainable?
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
But the response will be grist to his mill. 'There is zero evidence of *widespread* child sacrifice. Is there evidence of a modicum of child sacrifice? Is that OK? The 'zero' then looks dishonest, because whilst the zero clearly applies to the evidence, it is placed in a sentence where the subject is the child sacrifice. I didn't know there was any child sacrifice.
I'm not sure what any normal person would consider to be a "modicum" of child sacrifice ? But as far as N America is concerned, there isn't any such evidence.
Unless you accept Vance's term as a description of abortion. Which is what he intended.
Help me then - I had no idea he was referring to abortion. What did they do in that regard?
Although Aztec elders dissuaded pregnant women from having abortions, it was generally believed in Aztec doctrine that life did not begin until “the droplet of a baby is already 3 (or) 4 months formed” (Florentine Codex VI, 141 and 152]. The Aztec believed that infants who died during labor traveled to a place called Chichiualcuauhco , where a wet-nurse tree would feed them with its milk. They would remain there until the gods sent them back to be born of another mother, and the cycle of birth and death turned once more.
In Aztec society, the life of the mother was always placed ahead than that of the fetus. Because Cesarean sections were not performed, if natural labor was obstructed and the mother’s life was at risk, the fetus was dismembered and removed.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
She needs a huge Reform collapse and for that collapse to benefit the Tories massively.
Her problem will be if the Reform core vote doesn't drop below 15% - quite likely in that many Reform voters don't seem to follow politics that closely and won't see voting for them as a "wasted vote" given how long they have been ahead in the polls.
A 15% core-vote would indicate a drop of around 10% on current polling. I would guess that 4-5% of that would not bother voting at all (a substantial number of Reform voters were previously non-voters). 1-2% would go to Burnham which only leaves the Tories picking up an extra 3-4%. Would a 1 - 3% net gain from a Reform collapse be enough? I doubt it.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
Just put them first on the list to have their assets assessed for the wealth tax
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
The problem for the Tories is they need to come up with an approach that wins back seats like Witney & Maidenhead as well as winning back the Stoke seats.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
That will be the same “Christian civilisation” who hanged women in the name of the Christian god for “witchcraft”, or as we might know it, herbal medicine, being a bit odd or just because of petty feuds. And the same “Christian civilisation” that stole children from indigenous people to bring up as good Christians.
Whilst much of that is true, we shouldn't deify all native Americans as the noble savage either.
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
Mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were, however, not ended by "Christian civilization". They were all done by the colonists too. They are still done today by supposedly Christian nations. You only need to look at the war in Ukraine, sadly, to see that.
John Healey set out five priorities this morning. 1⃣Meet fiscal rules with a buffer for uncertainty 2⃣ Every department delivers growth 3⃣ Buy British at all levels, by design 4⃣Raise levels of investment and profit in business 5⃣Bring down cost of living and cost of doing business. https://x.com/FennellJW/status/2080196516413677925
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
“Reform the ECHR/Refugee Convention or leave in 12 months”
“O&G revenues to fund renewables”
I think a large majority of people could support those variances on her policies.
Hmm. The first is just saying leave ECHR in 12 months without a debate about its merits. There is zero possibility of the UK unilaterally demanding and getting significant revisions to the treaty, even if it knew what specific revisions it wanted.
O&G revenues to fund renewables doesn't make much sense either. It's hypothecation where energy sources are subsidised anyway. ie we're paying for them somehow or or other. Making electricity cheaper is a good goal. Ed Miliband has been doing some work correcting the previous government allowing costs to get out of control but not enough. Basically I think it's stop nuclear, which is the really big money sink - probably have to see Hinckley Point and Sizewell through to their (very) bitter ends, and finish up current wind projects. Investments from now on are batteries, grid upgrade and solar.
Oh I don’t think they are workable or make much sense. But it’s the kind of thing that sounds positive and reasonable - Burnham-esque.
E.g. the business rates cuts for pubs. Almost all of that will be guzzled up by large overseas breweries, not your local landlord who will just see their rent go up even higher.
On ECHR I think the honest and real policy question has to be "Do you want to be in ECHR or don't you?" Where there are some big implications to saying No
Yes, you can fudge how renewables are paid for, but we're paying for them however you fudge it. If you want cheaper electricity however paid for, you need to choose cheaper energy sources.
Incidentally, really interesting thread and linked article (possible gift link) about a near blackout at the end of June, which was avoided by some smart employees at NESO asking favours from their counterparts on the other end of the international interconnectors. Several factors came together but the main takeaway is that improvements already in the pipeline - in particular grid upgrade and more batteries - would have avoided this incident if it happened in a couple of years time.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
What it comes down to is collision in constitutional theory.
The ECHR is being interrupted with the progressive law view - that finding new rights and obligations in existing law is part of the process of law.
This then leads to following
1) Some same that it is awesome that new rights are being created in the ECHR 2) Some say that it is terrible. 3) Many of 1) believe that the issue is Beyond Politics - that is that the government can't and shouldn't do anything 4) Equally, many who hold to 2) think that the government should intervene.
The problem with Beyond Politics, is that it is equally dangerous in the long run. What happens when a Restore government appoints 10,000 immigration judges of their kidney*? Or sign the UK up to the International Convention On Mandatory Enslavement Of Refugees? Will the advocates of Beyond Politics applaud? I think not.
In the US, the control of legislation by the judicial branch has simply created another legislative chamber - with appointments for life. MAGA baked into the system for decades.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
“Reform the ECHR/Refugee Convention or leave in 12 months”
“O&G revenues to fund renewables”
I think a large majority of people could support those variances on her policies.
Hmm. The first is just saying leave ECHR in 12 months without a debate about its merits. There is zero possibility of the UK unilaterally demanding and getting significant revisions to the treaty, even if it knew what specific revisions it wanted.
O&G revenues to fund renewables doesn't make much sense either. It's hypothecation where energy sources are subsidised anyway. ie we're paying for them somehow or or other. Making electricity cheaper is a good goal. Ed Miliband has been doing some work correcting the previous government allowing costs to get out of control but not enough. Basically I think it's stop nuclear, which is the really big money sink - probably have to see Hinckley Point and Sizewell through to their (very) bitter ends, and finish up current wind projects. Investments from now on are batteries, grid upgrade and solar.
You've missed off the critical bit if this is your strategy - lots and lots of gas turbines. What you've described will work in summer, but living on solar at out latitude isn't going to work for the winter.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
Oh FFS. You just had to bring cash into it, didn't you?
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
That will be the same “Christian civilisation” who hanged women in the name of the Christian god for “witchcraft”, or as we might know it, herbal medicine, being a bit odd or just because of petty feuds. And the same “Christian civilisation” that stole children from indigenous people to bring up as good Christians.
Whilst much of that is true, we shouldn't deify all native Americans as the noble savage either.
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
No one really knows much at all about North American native culture pre-1492.
What we know about is the (estimated) 10% - 15% of the population that survived that event. A bit like the UK might have been a couple of centuries after Threads...
There is extensive evidence for what I've written above.
Sure, you can heavily criticise the Conquistadors, but let's not pretend it was black and white.
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
That will be the same “Christian civilisation” who hanged women in the name of the Christian god for “witchcraft”, or as we might know it, herbal medicine, being a bit odd or just because of petty feuds. And the same “Christian civilisation” that stole children from indigenous people to bring up as good Christians.
Whilst much of that is true, we shouldn't deify all native Americans as the noble savage either.
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
Mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were, however, not ended by "Christian civilization". They were all done by the colonists too. They are still done today by supposedly Christian nations. You only need to look at the war in Ukraine, sadly, to see that.
I must say, you get marks for the sheer creativity of that non sequitur.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
You were better when you were talking about the shiteness of your Dubai-style coffee yesterday.
Try more of that. It's a better version of you than the bonehead Lib.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
But if a bunch of smug wankers want to tell the government to tax them more because that’s their fetish, then the government should absolutely start with charging them more tax.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
Oh FFS. You just had to bring cash into it, didn't you?
Never mind that, what do we think of Bilbo enabling Bard the Bowman to kill off the last great dragon of Middle-earth?
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Concerning Lib Dems, they just need to hold what they've got. They don't need to be doing anything very much seat-wise to depress the Tory vote share and ability to win seats. A point Alastair also makes.
Should add Labour has the same problem with Greens
Should they not be trying to form a government at some point? Or is their last experience of having responsibility too scarring for them? Much more fun to be a small party carping from the sides.
Absolutely not!
The purpose of the LibDems is to get lots of LibDems elected!
Elected to demand change! from others!
Actually governing means having to do it, rather that just pointing at people and demanding they do.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
You were better when you were talking about the shiteness of your Dubai-style coffee yesterday.
Try more of that. It's a better version of you than the bonehead Lib.
Thanks for your comments, Casino. It's always useful to receive feedback, even if it's of the negative variety! I'll be sure to give due attention to your thoughts on this matter.
A Russian Su-57 fighter jet crashed on a training flight in Moscow oblast. The pilot survived. Some in Russia are claiming it was yet another example of friendly fire.
That’s the brand new “stealth” fighter plane that hasn’t even turned up in Ukraine yet. There’s only half a dozen prototypes in existence, and now one fewer of them!
There's a claim going round that Ukraine tricked the Moscow air defence system into firing on their own jet. No idea how credible a claim it is.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
“Reform the ECHR/Refugee Convention or leave in 12 months”
“O&G revenues to fund renewables”
I think a large majority of people could support those variances on her policies.
Hmm. The first is just saying leave ECHR in 12 months without a debate about its merits. There is zero possibility of the UK unilaterally demanding and getting significant revisions to the treaty, even if it knew what specific revisions it wanted.
O&G revenues to fund renewables doesn't make much sense either. It's hypothecation where energy sources are subsidised anyway. ie we're paying for them somehow or or other. Making electricity cheaper is a good goal. Ed Miliband has been doing some work correcting the previous government allowing costs to get out of control but not enough. Basically I think it's stop nuclear, which is the really big money sink - probably have to see Hinckley Point and Sizewell through to their (very) bitter ends, and finish up current wind projects. Investments from now on are batteries, grid upgrade and solar.
Oh I don’t think they are workable or make much sense. But it’s the kind of thing that sounds positive and reasonable - Burnham-esque.
E.g. the business rates cuts for pubs. Almost all of that will be guzzled up by large overseas breweries, not your local landlord who will just see their rent go up even higher.
On ECHR I think the honest and real policy question has to be "Do you want to be in ECHR or don't you?" Where there are some big implications to saying No
Yes, you can fudge how renewables are paid for, but we're paying for them however you fudge it. If you want cheaper electricity however paid for, you need to choose cheaper energy sources.
Incidentally, really interesting thread and linked article (possible gift link) about a near blackout at the end of June, which was avoided by some smart employees at NESO asking favours from their counterparts on the other end of the international interconnectors. Several factors came together but the main takeaway is that improvements already in the pipeline - in particular grid upgrade and more batteries - would have avoided this incident if it happened in a couple of years time.
I worry that the fuss about the EHCR is based on incorrect newspaper stories. "Murderer avoids deportation owing to pet dog" etc. If there are problems with it then lets try to overcome them. We do seem to excel in the this country on the seemingly ludicrous, and there is no doubt some who would see almost unlimited immigration. But decisions ought to be based on facts, not Daily Mail headlines (or the Grauniad for that matter).
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
You were better when you were talking about the shiteness of your Dubai-style coffee yesterday.
Try more of that. It's a better version of you than the bonehead Lib.
Thanks for your comments, Casino. It's always useful to receive feedback, even if it's of the negative variety! I'll be sure to give due attention to your thoughts on this matter.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
But if a bunch of smug wankers want to tell the government to tax them more because that’s their fetish, then the government should absolutely start with charging them more tax.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
The reaction to this has been immensely funny. Class traitors!
IMO it’s perfectly fine to fully exploit the system as an individual even while campaigning against it. The chat about writing cheques to HMRC is daft - I don’t expect any people on the right to refuse NHS care or PIP if they are badly hurt; nor do I expect people on the left to forgo ISA tax breaks.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
“Reform the ECHR/Refugee Convention or leave in 12 months”
“O&G revenues to fund renewables”
I think a large majority of people could support those variances on her policies.
Hmm. The first is just saying leave ECHR in 12 months without a debate about its merits. There is zero possibility of the UK unilaterally demanding and getting significant revisions to the treaty, even if it knew what specific revisions it wanted.
O&G revenues to fund renewables doesn't make much sense either. It's hypothecation where energy sources are subsidised anyway. ie we're paying for them somehow or or other. Making electricity cheaper is a good goal. Ed Miliband has been doing some work correcting the previous government allowing costs to get out of control but not enough. Basically I think it's stop nuclear, which is the really big money sink - probably have to see Hinckley Point and Sizewell through to their (very) bitter ends, and finish up current wind projects. Investments from now on are batteries, grid upgrade and solar.
Oh I don’t think they are workable or make much sense. But it’s the kind of thing that sounds positive and reasonable - Burnham-esque.
E.g. the business rates cuts for pubs. Almost all of that will be guzzled up by large overseas breweries, not your local landlord who will just see their rent go up even higher.
On ECHR I think the honest and real policy question has to be "Do you want to be in ECHR or don't you?" Where there are some big implications to saying No
Yes, you can fudge how renewables are paid for, but we're paying for them however you fudge it. If you want cheaper electricity however paid for, you need to choose cheaper energy sources.
Incidentally, really interesting thread and linked article (possible gift link) about a near blackout at the end of June, which was avoided by some smart employees at NESO asking favours from their counterparts on the other end of the international interconnectors. Several factors came together but the main takeaway is that improvements already in the pipeline - in particular grid upgrade and more batteries - would have avoided this incident if it happened in a couple of years time.
I worry that the fuss about the EHCR is based on incorrect newspaper stories. "Murderer avoids deportation owing to pet dog" etc. If there are problems with it then lets try to overcome them. We do seem to excel in the this country on the seemingly ludicrous, and there is no doubt some who would see almost unlimited immigration. But decisions ought to be based on facts, not Daily Mail headlines (or the Grauniad for that matter).
I'm pretty convinced that the ECHR is an obstacle.
Vance telling lies to support a greater ‘truth’, yet again. Bit of a blood libel vibe..
🚨 JD Vance is now claiming that when settlers arrived in the New World, they “found widespread child sacrifice” and that “Christian civilization ended the practice.”
Archaeologists and historians, including experts in North American Indigenous history, say this is a complete fabrication. There is zero evidence of widespread child sacrifice among First Nations.
This isn’t a slip.
It’s racist revisionism dressed up as patriotism. And it tells you exactly how far they’ll go to rewrite history to justify oppression. FOLLOW: @Trustintrump47
That will be the same “Christian civilisation” who hanged women in the name of the Christian god for “witchcraft”, or as we might know it, herbal medicine, being a bit odd or just because of petty feuds. And the same “Christian civilisation” that stole children from indigenous people to bring up as good Christians.
Whilst much of that is true, we shouldn't deify all native Americans as the noble savage either.
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
No one really knows much at all about North American native culture pre-1492.
What we know about is the (estimated) 10% - 15% of the population that survived that event. A bit like the UK might have been a couple of centuries after Threads...
There is extensive evidence for what I've written above.
Sure, you can heavily criticise the Conquistadors, but let's not pretend it was black and white.
I'm talking about pre-Columbian North America. Compared with S America - or the North America we colonised - very little is known.
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
I increasingly think Wes Streeting is a wally.
He will do what's convenient for his career as Defence Secretary, not what's optimal for defence of the realm.
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
See also Lou Haigh.
But more importantly- I want to see Burnham defend something unpopular on the grounds that it's the necessary thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. He doesn't have to enjoy it, or do it to make a point... but he needs to do it.
As things stand, I'm not sure he can. And that's a problem.
On Andy Burnham’s coronation day, Sky News’ Beth Rigby mentioned on three separate occasions that she had also attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge.
Why did she feel the need to mention it at all? Sounds like some deep insecurities here.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
But if a bunch of smug wankers want to tell the government to tax them more because that’s their fetish, then the government should absolutely start with charging them more tax.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
The reaction to this has been immensely funny. Class traitors!
IMO it’s perfectly fine to fully exploit the system as an individual even while campaigning against it. The chat about writing cheques to HMRC is daft - I don’t expect any people on the right to refuse NHS care or PIP if they are badly hurt; nor do I expect people on the left to forgo ISA tax breaks.
Lineker’s a past master at that, he spent a lot of money challenging an IR35 judgement over his BBC earnings only a few years ago. They ended up with an undisclosed settlement which I suspect wasn’t particularly in the football pundit’s favour.
Now he’s telling the world he’s a good man because he wants to pay more tax, while haveing precisely no intention of ever paying more tax.
This is outrageous - he keeps making sensible decisions.
Doesn't he realise he's Prime Minister now?
It's a sensible decision *if* we are not about to run out of room in our prisons.
Is that the case?
If not, it might be the greater of two evils.
Perhaps, but given the choice between letting those convicted of violent offences out even earlier than even the standard rules, and buying a few bunk beds to facilitate overcrowding, it's pretty obvious which way the public will go.
I guess Burnham has to hope that there isn't then a serious prison riot blamed on overcrowding.
Some ideas here for the NHS to consider. The approach to bed numbers vs medics seems almost the diametric opposite of ours. Has anyone modelled the two systems to see which is more cost effective ?
Health care paradox: Korea achieves world-class longevity with fewest doctors among developed nations
Yet this longevity is supported by a strikingly lean clinical workforce.
Korea recorded just 2.6 practicing physicians per 1,000 people (including practitioners of traditional Korean medicine), the second-lowest ratio in the OECD after Costa Rica and well below the average of 4.0. Medical school graduation rates tell a similar story, yielding just 7.3 graduates per 100,000 residents compared to the international norm of 15.3.
To bridge this human gap, the Korean medical system relies heavily on capital-intensive infrastructure and high-volume patient turnover. The country boasts 12.5 hospital beds per 1,000 residents — nearly three times the OECD average — and leads the global bloc in diagnostic equipment, housing 46.7 CT scanners per million people.
This hyper-accessible infrastructure has fostered a culture of frequent clinical consultation. Koreans visited outpatient clinics an average of 17.9 times per year, nearly triple the OECD average of 6.6 visits and the highest rate recorded worldwide..
Inventing in equipment to improve productivity & quality at the same time. We have centuries of evidence, in a range of fields, that this works.
So you would imagine, but it would require a very large change in the way we currently run the NHS. How quickly/easily could you move in that direction, and what would be the cost ?
An implementing government would have to do it very quietly least they run into issues with NHS-staff-worship tendency that exists amongst chunks of the public.
The sooner we start seeing the NHS as a deeply flawed organisation that will never have enough money, and not a national religion, the better
Half our beds are taken up by people recovered but stuck waiting on social care
Good point Malc. If Burnham can solve it all credit to him.
Hope you’re good Sir, and enjoying the summer
Taz, thanks , hope same for you. Not long back from Florida, was far too hot there at this time, 99 every day and baking. Still great time was had by all. Back grafting now and weather has been lovely here.
Same here Malc. We’re off to Madeira in six weeks
Always fancied going there but never got round to it, you can tell me if worth it
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
Agree it feels not right, but different from the Braverman appointment. That felt like Sunak had to appoint a person who shouldn't be anywhere near power because he had a deal which meant he had to. It made no sense at all.
Streeting feels like a cabinet appointment had to be made both on merit and because Streeting had in his way helped the Burnham cause. But Streeting is not out of place in the cabinet. It's just hard to see in him the Healey (D), Carrington, Nott, Hutton, Heseltine, Healey (J). Not a natural to hang around in a tank or hobnob with the military.
However, I am sure he is keen on the defence of the realm and keener still on getting another job.
A Russian Su-57 fighter jet crashed on a training flight in Moscow oblast. The pilot survived. Some in Russia are claiming it was yet another example of friendly fire.
That’s the brand new “stealth” fighter plane that hasn’t even turned up in Ukraine yet. There’s only half a dozen prototypes in existence, and now one fewer of them!
There's a claim going round that Ukraine tricked the Moscow air defence system into firing on their own jet. No idea how credible a claim it is.
That would be funny, but it’s unlikely.
If their own air defences could see it, that immediately debunks the stealth aspect of this particular aircraft.
The reality is that they can’t get (western) parts for them, and it’s likely to be either an old-fashioned failure of something, or a pilot error most likely caused by a lack of currency on type, because they can’t afford to fly the hours the pilots need.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
But if a bunch of smug wankers want to tell the government to tax them more because that’s their fetish, then the government should absolutely start with charging them more tax.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
The reaction to this has been immensely funny. Class traitors!
IMO it’s perfectly fine to fully exploit the system as an individual even while campaigning against it. The chat about writing cheques to HMRC is daft - I don’t expect any people on the right to refuse NHS care or PIP if they are badly hurt; nor do I expect people on the left to forgo ISA tax breaks.
Lineker’s a past master at that, he spent a lot of money challenging an IR35 judgement over his BBC earnings only a few years ago. They ended up with an undisclosed settlement which I suspect wasn’t particularly in the football pundit’s favour.
Now he’s telling the world he’s a good man because he wants to pay more tax, while haveing precisely no intention of ever paying more tax.
Hw won the IR35 part of the case because it was a partnership not a limited company.
We don't know the final result but I suspect the payment was because it was easier for both sides to do something rather than push it through tribunals - NI and partnerships has been a problem for decades that no one wants to touch...
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
The lesson of that war is you need to fight to beat evil.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
The lesson of that war is you need to fight to beat evil.
I don't see anything that has suddenly made the Tories more competent, or looking more competent, since they were turfed out in 2024?
The only real change has been that Reform has been foolish enough to relieve the Tories of some of their most incompetent ministers, such that both of them risk being seen as not up to the job of government.
History suggests that when parties are decisively thrown out of government for negative reasons, it takes more than one GE before people forget and their reputation recovers. I see nothing different, this time.
I think Mr Meeks yesterday had a better analysis on the Tories - basically they have very few seats they can win and a lot of the seats they currently have are likely to be lost in the next election to the Lib Dems thanks to their shift to the right towards Reform.
Basically if Reform sits at 20% and Burnham consolidates the left wing vote (as he will) the Tories are doomed whenever the next election is..
My take on Meeks is that he is likely influenced to some extent by dislike of the Tories. The other take is that Badenoch is polling way ahead of the party and that gets more important at election time. Once again, those of us on PB, obsessed by test cricket, pizza, radiohead, F1, politics and betting tend to forget that the vast, vast majority of the country cares little for politics, and many cannot even tell you who is the leader of the Liberal Democrats. We should also remember that at the next election every seat starts from scratch. Yes there is an incumbency effect, yes local performance of councils and councillors matters and yes the activist base is important, but I think its simply wrong to say that there are very few seats where the Tories can win. Why? In 2019 they won many of them, and those voters can return.
I remember people saying the same thing in 2022-2024 when he was predicting an epochal defeat for the Tories.
Which is a totally fair point, but I think my point about leaders vs party ratings, and the general public is true too.
I wouldn't be surprised by (a) further Tory decline to sub 100 seats or (b) a modest recovery to near or just over 200.
Hard to see more than that.
If you look at Mr Meek's analysis he doesn't and I don't see any seats that the Tories don't already have where they have a chance of winning.
I think keeping 100 seats will take a miracle for the Tory party - and that's ignoring the current insane plan of removing anyone without the "right viewpoint" on a single issue - which when mentioned at an election will cost the Tory party some votes to the Lib Dems...
You need seats that are narrowly held by Labour, but
a) aren't nice enough to be Lib Dem b) are too nice and have too many people with actual jobs to go Reform.
There are a few, I suspect. Central London, some of the NW London fringes like Hendon and Finchley. There must be similar demographics elsewhere.
But not many.
Which I think is the effect @MoonRabbit identifies in her analysis: Milton Keynes, Trafford, plus the London fringes. Swindon maybe too much Reform. I think the effect also requires Labour to lose votes to the Greens.
The Barratt Home seats?
If Ref crashes then some of the ex-mining and steel seats (Balsover, Peniston) might be worth watching as well.
The other part of the Tories' wait for Reform to collapse calculation then kicks in. Will the dispossessed Reform voter switch to the Conservatives at that point? Andy Burnham seems keen to win them over and these are seats that voted Labour for a century. There's still plenty of muscle memory.
Kemi's unyielding right-wing posture and straight-talking schtik is designed to make her, and the party, palatable to trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country. You won't ever get the Lee Andersons back tho.
The Meeks prognosis is bleak, and has some truth to it, but Conservatives will be encouraged by Kemi's ratings - miles better than Farage's - and that the LibDems really don't seem to be doing much nationally. If the Home Counties middle classes want rid of Labour badly enough they will revert back to the Tories.
Trad Tories who have drifted to Reform. And who, at the end of the day, don't really see Reform as fit to run the country
Suspect this intersection in the Venn diagram is small. ie Trad Tories who don't see Reform as fit to run the country are within the 19% that are sticking with the Tories in current polls and didn't drift to Reform in the first place.
We'll see.
+1 - if you don't trust Reform to run the country you are never going to be voting for Reform, so you are going to be reporting as one of those 18% who are voting Tory.
I think Badenoch's strategy is that when Reform collapses, voters who entirely thought Reform was fit to run the country have no choice but to vote Conservative instead.
That this might actually be her best strategy shows the dire straits the party is in. She's making two big assumptions: (a) Reform will collapse; (b) Reform voters will switch to the Conservatives when it does.
Is she not also coping (or trying to) with the loss of the centrist Tories, the one Nation Tories etc that Johnson gave the heave-ho to?
While many on the left hate the Tories, there is a strand of conservatism (small c) in the country. Sound money (stop laughing at the back), fiscal responsibility, self-reliance, state support for those in genuine need, defence of the realm, pro-business, small government.
That case can be made again, but the 14 years from 2010-2024 make it harder to say why.
I fervently believe that Farage is finally reaping what he has sown and that Reform is his latest vessel. May the ship go down with him. When it does (assuming it does) there will be plenty able to return to the Tories if they can be shown a valid reason.
This is why Badenoch's ECHR stuff is politically inept... she is keeping the Lib Dems alive to eat the previously Tory shires...
I’d have thought ECHR is a minuscule issue compared with Badenoch’s views on the switch to electricity and renewables.
Almost everyone sensible knows the current refugee system is insane for the 21st century. But a very large majority of people are pro-Green energy, Lib Dems even more so.
The Tory ECHR policy is using a nuclear bomb to fix a single issue.
It would add us to a list that contains just Russia and Belarus which isn’t really somewhere you want to be.
It’s also just a tick box exercise when comparing against Reform that will please reform favouring Tory voters but disgust Lib Dem tending ones.
Again what is Kemi doing beyond creating a Reform lite party that is still in no man’s land with no clear reason for existence
Piss off with this false dichotomy.
It would add us to a list that contains Carney's Canada and Albanese's Australia.
Culture, law and traditions matter far more than geographic irrelevancy and we have far more in common with civilised, rule of law obeying, democratic Common Law Canada and Australia than we do authoritarian, dictatorial undemocratic Belarus and Russia.
If you think the ECHR is a good idea find a good reason to defend our membership of it. We are in Europe while Canada is not is not a good reason.
It is perfectly possible to be a democratic, liberal Common Law nation out of the ECHR.
The ECHR was created by Churchill
Equally what part of Europe is Canada/Australia in beyond the fact they pay to be part of Eurovision
Bart is OK with Israel carrying out ethnic cleansing, so obviously he's never going to be keen on the ECHR.
That's absurd.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
I quite agree. It is absurd that Bart is OK with a crime against humanity. But that's where we are: 80 years since World War II ended and it seems some are unable to remember the lessons of that war.
The lesson of that war is you need to fight to beat evil.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
But if a bunch of smug wankers want to tell the government to tax them more because that’s their fetish, then the government should absolutely start with charging them more tax.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
The reaction to this has been immensely funny. Class traitors!
IMO it’s perfectly fine to fully exploit the system as an individual even while campaigning against it. The chat about writing cheques to HMRC is daft - I don’t expect any people on the right to refuse NHS care or PIP if they are badly hurt; nor do I expect people on the left to forgo ISA tax breaks.
Lineker’s a past master at that, he spent a lot of money challenging an IR35 judgement over his BBC earnings only a few years ago. They ended up with an undisclosed settlement which I suspect wasn’t particularly in the football pundit’s favour.
Now he’s telling the world he’s a good man because he wants to pay more tax, while haveing precisely no intention of ever paying more tax.
Good article by @MoonRabbit but as ever 3 years away from a GE events tend to come along and upset predictions
Andy Burnham has certainly demonstrated how to do retail politics and Labour supporters should be very pleased
I expect a poll bounce in his and Labour's poll ratings and a demonstration to Starmer and his government just how badly they performed
The announcements so far have not been unaffordable but the hard miles lie ahead not least with Healey and Streeting ( and the public) wanting more defence spending
Interesting Lineker and 100 plus millionaires want higher taxes on them so I assume they will voluntary pay more to HMRC now to show goodwill
I do expect reform/restore/greens to fall back and more traditional politics re emerge over the months and years ahead
Never understood the shamed voluntary tax thing. Should everyone who wants more defence spending have to pay extra too? Those who want more hospital spending have to volunteer for shifts at the local A&E?
There is no reason people can't argue for the world they would like to live in, but live in the world we actually have.
I find articles like the one Lineker has signed immensely frustrating, as well as self-indulgent.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
The government should pass a bill that says those who signed the letter are subject to 60% tax on all income, including that paid through a company for personal services. Create a mechanism by which rich socialists can voluntarily add themselves to the 60% pool, simply by sending an appropriately-worded letter to the government or a national newspaper.
It may have escaped you that tax doesn't really work like that.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
But if a bunch of smug wankers want to tell the government to tax them more because that’s their fetish, then the government should absolutely start with charging them more tax.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
The reaction to this has been immensely funny. Class traitors!
IMO it’s perfectly fine to fully exploit the system as an individual even while campaigning against it. The chat about writing cheques to HMRC is daft - I don’t expect any people on the right to refuse NHS care or PIP if they are badly hurt; nor do I expect people on the left to forgo ISA tax breaks.
Lineker’s a past master at that, he spent a lot of money challenging an IR35 judgement over his BBC earnings only a few years ago. They ended up with an undisclosed settlement which I suspect wasn’t particularly in the football pundit’s favour.
Now he’s telling the world he’s a good man because he wants to pay more tax, while haveing precisely no intention of ever paying more tax.
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
See also Lou Haigh.
But more importantly- I want to see Burnham defend something unpopular on the grounds that it's the necessary thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. He doesn't have to enjoy it, or do it to make a point... but he needs to do it.
As things stand, I'm not sure he can. And that's a problem.
He has promised a ten-year plan by the end of the year, and there will also be a budget. I don't see how you can turn the country around without doing some things that are unpopular - either raising some taxes, or cutting some spending, or both.
We'll know then whether he has a serious plan for the future of Britain, or if he simply has a plan for winning the next election.
I'd be tempted to turn off from politics until either of those things are published, but I'm looking forward to seeing the order of the Monster Raving Loony candidates in the Clacton by-election.
Alphabet beat on every headline number tonight. Revenue up 24%. Cloud up 82%. EPS of $9.11. But $6.26 of that EPS came from paper gains on Alphabet's Anthropic stake*, not from operations. Strip that out and operating EPS is about $2.85. Free cash flow went negative for the first time in Alphabet's history. Long-term debt more than doubled in six months. Stock buybacks dropped to zero. https://x.com/HedgieMarkets/status/2080035162906390756
*Actually Anthropic and SpaceX. But SpaceX is also likely way overvalued if they don't get Starship to work.
AI is here to stay, obviously. What's not obvious is the value being given to all of the companies spending tens of billions to try and dominate the market.
What's certain is that some of them will fail to do so.
The other problem is that when customers are charged more realistic prices, they might walk away.
They're already doing so, which is a problem as both OpenAI and Anthropic have enormous financial commitments that require constant, rapid growth to sustain. Despite AI's numerous problems the biggest issue was never technical, but financial. It just costs too much for the benefits it provides.
Read an interesting article about the Chinese approach.
Basically they interrogate your AI to train theirs for a fraction of the price.
It's never as good as the latest model, but usually at least as good as the last one if not better and what's more oftena lot cheaper or even free.
Whether intentionall or not they may be bleeding the US dry.
The US spends 100's of millions on a new model and to pay for it need lots of customers to use it, either upgrade or pay more. The chineses make a copy for 10's of millions and sell it or charge a far lower fee or again even make it free.
Customers have choice;
1) Pay more for the new model and hope it gives them the edge and pays for itself. 2) Stick with the current model,paying the same but risk fall behind or missing out on savings or. 3) Switch to the far cheaper just as good chinese model, which might give a marginal improvement at lower cost?
At what point and how many existing users have to take option 3 and go Chinese for the US model to be finacially unsustainable?
Answers?
Peter.
The Chinese ethos of cheaply training 'trailing-edge' models is a sensible one I believe, because the performance of LLMs is starting the plateau. So the gap between a US frontier model and a less costly Chinese one is narrowing all the time. Also, OpenAI and Anthropic are basically producing gold plated models, where they spend crazy money to enhance the model's capabilities by small amounts.
But, the Chinese method does nothing for inference costs, and that's the big killer. These days the amount of money required to run the datacentres for AI is gigantic and growing constantly. That's why the American companies can't just offer big discounts for access to their older models.
I think we're at the beginning of a race to the bottom, because the single biggest attribute of an LLM model is no longer capability but cost. They're becoming a commodity. Which is death for the US developers because of their financial position.
I've maintained for some time that the future of corporate AI is not vast, billion dollar datacentres but a server that sits in the corner and runs a couple of useful models. No monthly token charges and your data never leaves the building. Home users will still mostly use the cloud (although hardware prices coming down will make local hosting more attractive for heavy users) but that's nowhere near enough of a market to keep the big AI vendors in business.
Alphabet beat on every headline number tonight. Revenue up 24%. Cloud up 82%. EPS of $9.11. But $6.26 of that EPS came from paper gains on Alphabet's Anthropic stake*, not from operations. Strip that out and operating EPS is about $2.85. Free cash flow went negative for the first time in Alphabet's history. Long-term debt more than doubled in six months. Stock buybacks dropped to zero. https://x.com/HedgieMarkets/status/2080035162906390756
*Actually Anthropic and SpaceX. But SpaceX is also likely way overvalued if they don't get Starship to work.
AI is here to stay, obviously. What's not obvious is the value being given to all of the companies spending tens of billions to try and dominate the market.
What's certain is that some of them will fail to do so.
The other problem is that when customers are charged more realistic prices, they might walk away.
They're already doing so, which is a problem as both OpenAI and Anthropic have enormous financial commitments that require constant, rapid growth to sustain. Despite AI's numerous problems the biggest issue was never technical, but financial. It just costs too much for the benefits it provides.
Read an interesting article about the Chinese approach.
Basically they interrogate your AI to train theirs for a fraction of the price.
It's never as good as the latest model, but usually at least as good as the last one if not better and what's more oftena lot cheaper or even free.
Whether intentionall or not they may be bleeding the US dry.
The US spends 100's of millions on a new model and to pay for it need lots of customers to use it, either upgrade or pay more. The chineses make a copy for 10's of millions and sell it or charge a far lower fee or again even make it free.
Customers have choice;
1) Pay more for the new model and hope it gives them the edge and pays for itself. 2) Stick with the current model,paying the same but risk fall behind or missing out on savings or. 3) Switch to the far cheaper just as good chinese model, which might give a marginal improvement at lower cost?
At what point and how many existing users have to take option 3 and go Chinese for the US model to be finacially unsustainable?
Answers?
Peter.
Well, that was how the very first Chinese models worked.
The latest ones are trained in exactly the same way the Western ones are.
Alphabet beat on every headline number tonight. Revenue up 24%. Cloud up 82%. EPS of $9.11. But $6.26 of that EPS came from paper gains on Alphabet's Anthropic stake*, not from operations. Strip that out and operating EPS is about $2.85. Free cash flow went negative for the first time in Alphabet's history. Long-term debt more than doubled in six months. Stock buybacks dropped to zero. https://x.com/HedgieMarkets/status/2080035162906390756
*Actually Anthropic and SpaceX. But SpaceX is also likely way overvalued if they don't get Starship to work.
AI is here to stay, obviously. What's not obvious is the value being given to all of the companies spending tens of billions to try and dominate the market.
What's certain is that some of them will fail to do so.
The other problem is that when customers are charged more realistic prices, they might walk away.
They're already doing so, which is a problem as both OpenAI and Anthropic have enormous financial commitments that require constant, rapid growth to sustain. Despite AI's numerous problems the biggest issue was never technical, but financial. It just costs too much for the benefits it provides.
Read an interesting article about the Chinese approach.
Basically they interrogate your AI to train theirs for a fraction of the price.
It's never as good as the latest model, but usually at least as good as the last one if not better and what's more oftena lot cheaper or even free.
Whether intentionall or not they may be bleeding the US dry.
The US spends 100's of millions on a new model and to pay for it need lots of customers to use it, either upgrade or pay more. The chineses make a copy for 10's of millions and sell it or charge a far lower fee or again even make it free.
Customers have choice;
1) Pay more for the new model and hope it gives them the edge and pays for itself. 2) Stick with the current model,paying the same but risk fall behind or missing out on savings or. 3) Switch to the far cheaper just as good chinese model, which might give a marginal improvement at lower cost?
At what point and how many existing users have to take option 3 and go Chinese for the US model to be finacially unsustainable?
Answers?
Peter.
The Chinese ethos of cheaply training 'trailing-edge' models is a sensible one I believe, because the performance of LLMs is starting the plateau. So the gap between a US frontier model and a less costly Chinese one is narrowing all the time. Also, OpenAI and Anthropic are basically producing gold plated models, where they spend crazy money to enhance the model's capabilities by small amounts.
But, the Chinese method does nothing for inference costs, and that's the big killer. These days the amount of money required to run the datacentres for AI is gigantic and growing constantly. That's why the American companies can't just offer big discounts for access to their older models.
I think we're at the beginning of a race to the bottom, because the single biggest attribute of an LLM model is no longer capability but cost. They're becoming a commodity. Which is death for the US developers because of their financial position.
I've maintained for some time that the future of corporate AI is not vast, billion dollar datacentres but a server that sits in the corner and runs a couple of useful models. No monthly token charges and your data never leaves the building. Home users will still mostly use the cloud (although hardware prices coming down will make local hosting more attractive for heavy users) but that's nowhere near enough of a market to keep the big AI vendors in business.
I run Qwen 3.6 35bn MOE at home, and it's incredibly capable and decently quick. It's basically Sonnet from 12 months ago.
Some ideas here for the NHS to consider. The approach to bed numbers vs medics seems almost the diametric opposite of ours. Has anyone modelled the two systems to see which is more cost effective ?
Health care paradox: Korea achieves world-class longevity with fewest doctors among developed nations
Yet this longevity is supported by a strikingly lean clinical workforce.
Korea recorded just 2.6 practicing physicians per 1,000 people (including practitioners of traditional Korean medicine), the second-lowest ratio in the OECD after Costa Rica and well below the average of 4.0. Medical school graduation rates tell a similar story, yielding just 7.3 graduates per 100,000 residents compared to the international norm of 15.3.
To bridge this human gap, the Korean medical system relies heavily on capital-intensive infrastructure and high-volume patient turnover. The country boasts 12.5 hospital beds per 1,000 residents — nearly three times the OECD average — and leads the global bloc in diagnostic equipment, housing 46.7 CT scanners per million people.
This hyper-accessible infrastructure has fostered a culture of frequent clinical consultation. Koreans visited outpatient clinics an average of 17.9 times per year, nearly triple the OECD average of 6.6 visits and the highest rate recorded worldwide..
Inventing in equipment to improve productivity & quality at the same time. We have centuries of evidence, in a range of fields, that this works.
So you would imagine, but it would require a very large change in the way we currently run the NHS. How quickly/easily could you move in that direction, and what would be the cost ?
An implementing government would have to do it very quietly least they run into issues with NHS-staff-worship tendency that exists amongst chunks of the public.
The sooner we start seeing the NHS as a deeply flawed organisation that will never have enough money, and not a national religion, the better
Half our beds are taken up by people recovered but stuck waiting on social care
Good point Malc. If Burnham can solve it all credit to him.
Hope you’re good Sir, and enjoying the summer
Taz, thanks , hope same for you. Not long back from Florida, was far too hot there at this time, 99 every day and baking. Still great time was had by all. Back grafting now and weather has been lovely here.
Same here Malc. We’re off to Madeira in six weeks
Always fancied going there but never got round to it, you can tell me if worth it
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
See also Lou Haigh.
But more importantly- I want to see Burnham defend something unpopular on the grounds that it's the necessary thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. He doesn't have to enjoy it, or do it to make a point... but he needs to do it.
As things stand, I'm not sure he can. And that's a problem.
He has promised a ten-year plan by the end of the year, and there will also be a budget. I don't see how you can turn the country around without doing some things that are unpopular - either raising some taxes, or cutting some spending, or both.
We'll know then whether he has a serious plan for the future of Britain, or if he simply has a plan for winning the next election.
I'd be tempted to turn off from politics until either of those things are published, but I'm looking forward to seeing the order of the Monster Raving Loony candidates in the Clacton by-election.
If he only raises taxes and keeps increasing throwing money at benefits then he will come unstuck very soon. It needs a focus on cutting spending , eliminating waste and some tax increases for some time. Unlikely he will bite the bullet , usual labour will be smoke and mirrors and keep spending
I'd have thought India playing test cricket against Australia in England would be a more commercially-attractive proposition. AIUI, it's quite hard to motivate Indian crowds to turn out to watch their own country play in test matches.
You just know that almost every decision Burnham makes is annoying the Starmerites, by default. Because it would be impossible to be more anti-public opinion than the previous administration was.
We are in day 4 of the Burnham regime. Listening to bits and pieces from talking heads the following seems clear to them:
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes. His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife. His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics. Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates). The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I will just offer one thought.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
See also Lou Haigh.
But more importantly- I want to see Burnham defend something unpopular on the grounds that it's the necessary thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. He doesn't have to enjoy it, or do it to make a point... but he needs to do it.
As things stand, I'm not sure he can. And that's a problem.
Though slightly different, by keeping Shabana Mahmood in place Burnham has shown that he is willing to court unpopularity within the PLP and the wider party. He sees her tough approach to immigration and asylum seekers as necessary if he is to win the next GE, even if it displeases many on the left.
Comments
Yes, MinsterDan Neidle on leading questions in polling.https://x.com/danneidle/status/2080263929591140650
https://x.com/danneidle/status/2080263930807570719
Seen that opinion poll in which millionaires say they're in favour of a wealth tax on millionaires?
It's an absolute masterclass in how to get the polling result that you want. And the detail shows the opposite of what we're told it shows.
Thread:
Scalping, mutilation, torture, and the systematic destruction of enemy villages and infliction of violence on non-combatants, including women and children, were commonplace. And intertribal warfare endemic.
What that would mean is a strong defence, security, a stable economy and good investment into public services, including basic transport and energy infrastructure.
If he trys to replay Labour's greatest hits from the 1970s, he will come unstuck quickly; the original album did not sell well.
Reform UK leader describes collision as ‘karma’ after driver in Clacton calls him a ‘w---er’"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2026/07/23/woman-crashes-car-seconds-after-swearing-at-farage/
Also, concern about immigration built up over time, largely due to his administration.
There was virtually none when he took over.
It has been used in Ukraine but only to launch missiles from Russian airspace.
Whether that's because; they don't want to lose one, it isn't very good or they don't want the UKraininans to pass info on it's radar and heat signature is still a guessing game.
Peter.
They won't be touched, but it will be used as an excuse to whack tax up to 50% for headteachers and hospital consultants earning £125k, who work very long hours and have very few assets, and then that policy will be applauded by them.
So far they're the only pollster to give Labour a lead.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_for_the_next_United_Kingdom_general_election#National_poll_results
He'll continue to earn the millions that he just pays corporation tax on
https://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/officers-members/
https://www.britishpollingcouncil.org/officers-members/
What we know about is the (estimated) 10% - 15% of the population that survived that event. A bit like the UK might have been a couple of centuries after Threads...
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cwyklykn5dwo
Basically they interrogate your AI to train theirs for a fraction of the price.
It's never as good as the latest model, but usually at least as good as the last one if not better and what's more oftena lot cheaper or even free.
Whether intentionall or not they may be bleeding the US dry.
The US spends 100's of millions on a new model and to pay for it need lots of customers to use it, either upgrade or pay more.
The chineses make a copy for 10's of millions and sell it or charge a far lower fee or again even make it free.
Customers have choice;
1) Pay more for the new model and hope it gives them the edge and pays for itself.
2) Stick with the current model,paying the same but risk fall behind or missing out on savings or.
3) Switch to the far cheaper just as good chinese model, which might give a marginal improvement at lower cost?
At what point and how many existing users have to take option 3 and go Chinese for the US model to be finacially unsustainable?
Answers?
Peter.
Doesn't he realise he's Prime Minister now?
She needs a huge Reform collapse and for that collapse to benefit the Tories massively.
Her problem will be if the Reform core vote doesn't drop below 15% - quite likely in that many Reform voters don't seem to follow politics that closely and won't see voting for them as a "wasted vote" given how long they have been ahead in the polls.
A 15% core-vote would indicate a drop of around 10% on current polling. I would guess that 4-5% of that would not bother voting at all (a substantial number of Reform voters were previously non-voters). 1-2% would go to Burnham which only leaves the Tories picking up an extra 3-4%. Would a 1 - 3% net gain from a Reform collapse be enough? I doubt it.
As @Pulpstar says it's the liberal activists who are going to destroy the ECHR, and citing "Churchill" in defence of what they're doing just doesn't wash.
Is that the case?
If not, it might be the greater of two evils.
I am sure it upsets that quite a few wealth creators do actually want good public services and a fair society, and are not likely to piss off to some tax haven to guard their piles of cash like Smaug.
John Healey set out five priorities this morning.
1⃣Meet fiscal rules with a buffer for uncertainty
2⃣ Every department delivers growth
3⃣ Buy British at all levels, by design
4⃣Raise levels of investment and profit in business
5⃣Bring down cost of living and cost of doing business.
https://x.com/FennellJW/status/2080196516413677925
Joining CAMRA is the most political thing I've done all year.
Yes, you can fudge how renewables are paid for, but we're paying for them however you fudge it. If you want cheaper electricity however paid for, you need to choose cheaper energy sources.
Incidentally, really interesting thread and linked article (possible gift link) about a near blackout at the end of June, which was avoided by some smart employees at NESO asking favours from their counterparts on the other end of the international interconnectors. Several factors came together but the main takeaway is that improvements already in the pipeline - in particular grid upgrade and more batteries - would have avoided this incident if it happened in a couple of years time.
https://bsky.app/profile/tomh-analyst.bsky.social/post/3mr5lif3jx226
The ECHR is being interrupted with the progressive law view - that finding new rights and obligations in existing law is part of the process of law.
This then leads to following
1) Some same that it is awesome that new rights are being created in the ECHR
2) Some say that it is terrible.
3) Many of 1) believe that the issue is Beyond Politics - that is that the government can't and shouldn't do anything
4) Equally, many who hold to 2) think that the government should intervene.
The problem with Beyond Politics, is that it is equally dangerous in the long run. What happens when a Restore government appoints 10,000 immigration judges of their kidney*? Or sign the UK up to the International Convention On Mandatory Enslavement Of Refugees? Will the advocates of Beyond Politics applaud? I think not.
In the US, the control of legislation by the judicial branch has simply created another legislative chamber - with appointments for life. MAGA baked into the system for decades.
*They've actually talked about this one.
Burnham is 'Macbeth' and having stolen the crown it has turned to ashes.
His cabinet and other appointments is a purge and factionalism is rife.
His giveaways are (a) trivial and (b) unfunded and (c) give most to the wealthiest who use most electricity
His regime is already doomed.
It seems to me what he has happened so far is this:
He has appointed a cabinet in circumstances where whatever he did, those who lost out would make great claims. That's politics.
Having no wiggle room at all before a budget he has made a couple of minor retail offers at almost no cost (VAT, buses, smalltime business rates).
The offers he has made are addressed not at those who understand debt, deficit and money, but at those for whom a pound = a lottery ticket and is noticed, while £1billion is incomprehensible. There are lots of these but not among talking heads. Starmer and Starmerites never talked their language.
Conclusion: OK so far but all the hard stuff is to come.
I like a covered outdoor smoking area, but pubs are much better without the fag fog
Sure, you can heavily criticise the Conquistadors, but let's not pretend it was black and white.
With Sunak a massive red flag that things would go horribly wrong was his decision to bring back Braverman as Home Secretary. Now bearing in mind, even allowing for the fact she's a nasty piece of work, she made a serious mistake around data security - one a fairly bright 18 year old working in a solicitor's office would have avoided - that meant Liz Truss had to fire her.
Sunak reappointing her and not only that, reappointing her to the Home Office, signalled both that his position was shockingly weak and his judgement was highly suspect. The first was fairly obvious, but the second grew to become horribly apparent over the train wreck of the next 18 months.
Andrew Burnham has made Wes Streeting Defence Secretary.
I'm getting the same vibes.
Try more of that. It's a better version of you than the bonehead Lib.
Or is their letter actually nothing but an utterly meaningless virtue signal to their friends in the media?
The purpose of the LibDems is to get lots of LibDems elected!
Elected to demand change! from others!
Actually governing means having to do it, rather that just pointing at people and demanding they do.
Government is the last thing they want!
Next you'll be believing their graphs!
Peter.
IMO it’s perfectly fine to fully exploit the system as an individual even while campaigning against it. The chat about writing cheques to HMRC is daft - I don’t expect any people on the right to refuse NHS care or PIP if they are badly hurt; nor do I expect people on the left to forgo ISA tax breaks.
Compared with S America - or the North America we colonised - very little is known.
He will do what's convenient for his career as Defence Secretary, not what's optimal for defence of the realm.
But more importantly- I want to see Burnham defend something unpopular on the grounds that it's the necessary thing to do. Or even the right thing to do. He doesn't have to enjoy it, or do it to make a point... but he needs to do it.
As things stand, I'm not sure he can. And that's a problem.
Now he’s telling the world he’s a good man because he wants to pay more tax, while haveing precisely no intention of ever paying more tax.
I guess Burnham has to hope that there isn't then a serious prison riot blamed on overcrowding.
Streeting feels like a cabinet appointment had to be made both on merit and because Streeting had in his way helped the Burnham cause. But Streeting is not out of place in the cabinet. It's just hard to see in him the Healey (D), Carrington, Nott, Hutton, Heseltine, Healey (J). Not a natural to hang around in a tank or hobnob with the military.
However, I am sure he is keen on the defence of the realm and keener still on getting another job.
If their own air defences could see it, that immediately debunks the stealth aspect of this particular aircraft.
The reality is that they can’t get (western) parts for them, and it’s likely to be either an old-fashioned failure of something, or a pilot error most likely caused by a lack of currency on type, because they can’t afford to fly the hours the pilots need.
We don't know the final result but I suspect the payment was because it was easier for both sides to do something rather than push it through tribunals - NI and partnerships has been a problem for decades that no one wants to touch...
You have forgotten that lesson.
Pretty clear actually.
We'll know then whether he has a serious plan for the future of Britain, or if he simply has a plan for winning the next election.
I'd be tempted to turn off from politics until either of those things are published, but I'm looking forward to seeing the order of the Monster Raving Loony candidates in the Clacton by-election.
But, the Chinese method does nothing for inference costs, and that's the big killer. These days the amount of money required to run the datacentres for AI is gigantic and growing constantly. That's why the American companies can't just offer big discounts for access to their older models.
I think we're at the beginning of a race to the bottom, because the single biggest attribute of an LLM model is no longer capability but cost. They're becoming a commodity. Which is death for the US developers because of their financial position.
I've maintained for some time that the future of corporate AI is not vast, billion dollar datacentres but a server that sits in the corner and runs a couple of useful models. No monthly token charges and your data never leaves the building. Home users will still mostly use the cloud (although hardware prices coming down will make local hosting more attractive for heavy users) but that's nowhere near enough of a market to keep the big AI vendors in business.
The latest ones are trained in exactly the same way the Western ones are.
And an interesting list of speakers:
https://gb.cpac.org/
Australia open to playing Test against England in India
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/cricket/articles/c9d8px74zzdo
Unlikely he will bite the bullet , usual labour will be smoke and mirrors and keep spending