As a Lib Dem I never bet on them as my emotional attachment can overcome my logical assumptions. However having worked for a previous Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham, I would be surprised and gutted if we don't win this time. I would think the Lib Dems won't do as well as hoped in many leave areas in the South West, but better in remain seats in and around London. I also expect to win Hallam, as O'Mara must surely have tarnished the Labour tag as he was after all originally a Labour MP. I am hoping for forty plus seats, but expecting 30+. Could do with more coverage on tv - the policy of inbvesting in mental health services was hardly mentioned tonight.
Re mental health - poor tactics to announce policy on day of another party launch. Labour played it well by contrast
The mental health policy is great. Really impressed. They need to repeat it again when there is more air space.
snip
One of the biggest challenges for Psychiatry is the difficulty in getting graduates to apply. It has one of the lowest competition ratios of all specialities. The reasons are complex, but seemingly intractable. Not least is the absence of funding for inpatient units. Having suicidal patients but no possibility of admission is extremely common and extremely stressful for family and professional alike.
There was an interesting article in the Dundee Courier recently looking at some of the statistics behind our desperate record on drug deaths. The one that really stood out for me (our statistics were worse than the Scottish average in every category bar 1) was mental health. From memory 64% of those who died of a drug overdose in Dundee had a diagnosed mental health problem The Scottish average was just over 50%.
What this screamed out to me was that if we wished to reduce the carnage caused by drugs in our city we really, really have to improve our mental health services. The local specialist unit has a poor reputation both in terms of quality of service and also in its attitude to drug users. People from areas of multiple deprivation with a mental health problem self medicating = death.
The funding and general condition of mental health is an absolute disgrace. I have direct family experience of all this. I am totally with the LibDems on this one (and hats off to Norman Lamb).
As just one example in thousand, the NewStatesman recently featured (in a GP's regular column) a case of a woman with extreme and dangerous psychosis in Devon who had to be sent to an adult mental health bed in Nottingham. It was the only bed available that night in the whole of England and Wales!!
The analysis by Stuart Dickson relates more to the part of the Fat Laird's seat which was formerly part of Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber. I can assure you that in Ross-shire the Fat Laird is despised and most especially by locals who adored Charles Kennedy. However the younger generation are big Nat voters so as I said the Fat Laird will hold on. For the record, a large part of the Tory vote is not incomer, it is proudly native and unionist but that doesnt fit within the SNP mantra which is very much anti-English and hearing some of the anti-English remarks from SNP supporters is blood curdling. A popular one is "when we get independence, people like you will be sent back south of the border"! Not quite burning English holiday homes as happened in Wales in the 1970s but sometimes not far from it. Even I got accused of being an Englishman a few weeks ago on Facebook by a fanatical SNP supporter and I am a 22x great grandson of Robert the Bruce! (and a descendant of Edward I of England as are all descendants of the Mackenzie of Kintail family)
"Why don't you just f""k off and join the Tories" "Ok maybe we need to vote Tory" ^Outrage*
The History of the Tiggers - 2019 to 2019 - will be a remarkable WTF??? footnote to the politics of, er, 2019.
If it hadn’t been for the Tiggers would the yellows ever have announced their Bollocks to Brexit policy, just to be distinctive? Whether that was a good idea remains to be seen.
"At every opportunity, he backs our country's enemies."
That's potent. Focusses the minds of a lot of wavering Tories.
What do we think the chances are that somebody is going to leak that Russian interference report during the campaign?
More likely than not? 60%-80%?
I'd have thought so. Which begs the question: why doesn't the government release it now and get it out of the way so that it will be forgotten by 12th Dec?
Sadly the answer may be because they are a bit dim.
Sadly the answer is likely to be they will release it on December 13th when we are stuck with them for another 5 years and it will matter not a jot whether they are shown to be Putin's Little Helpers because it will be too late to anything about it.
On the Wokingham poll. I was born and brought up there and my parents still live there on a rather leafy cul-de-sac. My father voted Leave and my mother Remain. Despite being almost lifelong Tory voters they both voted LibDem in the last locals. John Redwood is not popular even putting his views on Brexit to one side.
Wokingham has had a massive influx of new residents with vast swathes of fields being obliterated by new builds (one of the reasons I moved out of the area 7 years ago). My mother tell me that these people are likely to be more LibDem leaning.
I am not surprised by the poll and I think at least my Mother is tempted to vote LD. If she and others like her do then Redwood could well lose. I'm not a Redwood fan despite being a Leaver but I pointed out the dangers of voting LD and letting Corbyn in through the back door. Both my parents believe Corbyn would be an absolute disaster for the country.
Bottom line is that I would not be surprised if the LDs win in Wokingham but will people like my Mother at the last minute think the risk of voting LD is worth it in the privacy of the polling booth?
The LDs candidate is ex Tory MP Philip Lee
Going to love seeing all those LibDem activists pounding the pavement for HIM!
The chance of getting rid of Redwood will overcome the reservations of any remainer of whatever party.
Heidi Allen is a big loss to the Lib Dems . I’m pretty sure she’d have held her seat , not just that she has both charisma , speaks well and is very pretty which helps !
Just seeing here in the Unite to Remain video , that has a great ring to it . With no Labour involvement it does make the impact much less but it all helps .
I think it could have an additional impact though on Labour Remainers in that seat , if the literature is going to households with Unite to Remain one could see a bigger tactical vote by those Labour voters .
One good thing about the Green/Lib Dem alliance is that it will help detoxify the Lib Dems in the eyes of centre-left voters who opposed the coalition. This could boost the LD vote even in seats where the pact isn’t operating
I think that’s true.
But retoxify the LDs in the eyes of potential switchers from the right. I mean, the Green Party are even more alarming than the Labour Party. At least Labour have a core of MPs with a grip on reality. The Greens are uniformly bonkers.
I know some Green activists who are relatively sane. Of course others are bonkers, but there are truly bonkers people in every political party. Indeed it's the one segment of the population massively over-represented at all levels of politics.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
The only way to advance is to invest in technology.
Those trying to tell the West that they must give up their standard of living are always going to be doomed to fail, as are those that try to tell the developing world that they can’t advance as other nations have in the past.
The absolute best return on investment is in education, especially of girls in the developing world. There’s a massive correlation between female education levels and birth rates, saving the planet means reducing the population explosion of the past 100 years.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
Absolutely. Personally I’m not a fan of government controlling universities, but if that’s the system (which it is) then STEM subjects need to be subsidised for the student.
There’s thousands of amazing technology companies in the U.K.which can be supported, from biotech to aerospace and even motorsport - people don’t realise that a wind turbine blade looks just like the wing of a glider, and modern F1 cars use half the fuel per mile they did only six years ago.
This tech feeds down into more mundane applications over time - your modern car now uses a lot less fuel than it did a few years ago, thanks to that F1 technology - which is annoying the hell out of the government who make £30bn and change from fuel duty every year, minus all the subsidies they grant to electric cars.
I assume this article was written before Mims Davies meltdown in Eastleigh. I had this down as a Conservative hold, but have completely changed that opinion now. Any sitting MP who, over the space of a few days, announces;
I am standing down I am being shortlisted for Mid Sussex I have changed my mind and am staying
has a real credibility problem, and the Eastleigh LDs, with all their local resources, should be able to expoit that to the full.
One good thing about the Green/Lib Dem alliance is that it will help detoxify the Lib Dems in the eyes of centre-left voters who opposed the coalition. This could boost the LD vote even in seats where the pact isn’t operating
I think that’s true.
In my experience most voters are mildly positive about the Greens, seeing them as slightly idealistic good-lifers rather than left-wing extremists. That may be because most voters have only the vaguest idea what the Greens' policies are in detail but it's the effect that matters.
The pact can only boost their chances overall.
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
The only way to advance is to invest in technology.
Those trying to tell the West that they must give up their standard of living are always going to be doomed to fail, as are those that try to tell the developing world that they can’t advance as other nations have in the past.
The absolute best return on investment is in education, especially of girls in the developing world. There’s a massive correlation between female education levels and birth rates, saving the planet means reducing the population explosion of the past 100 years.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
In school the Geography curriculum is already pretty environmentally friendly.
Heidi Allen is a big loss to the Lib Dems . I’m pretty sure she’d have held her seat , not just that she has both charisma , speaks well and is very pretty which helps !
Just seeing here in the Unite to Remain video , that has a great ring to it . With no Labour involvement it does make the impact much less but it all helps .
I think it could have an additional impact though on Labour Remainers in that seat , if the literature is going to households with Unite to Remain one could see a bigger tactical vote by those Labour voters .
One good thing about the Green/Lib Dem alliance is that it will help detoxify the Lib Dems in the eyes of centre-left voters who opposed the coalition. This could boost the LD vote even in seats where the pact isn’t operating
I think that’s true.
But retoxify the LDs in the eyes of potential switchers from the right. I mean, the Green Party are even more alarming than the Labour Party. At least Labour have a core of MPs with a grip on reality. The Greens are uniformly bonkers.
I know some Green activists who are relatively sane. Of course others are bonkers, but there are truly bonkers people in every political party. Indeed it's the one segment of the population massively over-represented at all levels of politics.
I suspect that the self-obsessed and incompetent are also over-represented in politics.
Guardian saying The announcement of Watson’s departure was carefully choreographed with Corbyn’s office, and there was speculation at Westminster that he could be granted a peerage by the Labour leader after the general election. Just to clear that one up, as a few people thought it was sign of Labour war and meltdown when news first hit.
I think it’s an issue for the moderates next time.
Obviously the media talks about the known players but they seem to continually recycle Watson, Cooper, Benn etc as the standard bearers. Watson was someone who the moderates could have coalesced around. I don’t see the hunger in Cooper, and suspect (IANAE) that Benn doesn’t have the power base.
Who is going to lead the moderates to regain control of Labour?
Do we definitely know if Cooper is standing again?
Her Twitter handle isn't clear:
Yvette Cooper @YvetteCooperMP Normanton, Pontefract & Castleford Labour (Now Parliament has dissolved there are no MPs)
Others describe themselves as "[Party] Candidate for [Constituency]:
Hilary Benn @hilarybennmp Labour Candidate for Leeds Central in the 2019 General Election. Parliament is now dissolved so there are no MPs until after the election.
I would have thought the Balls family could make a better life for themselves now away from politics. Won't especially surprise me if she steps down.
Her chances of promotion in a Corbyn government would be pretty slim.....
"At every opportunity, he backs our country's enemies."
That's potent. Focusses the minds of a lot of wavering Tories.
That is how most Tories know Corbyn, but coming from Ian Austin that is a home truth addressed to Labour supporters.
While I share Austin’s analysis, it may have less force than it might otherwise when we have had reports that Trump, the current Tory party’s best friend, did not believe that Putin was behind the Skripal affair.
Personally, I find it deeply saddening that in Britain in 2019, there should have to be a plea on the front page of a newspaper for voters to pay regard to the fears of a small minority group when casting their vote, to say “Please don’t forget us. Our fears are real.” It is utterly shaming.
And it is not just Jews who feel like that. Far right extremism is on the rise, according to reports. EU citizens who have lived here for years feel uncertain and worried.
Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
The dilemma for the LibDems is that, while a Labour recovery is the fastest way to standing a chance of stopping Brexit, the threat of Corbyn acts as a huge brake on the potential tide of Tory remainers that starts to land them numbers of seats. They really need Labour to be knocked back early, so that both Labour and Tory remainers turn to the LDs as the only remaining option to stop the Tories.
On reviweing all of SCotland I feel POSSOM (Probably Overly Simplistic Scottish Observational Model) breaks down outside of the North/NorthEast.
Unless you think Labour sweeping all of Glasgow is likely when on 19% of the vote nationally. In which case boy do I have a lot of great value bets for you!
Talking of the Dundee Courier there was a column in it by Jenny Hajul yesterday hinting that the Tories might stand aside in Ross, Skye & Lochaber to give the Lib Dems a real run at Blackford. I would have found this hard to believe (not least because the Tory actually came 2nd last time out) but I note that Wiki still does not list a Tory candidate for the seat.
A deal whereby the Tories stood aside there and the Lib Dems did the same in North Perthshire or Argyll would make both seats very interesting.
As a Lib Dem I never bet on them as my emotional attachment can overcome my logical assumptions. However having worked for a previous Lib Dem MP for Cheltenham, I would be surprised and gutted if we don't win this time. I would think the Lib Dems won't do as well as hoped in many leave areas in the South West, but better in remain seats in and around London. I also expect to win Hallam, as O'Mara must surely have tarnished the Labour tag as he was after all originally a Labour MP. I am hoping for forty plus seats, but expecting 30+. Could do with more coverage on tv - the policy of inbvesting in mental health services was hardly mentioned tonight.
Re mental health - poor tactics to announce policy on day of another party launch. Labour played it well by contrast
The mental health policy is great. Really impressed. They need to repeat it again when there is more air space.
Quite a mountain to climb though. In 2019 there were only 14 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry trainees recruited nationally. None were started in the East Midlands, NE England, Scotland or Wales.
Adult Psychiatry was a little better with 443 Trainees started, 8% posts unfillable, but 129 of the Trainees were in London. The regions are poorly served once more.
One of the biggest challenges for Psychiatry is the difficulty in getting graduates to apply. It has one of the lowest competition ratios of all specialities. The reasons are complex, but seemingly intractable. Not least is the absence of funding for inpatient units. Having suicidal patients but no possibility of admission is extremely common and extremely stressful for family and professional alike.
There was an interesting article in the Dundee Courier recently looking at some of the statistics behind our desperate record on drug deaths. The one that really stood out for me (our statistics were worse than the Scottish average in every category bar 1) was mental health. From memory 64% of those who died of a drug overdose in Dundee had a diagnosed mental health problem The Scottish average was just over 50%.
What this screamed out to me was that if we wished to reduce the carnage caused by drugs in our city we really, really have to improve our mental health services. The local specialist unit has a poor reputation both in terms of quality of service and also in its attitude to drug users. People from areas of multiple deprivation with a mental health problem self medicating = death.
The analysis by Stuart Dickson relates more to the part of the Fat Laird's seat which was formerly part of Inverness, Nairn and Lochaber. I can assure you that in Ross-shire the Fat Laird is despised and most especially by locals who adored Charles Kennedy. However the younger generation are big Nat voters so as I said the Fat Laird will hold on. For the record, a large part of the Tory vote is not incomer, it is proudly native and unionist but that doesnt fit within the SNP mantra which is very much anti-English and hearing some of the anti-English remarks from SNP supporters is blood curdling. A popular one is "when we get independence, people like you will be sent back south of the border"! Not quite burning English holiday homes as happened in Wales in the 1970s but sometimes not far from it. Even I got accused of being an Englishman a few weeks ago on Facebook by a fanatical SNP supporter and I am a 22x great grandson of Robert the Bruce! (and a descendant of Edward I of England as are all descendants of the Mackenzie of Kintail family)
Heidi Allen is a big loss to the Lib Dems . I’m pretty sure she’d have held her seat , not just that she has both charisma , speaks well and is very pretty which helps !
Just seeing here in the Unite to Remain video , that has a great ring to it . With no Labour involvement it does make the impact much less but it all helps .
I think it could have an additional impact though on Labour Remainers in that seat , if the literature is going to households with Unite to Remain one could see a bigger tactical vote by those Labour voters .
One good thing about the Green/Lib Dem alliance is that it will help detoxify the Lib Dems in the eyes of centre-left voters who opposed the coalition. This could boost the LD vote even in seats where the pact isn’t operating
I think that’s true.
But retoxify the LDs in the eyes of potential switchers from the right. I mean, the Green Party are even more alarming than the Labour Party. At least Labour have a core of MPs with a grip on reality. The Greens are uniformly bonkers.
I know some Green activists who are relatively sane. Of course others are bonkers, but there are truly bonkers people in every political party. Indeed it's the one segment of the population massively over-represented at all levels of politics.
The problem with the Greens is their tendency to promote the most bonkers to senior positions. How they could allow the certifiable Molly Scott Cato (who advocated a health policy of 'healing hands' in The Ecologist) is beyond belief.
Just to point out that Wm Hill has a very comprehensive selection of constituency markets, but it is rather hidden on their website. You can find the markets here:
Re mental health - poor tactics to announce policy on day of another party launch. Labour played it well by contrast
The mental health policy is great. Really impressed. They need to repeat it again when there is more air space.
snip
One of the biggest challenges for Psychiatry is the difficulty in getting graduates to apply. It has one of the lowest competition ratios of all specialities. The reasons are complex, but seemingly intractable. Not least is the absence of funding for inpatient units. Having suicidal patients but no possibility of admission is extremely common and extremely stressful for family and professional alike.
There was an interesting article in the Dundee Courier recently looking at some of the statistics behind our desperate record on drug deaths. The one that really stood out for me (our statistics were worse than the Scottish average in every category bar 1) was mental health. From memory 64% of those who died of a drug overdose in Dundee had a diagnosed mental health problem The Scottish average was just over 50%.
What this screamed out to me was that if we wished to reduce the carnage caused by drugs in our city we really, really have to improve our mental health services. The local specialist unit has a poor reputation both in terms of quality of service and also in its attitude to drug users. People from areas of multiple deprivation with a mental health problem self medicating = death.
The funding and general condition of mental health is an absolute disgrace. I have direct family experience of all this. I am totally with the LibDems on this one (and hats off to Norman Lamb).
As just one example in thousand, the NewStatesman recently featured (in a GP's regular column) a case of a woman with extreme and dangerous psychosis in Devon who had to be sent to an adult mental health bed in Nottingham. It was the only bed available that night in the whole of England and Wales!!
I do too. And I agree, there are many lives to be saved and much misery to be avoided. Norman Lamb was an excellent minister in this regard and we can only hope that once our politicians minds turn away from Brexit, however briefly, it gets more attention.
The problem with the Greens is their tendency to promote the most bonkers to senior positions. How they could allow the certifiable Molly Scott Cato (who advocated a health policy of 'healing hands' in The Ecologist) is beyond belief.
Did you see that photo from the Whitehouse the other day? The Greens are playing catch-up
There's lots you can do without having that substantial an impact on the exchequer. Start with banking sector. Make tax free all fee and interest income earned by banks from renewable energy related lending. Be that a personal loan for an EV/insulation/solar panels, a securitised book of solar income streams, project financing for an offshore wind plant etc... Then double the applicable taxation rate for all income relating to lending in the hydrocarbon sector. Legislate so that finance sector losses relating to hydrocarbon lending are not tax offsetable. Watch what happens.
Next EVs. Stop charging a 10% import tariff on Electric Vehicles just because they weren't made in UK/Germany/France. Stop charging 20% VAT on said same Electric Vehicles. In one go a 250 mile Tesla Model 3 would drop from £39k to £29k. Introduce a scrappage scheme for diesel/petrol as their residual values are going to crash soon anyway.
Ban use of household coal and legislate for super low emmission burners only (as in New Zealand). Introduce scrappage scheme for old wood burners, with a goal of replacing the existing stock entirely within 5 years. Introduce scrappage scheme for old boilers. Legislate for all new housing to include ground source heatpump systems and south facing roofs with pre-installed solar (these are marginal costs when carried at initial construction).
All this stuff is so obvious to me. If you get hydrocarbon consumption (and electricity imports) down, you'll have a meaningful impact on the sticky current account deficit. If you transition the population to EVs and more efficient heating/insulation, you get a meaningful improvement in productivity and disposable incomes. If you clean up the UK's disgraceful air quality, you reduce NHS bills.
One good thing about the Green/Lib Dem alliance is that it will help detoxify the Lib Dems in the eyes of centre-left voters who opposed the coalition. This could boost the LD vote even in seats where the pact isn’t operating
I think that’s true.
In my experience most voters are mildly positive about the Greens, seeing them as slightly idealistic good-lifers rather than left-wing extremists. That may be because most voters have only the tters.
The pact can only boost their chances overall.
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
The only way to advance is to invest in technology.
Those trying to tell the West that they mus always going to be doomed to fail, as are those that try to tell the developing world that they can’t advance as other nations have in the past.
The absolute best return on investment is in education, especially of girls in the developing world. There’s a massive correlation between female education levels and birth rates, saving the planet means reducing the population explosion of the past 100 years.
Yes and there is loads we can do, we are already good at science. Replace geography with environment at school. We could make degrees related to environment tech and science free, or even give small bursaries for them. We could exempt firms in those sectors from various taxes for the next 20 years and give them easy access to work permits for foreign scientists to allow them to build, recruit and flourish.
In school the Geography curriculum is already pretty environmentally friendly.
All those minibus emissions taking pupils took at river bends and the like?
Bottom line is that I would not be surprised if the LDs win in Wokingham but will people like my Mother at the last minute think the risk of voting LD is worth it in the privacy of the polling booth?
The LDs candidate is ex Tory MP Philip Lee
I was at the LD Bournemouth conference when a once-archetypical LD harridan tried heckling Jo Swinson about Lee's alleged homophobia - and therefore unsuitability to be admitted into polite society.
Swinson's answer was, roughly (and I am paraphrasing) that if the harridan really wanted to be intolerant, the harridan would be happier in Corbyn's Labour party or with Johnson's neo-Farageists. The thousand activists in the hall applauded.
HYUFD is probably surrounded these days by the kind of ex-UKIP entryists to the Tory party who tell each other jokes about LD sandal-wearers in the saloon bar. While all the sane Conservatives are campaigning with us for political decency.
Guardian saying The announcement of Watson’s departure was carefully choreographed with Corbyn’s office, and there was speculation at Westminster that he could be granted a peerage by the Labour leader after the general election. Just to clear that one up, as a few people thought it was sign of Labour war and meltdown when news first hit.
What's the saying... approbation, elevation, castration?
At least it’s recognition from him of time to move on from banging his head against a wall, leaving on pretty descent terms with Corbyn come the end because didn’t just spring it on him, but allowed leaders office to choose the moment of announcement. Pulls the rug from under some of the more hyperbolic journalism already written in tomorrow’s papers 😆 And it means normal service of Tory shambles dominating this election narrative will resume again come Friday if not sooner.
maybe true, but wishful thinking from this poster?
Not wishful thinking from me, I genuinely believe Cummings is making a horlicks of it.
Who would you listen to if they said Cummings making errors like vacating the battlefield, Tom Newton Dunn? With GE campaigns got to be constantly on it controlling the narrative or else your opponents can cut through and come across better than they actually are. Personally I have seen enough already to doubt the Tories will do that with these people in charge. Can’t even rule out if polls tighten they will go negative and dog whistle and the campaign go same way as Zaks for London.
Re mental health - poor tactics to announce policy on day of another party launch. Labour played it well by contrast
The mental health policy is great. Really impressed. They need to repeat it again when there is more air space.
Quite a mountain to climb though. In 2019 there were only 14 Child and Adolescent Psychiatry trainees recruited nationally. None were started in the East Midlands, NE England, Scotland or Wales.
Adult Psychiatry was a little better with 443 Trainees started, 8% posts unfillable, but 129 of the Trainees were in London. The regions are poorly served once more.
One of the biggest challenges for Psychiatry is the difficulty in getting graduates to apply. It has one of the lowest competition ratios of all specialities. The reasons are complex, but seemingly intractable. Not least is the absence of funding for inpatient units. Having suicidal patients but no possibility of admission is extremely common and extremely stressful for family and professional alike.
There was an interesting article in the Dundee Courier recently looking at some of the statistics behind our desperate record on drug deaths. The one that really stood out for me (our statistics were worse than the Scottish average in every category bar 1) was mental health. From memory 64% of those who died of a drug overdose in Dundee had a diagnosed mental health problem The Scottish average was just over 50%.
What this screamed out to me was that if we wished to reduce the carnage caused by drugs in our city we really, really have to improve our mental health services. The local specialist unit has a poor reputation both in terms of quality of service and also in its attitude to drug users. People from areas of multiple deprivation with a mental health problem self medicating = death.
I suspect there's also a link to homelessness.
Yes, there were a series of factors which greatly increased the risks of death. Most of those that died ticked several boxes but the mental health one really stood out.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
Heidi Allen is a big loss to the Lib Dems . I’m pretty sure she’d have held her seat , not just that she has both charisma , speaks well and is very pretty which helps !
Just seeing here in the Unite to Remain video , that has a great ring to it . With no Labour involvement it does make the impact much less but it all helps .
I think it could have an additional impact though on Labour Remainers in that seat , if the literature is going to households with Unite to Remain one could see a bigger tactical vote by those Labour voters .
One good thing about the Green/Lib Dem alliance is that it will help detoxify the Lib Dems in the eyes of centre-left voters who opposed the coalition. This could boost the LD vote even in seats where the pact isn’t operating
I think that’s true.
But retoxify the LDs in the eyes of potential switchers from the right. I mean, the Green Party are even more alarming than the Labour Party. At least Labour have a core of MPs with a grip on reality. The Greens are uniformly bonkers.
I know some Green activists who are relatively sane. Of course others are bonkers, but there are truly bonkers people in every political party. Indeed it's the one segment of the population massively over-represented at all levels of politics.
The problem with the Greens is their tendency to promote the most bonkers to senior positions. How they could allow the certifiable Molly Scott Cato (who advocated a health policy of 'healing hands' in The Ecologist) is beyond belief.
There is lots of evidence suggesting that going to nature is good for your mental and physical health, that the presence of trees does relieve some stress.
There is a lot to discuss in terms of why we seem to be in a mental illness epidemic that medication isn't necessarily helping with, with the idea that our current societal structure is more alienating and isolating and should be more community based. Loneliness kills, yet you can't prescribe friends.
The difficulty is when you start talking about that, it sounds very wooey, and when you're a bit of a hippy anyway, you feel much happier using the language of woo where real science still backs you up.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
That’s why I said Green rather than green. The Green movement is on the whole rather selective in the science it agrees with: climate change is real and we are causing it so we should be building more nuclear power stations and developing GM crops to help reduce deforestation and to cope with the changed conditions. XR in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions.
This is either misconceived or disingenuous.
You say "Green [party?] policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit". Whether that's true or not, the long-term impact of ecological degradation and climate change is in orders of magnitude more than the cost of mitigation via Green policies. This impact would show the impact of Brexit to be an insignificant blip in human history.
You say the Green movement is "selective in the science it agrees with"? The movement is made of many with differing views. The Green Party is not against technological solutions, indeed supports funding technology and research, which Tories and LDs consistently put in private hands (lead by shareholder and not public benefit priorities and data kept private). When it comes to GM the picture is complex and people within the Green movement articulate varying views.
It shows how far the Labour Party have moved the Brownites like Watson were now considered "soft left" or "centre left" and the man who pushed Blair under a bus was considered a "moderate".
Anecdotally talking to 3 (so a massive sample that is obviously representative of the whole nation) the following:
1 Never voted will definitely vote in this election 1 Votes on occasions, definitely voting this election 1 Votes most elections definitely voting this election
That points to an increased turnout, do the polls give any indication of projected turnout?
How much will December dull the enthusiasm? Wil the postal strike stymie large numbers?
Added: And who will gain from high / low turnout, or will it be a variable benefit depending on the particular seat?
I'd think increased, with the one group where turnout is lowest - youth and students - motivated by the chance to have a say on Brexit. And more seats where there may be a genuine contest, some for the first time.
Counterarguments would be the time of year, possible weather, Brexjt fatigue, and voters who are genuinely stumped by the interplay of Brexit with their normal political choice.
Just to point out that Wm Hill has a very comprehensive selection of constituency markets, but it is rather hidden on their website. You can find the markets here:
Talking of the Dundee Courier there was a column in it by Jenny Hajul yesterday hinting that the Tories might stand aside in Ross, Skye & Lochaber to give the Lib Dems a real run at Blackford. I would have found this hard to believe (not least because the Tory actually came 2nd last time out) but I note that Wiki still does not list a Tory candidate for the seat.
A deal whereby the Tories stood aside there and the Lib Dems did the same in North Perthshire or Argyll would make both seats very interesting.
I get that Ms Hjul (Alan 'I spiked stories to save the Union' Cochrane's spouse I believe?) would LIKE that to happen. I don't know if the SLDs would quite want such a public acknowledgement of being hand in hand with the Boris Johnson party.
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
That’s why I said Green rather than green. The Green movement is on the whole rather selective in the science it agrees with: climate change is real and we are causing it so we should be building more nuclear power stations and developing GM crops to help reduce deforestation and to cope with the changed conditions. XR in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions.
This is either misconceived or disingenuous.
You say "Green [party?] policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit". Whether that's true or not, the long-term impact of ecological degradation and climate change is in orders of magnitude more than the cost of mitigation via Green policies. This impact would show the impact of Brexit to be an insignificant blip in human history.
You say the Green movement is "selective in the science it agrees with"? The movement is made of many with differing views. The Green Party is not against technological solutions, indeed supports funding technology and research, which Tories and LDs consistently put in private hands (lead by shareholder and not public benefit priorities and data kept private). When it comes to GM the picture is complex and people within the Green movement articulate varying views.
My issues against GM isn't about the safety to eat GM foods, but whether it is a good idea to give private corporations the power of gene splicing and so on (we need to only look at Monsanto to see some of the tricks they use that technology for) as well as it not really dealing with an underlying problem: over consumption. We do not need GM crops to feed the world, the current food surplus can feed everyone in China as it is. The issue is Western over consumption, waste and the inefficiency of using a lot of our resources to create food for our food.
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
That’s why I said Green rather than green. The Green movement is on the whole rather selective in the science it agrees with: climate change is real and we are causing it so we should be building more nuclear power stations and developing GM crops to help reduce deforestation and to cope with the changed conditions. XR in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions.
You mention XR "in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions"? On what evidence is that said?
XR has no policy or view on nuclear power or GM (or even 5G for that matter).
XR is not a political party it is a broad movement with a single fundamental policy, drawing attention to climate change and ecological degradation, pushing for those issues to be at the heart of policy-making, and providing a pathway for those who care about long-term human viability. Nothing more or less.
Indeed XR say: "Many people within XR will have strong views on all of the above and we want to welcome a variety of views, rather than adopting positions on controversial topics. We believe a social movement is best built as a “broad church” and that respectful discussions should take place within the movement on a variety of topics (honouring our principle and value of no blaming and shaming). XR does not take a position on solutions to the ecological crisis- our third demand is for a Citizens Assembly to come up with a way to deal with the crisis focussing on climate and ecological justice based on being presented with facts from a variety of experts. We focus on the issues that have a clear body of mainstream science with a large consensus of opinion – for example, biodiversity loss and climate change."
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
Strong words. From someone outwith the Labour party and who wishes it (in it's current incarnation) nothing but ill favour the problem long term isn't Corbyn and his ilk, their disgusting policies and beliefs/actions are priced in. It's the moderate wing like Bradshaw openly enabling it, I'm not sure they should be forgiven for it even if the radicals are swept out. Watson is a curious one, he stopped the exodus (apparently to the chagrin of many) and now he bolts.... I wonder if despite there being no devious plan as was being speculated some of those he 'held back' might now think sod it, I'm not going down with Corbyn on my political epitaph? Hodge was rumored to be thinking about resigning the whip a few weeks ago for example......
Anecdotally talking to 3 (so a massive sample that is obviously representative of the whole nation) the following:
1 Never voted will definitely vote in this election 1 Votes on occasions, definitely voting this election 1 Votes most elections definitely voting this election
That points to an increased turnout, do the polls give any indication of projected turnout?
How much will December dull the enthusiasm? Wil the postal strike stymie large numbers?
Added: And who will gain from high / low turnout, or will it be a variable benefit depending on the particular seat?
I'd think increased, with the one group where turnout is lowest - youth and students - motivated by the chance to have a say on Brexit. And more seats where there may be a genuine contest, some for the first time.
Counterarguments would be the time of year, possible weather, Brexjt fatigue, and voters who are genuinely stumped by the interplay of Brexit with their normal political choice.
I expect turnout to be highest in decades.
I don't think time of year or weather will make an impact and I think Brexit fatigue will drive people to the polls either on a 'get Brexit done' or 'bollocks to Brexit' line.
I can't see Brexit fatigue leading to people wanting yet another referendum [or 2 more referendums next year] but I could be wrong.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
That Unleashing Britain's Potential logo with a red up arrow is ugly as sin and I'm not sure Tories using red or that slogan after nine years of office is a good idea.
The dilemma for the LibDems is that, while a Labour recovery is the fastest way to standing a chance of stopping Brexit, the threat of Corbyn acts as a huge brake on the potential tide of Tory remainers that starts to land them numbers of seats. They really need Labour to be knocked back early, so that both Labour and Tory remainers turn to the LDs as the only remaining option to stop the Tories.
Most realistic LD targets are LD/Con contests therefore their tactic of attacking Lab makes perfect sense. They need those soft Con votes. OTOH, the LDs taking those seats from Con is what Lab want too, since a Lab minority govt is virtually impossible if this does not happen. Fascinating.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
It really isn't. There is a humoungous difference between the rottenness of Labour Party in respect of anti-Semitism - right up to the top of the party - and low-level Islamophobia in the Conservative Party and indeed elsewhere in society (including in the Labour Party, which no-one ever mentions). There is only one party which has driven out respected MPs through racism, there is only one party being investigated by the EHRC, there is only one party which has anything like the boycott by its own Jewish Labour Movement, etc etc etc.
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
That’s why I said Green rather than green. The Green movement is on the whole rather selective in the science it agrees with: climate change is real and we are causing it so we should be building more nuclear power stations and developing GM crops to help reduce deforestation and to cope with the changed conditions. XR in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions.
You mention XR "in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions"? On what evidence is that said?
XR has no policy or view on nuclear power or GM (or even 5G for that matter).
XR is not a political party it is a broad movement with a single fundamental policy, drawing attention to climate change and ecological degradation, pushing for those issues to be at the heart of policy-making, and providing a pathway for those who care about long-term human viability. Nothing more or less.
Indeed XR say: "Many people within XR will have strong views on all of the above and we want to welcome a variety of views, rather than adopting positions on controversial topics. We believe a social movement is best built as a “broad church” and that respectful discussions should take place within the movement on a variety of topics (honouring our principle and value of no blaming and shaming). XR does not take a position on solutions to the ecological crisis- our third demand is for a Citizens Assembly to come up with a way to deal with the crisis focussing on climate and ecological justice based on being presented with facts from a variety of experts. We focus on the issues that have a clear body of mainstream science with a large consensus of opinion – for example, biodiversity loss and climate change."
I really like the approach suggested by XR in that last paragraph and would heartily support such an organisation if I felt it existed.
Do you think the wider publics perception of XR is a broad church with no blaming or shaming? If not, why not?
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
Strange that net people are arriving by hundreds of thousands and not leaving.
Windrush happened, Jewish people do have reasons to be concerned. However what is great about this country - and why we shouldn't talk ourselves down so often - is that people are saying the oppositions antisemitism is bad and they can't vote for them because of their racism. In too many other nations like Hungary people vote for the government because they like their leaders antisemitism and racism.
We are not seen as xenophobes. And if we are not getting highly educated, highly skilled people to come here then why on Earth are we getting hundreds of thousands of people NET coming here each year?
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
I think Austin hates Corbyn's Labour party so much - for very understandable reasons - that he sees everything through that prism.
Just to point out that Wm Hill has a very comprehensive selection of constituency markets, but it is rather hidden on their website. You can find the markets here:
Some of the odds are better than those of the other bookies, for example on the LibDems in North Cornwall.
Thank you! I've been wondering where those were.
The other way of getting there is to select Politics from the menu on the left, and then click on the banner View General Election Markets at the top of the page.
But yes, they have done a good job of hiding them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/coming-brexit-farce/601558/ ...However, after Johnson’s sudden pivot to agree to a deal with the EU last month, despite fierce opposition in Northern Ireland, the EU has calculated, according to those who spoke to me, that the prime minister is prepared to turn on his closest political allies as it suits him when significant pressure is applied. The choice for Britain in this scenario, according to one experienced diplomat, will be a “diamond-hard Brexit” set out in a wafer-thin free-trade agreement negotiated hurriedly or an effective “no deal” exit on WTO terms. Both will create significant trading barriers between the U.K. and the EU, which currently do not exist.
Put simply, while Brexiteers believe the threat of “no deal” increases British leverage, the EU calculates the threat increases its leverage, and is therefore happy to play along. The result: an inevitable crisis. If history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, the tragedy of the past three years of protracted and bitter negotiations is that it was all so predictable. The farce is that it might be about to happen all over again.
His anti-vaxxer zinger re Jezza and McDonnell (no doubt thought up by some pimply spad) may backfire. Pretty sure the anti-vaxxer community's collective pencil would be hovering over the BJ party box at the election.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/coming-brexit-farce/601558/ ...However, after Johnson’s sudden pivot to agree to a deal with the EU last month, despite fierce opposition in Northern Ireland, the EU has calculated, according to those who spoke to me, that the prime minister is prepared to turn on his closest political allies as it suits him when significant pressure is applied. The choice for Britain in this scenario, according to one experienced diplomat, will be a “diamond-hard Brexit” set out in a wafer-thin free-trade agreement negotiated hurriedly or an effective “no deal” exit on WTO terms. Both will create significant trading barriers between the U.K. and the EU, which currently do not exist.
Put simply, while Brexiteers believe the threat of “no deal” increases British leverage, the EU calculates the threat increases its leverage, and is therefore happy to play along. The result: an inevitable crisis. If history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, the tragedy of the past three years of protracted and bitter negotiations is that it was all so predictable. The farce is that it might be about to happen all over again.
Just to point out that Wm Hill has a very comprehensive selection of constituency markets, but it is rather hidden on their website. You can find the markets here:
Some of the odds are better than those of the other bookies, for example on the LibDems in North Cornwall.
Thank you! I've been wondering where those were.
The other way of getting there is to select Politics from the menu on the left, and then click on the banner View General Election Markets at the top of the page.
But yes, they have done a good job of hiding them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/coming-brexit-farce/601558/ ...However, after Johnson’s sudden pivot to agree to a deal with the EU last month, despite fierce opposition in Northern Ireland, the EU has calculated, according to those who spoke to me, that the prime minister is prepared to turn on his closest political allies as it suits him when significant pressure is applied. The choice for Britain in this scenario, according to one experienced diplomat, will be a “diamond-hard Brexit” set out in a wafer-thin free-trade agreement negotiated hurriedly or an effective “no deal” exit on WTO terms. Both will create significant trading barriers between the U.K. and the EU, which currently do not exist.
Put simply, while Brexiteers believe the threat of “no deal” increases British leverage, the EU calculates the threat increases its leverage, and is therefore happy to play along. The result: an inevitable crisis. If history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, the tragedy of the past three years of protracted and bitter negotiations is that it was all so predictable. The farce is that it might be about to happen all over again.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
I realise you want a Brexity rant but statements such as "We are seen as xenophobes" just arent true
" the EU’s own agency for fundamental rights released findings last year revealing that the UK has had some of the lowest rates of race-related harassment in the EU, with only 3 per cent of UK-based respondents reporting harassment. In Ireland, the figure was 13 per cent. While it’s true that authorities have reported a spike in hate crimes since the referendum, this appears to be a depressing trend across the continent."
Just to point out that Wm Hill has a very comprehensive selection of constituency markets, but it is rather hidden on their website. You can find the markets here:
Some of the odds are better than those of the other bookies, for example on the LibDems in North Cornwall.
Thank you! I've been wondering where those were.
The other way of getting there is to select Politics from the menu on the left, and then click on the banner View General Election Markets at the top of the page.
But yes, they have done a good job of hiding them.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
It really isn't. There is a humoungous difference between the rottenness of Labour Party in respect of anti-Semitism - right up to the top of the party - and low-level Islamophobia in the Conservative Party and indeed elsewhere in society (including in the Labour Party, which no-one ever mentions). There is only one party which has driven out respected MPs through racism, there is only one party being investigated by the EHRC, there is only one party which has anything like the boycott by its own Jewish Labour Movement, etc etc etc.
James Cleverly is as senior as you get - and he deploys an argument from the BNP - and you say the Conservative Party is not as rotten as Labour? Pull the other one.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
Perhaps you could put some numbers to those statements you make ?
How about starting with The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises ?
Given that employment in the NHS has increased by over a hundred thousand in the last three years:
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
I realise you want a Brexity rant but statements such as "We are seen as xenophobes" just arent true
" the EU’s own agency for fundamental rights released findings last year revealing that the UK has had some of the lowest rates of race-related harassment in the EU, with only 3 per cent of UK-based respondents reporting harassment. In Ireland, the figure was 13 per cent. While it’s true that authorities have reported a spike in hate crimes since the referendum, this appears to be a depressing trend across the continent."
I agree the UK is clearly less xenophobic and racist than most countries.
However Brexit has made minorities, not just Europeans here, feel that they are not valued or as welcome here as they thought they were.
Another routine day in the Black Country: 1. Labour's Deputy Leader and standard bearer against Corbyn quits as MP for West Brom East. 2. Dudley North MP elected as Labour MP quits and calls on people to vote Tory.
I used to live in the Black Country and they are a patriotic lot so the quote about Corbyn backing our enemies will play well there.
When I lived there, there was a Tory Council in Walsall because Labour had ran it so badly it got put in special measures, so they will certainly vote Tory if required although it didn’t feel particularly right wing with all the old industrial sites dotted around.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
Perhaps you could put some numbers to those statements you make ?
How about starting with The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises ?
Given that employment in the NHS has increased by over a hundred thousand in the last three years:
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
Strange that net people are arriving by hundreds of thousands and not leaving.
Windrush happened, Jewish people do have reasons to be concerned. However what is great about this country - and why we shouldn't talk ourselves down so often - is that people are saying the oppositions antisemitism is bad and they can't vote for them because of their racism. In too many other nations like Hungary people vote for the government because they like their leaders antisemitism and racism.
We are not seen as xenophobes. And if we are not getting highly educated, highly skilled people to come here then why on Earth are we getting hundreds of thousands of people NET coming here each year?
The talented and the highly educated can choose where to live, those further down the scale have far less scope. People will come here for as long as there are jobs available and there is the opportunity to send money home. If yoiu are willing to give up everything for a better life, xenophobia is just one more challenge to live with.
There was a few comments yesterday. Yes - there is a lot of local colour and internecine politics. Much fun.
Personally I am calling it for a majority (could be a big majority) for the Independents on the basis of:
1 - They have 30 out of 35 Councillors, and are well organised - unlike say Bolsover. 2 - The won 65-70% of the vote at the locals. 3 - They have not yet given any honking reasons why they should not be supported since that vote. 3 - There is a "not Corbyn" tendency amongst some Labour voters (probably from anti-military not anrisemitism). 4 - The Tory candidate is Gloria de Piero's former office manager who as a very popular councillor with a strong personal vote crossed the floor. May drive 3 towards the Indies. Bad call by the Tories I suspect. 5 - Lib Dems have vanished. I believe the branch has merged with Mansfield. Independents seem to have inherited their infrastructure including the shopfront in the High Street. Lib Dems are a not-Corbyn option that is very obviously a wasted vote. 6 - The Lab Candidate is running a locally based campaign - "one of Ashfield's own", and I do not see that outdoing the Independents on that theme.
(But I am not betting any amounts above £10 this time, having got the Tories the wrong way on the spreads in 2017 and taken a small hiding).
Personally, I suspect that Zadrozny has this constituency for as long as he wants and does not make a huge mistake, Black Swans excepted.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
Perhaps you could put some numbers to those statements you make ?
How about starting with The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises ?
Given that employment in the NHS has increased by over a hundred thousand in the last three years:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/coming-brexit-farce/601558/ ...However, after Johnson’s sudden pivot to agree to a deal with the EU last month, despite fierce opposition in Northern Ireland, the EU has calculated, according to those who spoke to me, that the prime minister is prepared to turn on his closest political allies as it suits him when significant pressure is applied. The choice for Britain in this scenario, according to one experienced diplomat, will be a “diamond-hard Brexit” set out in a wafer-thin free-trade agreement negotiated hurriedly or an effective “no deal” exit on WTO terms. Both will create significant trading barriers between the U.K. and the EU, which currently do not exist.
Put simply, while Brexiteers believe the threat of “no deal” increases British leverage, the EU calculates the threat increases its leverage, and is therefore happy to play along. The result: an inevitable crisis. If history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, the tragedy of the past three years of protracted and bitter negotiations is that it was all so predictable. The farce is that it might be about to happen all over again.
Having given the irish what they wanted on Northern Ireland the UK now has no leverage. Johnson cannot deliver on the promises he is making. But he is only making them to get elected. It will be fun when the ERG works this out.
This election is going to resemble 1983 more than 2017 and if I am right then the issue is who comes out of it best positioned to benefit as voters turn away from the government as they surely will and particularly if Brexit doesn't deliver for swathes of leave voters.
The Lib Dems need Labour to be polling as badly just ahead of the election as they have been with no sign of 2017-type recovery. Then the LDs will do well with loads of strong performances. They then need Labour to choose another unelectable Corbynista leader like Long-Bailey or Piddock.
If those stars align for the LDs we could see a major political shift. Alternatively they could be badly squeezed at both ends if Labour look as though they are in with a chance and Labour could go on to replace Corbyn with a non-Corbynista
I'm betting on Labour doing very badly but still not coming to its senses.
"At every opportunity, he backs our country's enemies." .
What do we think the chances are that somebody is going to leak that Russian interference report during the campaign?
I'm sure Dominic Grieve has seen a copy. But I'm equally sure he would never do such a thing....
I doubt he would (unless it was really explosive) but a disgruntled civil servant might.
TIming is important though... now is way too soon. Think how much more impact the Trump tapes would have had if they'd come out the weekend before the 2016 election.
High chance someone will think they are doing a public service leaking and publishing it.
I doubt there’s any game changer in there though, like what? They know who handled the ambassador destroying leak to the Mail and it came from Russia?
Ian Austin story just added to the front of the BBC news website. Combined with Tom Watson it's a bit of a one two punch for Labour.
If this is the way media are going to play it, some days both main party’s will just have to roll with these punches in this particular campaign. I do like your boxing analogy. In the ring you are going to get hit, and it’s how you deal with that and focus on the game plan and the thinking on your feet. Labour dealt with it well so far, but then this leaderships been blessed with plenty of practice 🙂
The election proclamation sets the first meeting of the new Parliament as Tuesday 17th. Given the business that day will be election of a Speaker and rest of the week swearing in of members of both houses, we're surely not going to have a State Opening on 23rd/24th December?
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
The evidence is that the British are amongst the least xenophobic on the planet. Concern about immigration and other issues like that are lower in the UK than in almost every other EU nation and have fallen in the UK post-Brexit.
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
I realise you want a Brexity rant but statements such as "We are seen as xenophobes" just arent true
" the EU’s own agency for fundamental rights released findings last year revealing that the UK has had some of the lowest rates of race-related harassment in the EU, with only 3 per cent of UK-based respondents reporting harassment. In Ireland, the figure was 13 per cent. While it’s true that authorities have reported a spike in hate crimes since the referendum, this appears to be a depressing trend across the continent."
I agree the UK is clearly less xenophobic and racist than most countries.
However Brexit has made minorities, not just Europeans here, feel that they are not valued or as welcome here as they thought they were.
Both statements can be true at the same time.
Two statements can be true but one can also be substantially more important than the other and the UK by any international measure is not a racist country.
James Cleverly is as senior as you get - and he deploys an argument from the BNP - and you say the Conservative Party is not as rotten as Labour? Pull the other one.
The mental gymnastics that people like you go to to try to excuse Labour from the inexcusable are wondrous to behold. Rather than scurrying around trying to find the tiniest chink of an argument which, against all logic or common-sense, you can pretend shows the Conserviatves are as bad as Corbyn's Labour in this respect, you'd do better to ask yourself why it is that the Jewish Chronicle, Jewish News, Jewish Telegraph, Margaret Hodge, Luciana Berger, Tom Watson, Ian Austin, Wes Streeting, Louise Ellman, Lord Jonathan Sacks, the Jewish Labour Movement, the Labour Friends of Israel, and many, many others, think there is a major problem in the Labour Party, and why the ECHR is investigating it.
The dilemma for the LibDems is that, while a Labour recovery is the fastest way to standing a chance of stopping Brexit, the threat of Corbyn acts as a huge brake on the potential tide of Tory remainers that starts to land them numbers of seats. They really need Labour to be knocked back early, so that both Labour and Tory remainers turn to the LDs as the only remaining option to stop the Tories.
Devastating, clearly heartfelt stuff, from Ian Austin this morning. While I agree with his analysis of Corbyn, I totally disagree on voting for Boris Johnson. Voting Tory is voting for a party led by a man who has pandered to racists for his entire adult life.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
It is difficult to square Austin's position on racism with support for a Conservative Party which has rolled out a member of an ethnic minority (James Cleverly) to argue that the Conservatives are not racist as Islamophobia is not racist since Islam is not a race - an argument previously limited to the BNP (even UKIP shunned it).
It seems to me that the conservatives where they do have a problem with islamophobia it is on the fringes. They do have British Asians as Home Secretary and CoE.
This was also the case with Labour where they had problems with weird people on the fringes. Unfortunately one was made leader and he can’t see the problems with his mates views - they have held them for 40 years.
... Never mind unlocking Britain’s potential. A return to some old-fashioned decency would be welcome.
Was it ever there or was it just a front? Has Brexit unmasked closeted hypocrisy and shown us as we really are?
Strange then that so many people seem to feel unsettled and insecure with many leaving. Or maybe those 3m that have no idea whether to stay or go are just Home Office fantasies
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
I realise you want a Brexity rant but statements such as "We are seen as xenophobes" just arent true
" the EU’s own agency for fundamental rights released findings last year revealing that the UK has had some of the lowest rates of race-related harassment in the EU, with only 3 per cent of UK-based respondents reporting harassment. In Ireland, the figure was 13 per cent. While it’s true that authorities have reported a spike in hate crimes since the referendum, this appears to be a depressing trend across the continent."
I agree the UK is clearly less xenophobic and racist than most countries.
However Brexit has made minorities, not just Europeans here, feel that they are not valued or as welcome here as they thought they were.
Both statements can be true at the same time.
Two statements can be true but one can also be substantially more important than the other and the UK by any international measure is not a racist country.
I agree it is not a racist country in relative terms. The reality of how the people impacted think is not "is the UK more or less racist than Belgium" but "am I getting more racist abuse or being made to feel less welcome than I did five years ago".
The election proclamation sets the first meeting of the new Parliament as Tuesday 17th. Given the business that day will be election of a Speaker and rest of the week swearing in of members of both houses, we're surely not going to have a State Opening on 23rd/24th December?
I wonder if he was raped or sexually assaulted, would he be so forgiving? Trust me on this, women are well aware that some men just do not hear "No". Why do you think that many women are wary of being alone with a man?
And before anyone points out that it is a minority of men, I agree that it is, but they do not wear badges or stickers to separate the good from the bad and sometimes, the ones you think are safe to be around give you a very nasty surprise.
Full on Green policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit.
The climate conference was moved from Chile because of the violent protests over the rising prices caused by Green policies. The full suite of XR demands could only be implemented by a fairly ruthless dictatorship.
Depends what you mean by full on green policies. As proposed by the lefty side of the Green party then yes. Other green approaches are available, the centre piece of which should be making the UK economy focus on exporting green technology and processes around the world, and creating the education, regulatory, investment, research and tax policies to allow that to flourish. (All parties pay lip service to the above, but are not really doing much)
developing GM crops to help reduce deforestation and to cope with the changed conditions. XR in particular seem to oppose any suggested technological solutions.
This is either misconceived or disingenuous.
You say "Green [party?] policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit". Whether that's true or not, the long-term impact of ecological degradation and climate change is in orders of magnitude more than the cost of mitigation via Green policies. This impact would show the impact of Brexit to be an insignificant blip in human history.
You say the Green movement is "selective in the science it agrees with"? The movement is made of many with differing views. The Green Party is not against technological solutions, indeed supports funding technology and research, which Tories and LDs consistently put in private hands (lead by shareholder and not public benefit priorities and data kept private). When it comes to GM the picture is complex and people within the Green movement articulate varying views.
My issues against GM isn't about the safety to eat GM foods, but whether it is a good idea to give private corporations the power of gene splicing and so on (we need to only look at Monsanto to see some of the tricks they use that technology for) as well as it not really dealing with an underlying problem: over consumption. We do not need GM crops to feed the world, the current food surplus can feed everyone in China as it is. The issue is Western over consumption, waste and the inefficiency of using a lot of our resources to create food for our food.
There was a few comments yesterday. Yes - there is a lot of local colour and internecine politics. Much fun.
Personally I am calling it for a majority (could be a big majority) for the Independents on the basis of:
1 - They have 30 out of 35 Councillors, and are well organised - unlike say Bolsover. 2 - The won 65-70% of the vote at the locals. 3 - They have not yet given any honking reasons why they should not be supported since that vote. 3 - There is a "not Corbyn" tendency amongst some Labour voters (probably from anti-military not anrisemitism). 4 - The Tory candidate is Gloria de Piero's former office manager who as a very popular councillor with a strong personal vote crossed the floor. May drive 3 towards the Indies. Bad call by the Tories I suspect. 5 - Lib Dems have vanished. I believe the branch has merged with Mansfield. Independents seem to have inherited their infrastructure including the shopfront in the High Street. Lib Dems are a not-Corbyn option that is very obviously a wasted vote. 6 - The Lab Candidate is running a locally based campaign - "one of Ashfield's own", and I do not see that outdoing the Independents on that theme.
(But I am not betting any amounts above £10 this time, having got the Tories the wrong way on the spreads in 2017 and taken a small hiding).
Personally, I suspect that Zadrozny has this constituency for as long as he wants and does not make a huge mistake, Black Swans excepted.
Is the independent candidate Brexity or Remainy (obviously Ashfield was heavily Brexit.)
That keen political animal, Mrs Stodge, has opined on the GE. Now, despite being married to an LD, I'm pretty sure she's no LD - I think in the past she's voted Labour but we genuinely don't talk politics as a couple apart from the very local stuff where her perception of and my knowledge of how local Government functions often collide.
Yesterday, she suddenly piped up she had no one to vote for at the GE and wasn't going to bother. She told me she couldn't vote for that "lunatic" Corbyn and as a LEAVE voter couldn't back the LDs and was going to vote for Johnson until she read up on the changes to IR35 introduced by Philip Hammond which, as a contractor in financial services, are going to make life much harder for her and cost her money.
I advised her she could still go to the polling station and spoil her ballot paper and I advised her as to the best way of doing it (or rather what not to do).
So that's one fewer vote for the Conservatives not that it makes much difference in East Ham but it reminds me it's not all about Brexit and other policy areas can affect people's voting intentions.
It's also got me thinking about numbers of spoilt ballot papers - in East Ham in 2017 56,633 votes were cast and 179 papers were rejected. That's 0.3% of the total and I don't know if that's a representative share for the UK as a whole. I think there could be a lot more spoilt papers but I suspect there's no market. Any thoughts?
Comments
As just one example in thousand, the NewStatesman recently featured (in a GP's regular column) a case of a woman with extreme and dangerous psychosis in Devon who had to be sent to an adult mental health bed in Nottingham. It was the only bed available that night in the whole of England and Wales!!
There’s thousands of amazing technology companies in the U.K.which can be supported, from biotech to aerospace and even motorsport - people don’t realise that a wind turbine blade looks just like the wing of a glider, and modern F1 cars use half the fuel per mile they did only six years ago.
This tech feeds down into more mundane applications over time - your modern car now uses a lot less fuel than it did a few years ago, thanks to that F1 technology - which is annoying the hell out of the government who make £30bn and change from fuel duty every year, minus all the subsidies they grant to electric cars.
I am standing down
I am being shortlisted for Mid Sussex
I have changed my mind and am staying
has a real credibility problem, and the Eastleigh LDs, with all their local resources, should be able to expoit that to the full.
So long as polling day doesn't come too early.
Unless you think Labour sweeping all of Glasgow is likely when on 19% of the vote nationally. In which case boy do I have a lot of great value bets for you!
A deal whereby the Tories stood aside there and the Lib Dems did the same in North Perthshire or Argyll would make both seats very interesting.
https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/1192381240151871488
Just to point out that Wm Hill has a very comprehensive selection of constituency markets, but it is rather hidden on their website. You can find the markets here:
https://sports.williamhill.com/betting/en-gb/politics/competitions/General-Election-Constituency-Betting/outrights
Some of the odds are better than those of the other bookies, for example on the LibDems in North Cornwall.
Next EVs. Stop charging a 10% import tariff on Electric Vehicles just because they weren't made in UK/Germany/France. Stop charging 20% VAT on said same Electric Vehicles. In one go a 250 mile Tesla Model 3 would drop from £39k to £29k. Introduce a scrappage scheme for diesel/petrol as their residual values are going to crash soon anyway.
Ban use of household coal and legislate for super low emmission burners only (as in New Zealand). Introduce scrappage scheme for old wood burners, with a goal of replacing the existing stock entirely within 5 years. Introduce scrappage scheme for old boilers. Legislate for all new housing to include ground source heatpump systems and south facing roofs with pre-installed solar (these are marginal costs when carried at initial construction).
All this stuff is so obvious to me. If you get hydrocarbon consumption (and electricity imports) down, you'll have a meaningful impact on the sticky current account deficit. If you transition the population to EVs and more efficient heating/insulation, you get a meaningful improvement in productivity and disposable incomes. If you clean up the UK's disgraceful air quality, you reduce NHS bills.
Swinson's answer was, roughly (and I am paraphrasing) that if the harridan really wanted to be intolerant, the harridan would be happier in Corbyn's Labour party or with Johnson's neo-Farageists. The thousand activists in the hall applauded.
HYUFD is probably surrounded these days by the kind of ex-UKIP entryists to the Tory party who tell each other jokes about LD sandal-wearers in the saloon bar. While all the sane Conservatives are campaigning with us for political decency.
Who would you listen to if they said Cummings making errors like vacating the battlefield, Tom Newton Dunn? With GE campaigns got to be constantly on it controlling the narrative or else your opponents can cut through and come across better than they actually are. Personally I have seen enough already to doubt the Tories will do that with these people in charge. Can’t even rule out if polls tighten they will go negative and dog whistle and the campaign go same way as Zaks for London.
You don’t write, publish and say what Johnson has written, published and said so consistently for so long without believing certain types of people are inherently inferior to other types of people. Delivering your racism with a wink does not make you any less racist.
It's also absolutely clear to me that Johnson would ally with anyone and do anything - including selling out his country - for personal political gain.
However, such is Corbyn’s toxicity that many traditional Labour voters will do as Austin says. It is utterly shameful that Labour members have put millions of good, decent people in this position. Their selfishness will never, ever be forgiven. And never should be.
There is lots of evidence suggesting that going to nature is good for your mental and physical health, that the presence of trees does relieve some stress.
There is a lot to discuss in terms of why we seem to be in a mental illness epidemic that medication isn't necessarily helping with, with the idea that our current societal structure is more alienating and isolating and should be more community based. Loneliness kills, yet you can't prescribe friends.
The difficulty is when you start talking about that, it sounds very wooey, and when you're a bit of a hippy anyway, you feel much happier using the language of woo where real science still backs you up.
You say "Green [party?] policies would have an effect on the British economy orders of magnitude more damaging than those of Brexit". Whether that's true or not, the long-term impact of ecological degradation and climate change is in orders of magnitude more than the cost of mitigation via Green policies. This impact would show the impact of Brexit to be an insignificant blip in human history.
You say the Green movement is "selective in the science it agrees with"?
The movement is made of many with differing views. The Green Party is not against technological solutions, indeed supports funding technology and research, which Tories and LDs consistently put in private hands (lead by shareholder and not public benefit priorities and data kept private). When it comes to GM the picture is complex and people within the Green movement articulate varying views.
Oh, hang on a minute...
Counterarguments would be the time of year, possible weather, Brexjt fatigue, and voters who are genuinely stumped by the interplay of Brexit with their normal political choice.
XR has no policy or view on nuclear power or GM (or even 5G for that matter).
XR is not a political party it is a broad movement with a single fundamental policy, drawing attention to climate change and ecological degradation, pushing for those issues to be at the heart of policy-making, and providing a pathway for those who care about long-term human viability. Nothing more or less.
Indeed XR say: "Many people within XR will have strong views on all of the above and we want to welcome a variety of views, rather than adopting positions on controversial topics. We believe a social movement is best built as a “broad church” and that respectful discussions should take place within the movement on a variety of topics (honouring our principle and value of no blaming and shaming). XR does not take a position on solutions to the ecological crisis- our third demand is for a Citizens Assembly to come up with a way to deal with the crisis focussing on climate and ecological justice based on being presented with facts from a variety of experts. We focus on the issues that have a clear body of mainstream science with a large consensus of opinion – for example, biodiversity loss and climate change."
We need to maintain a lazer-sharp focus on the forthcoming election...
...for Deputy Leader, and ignore the triviality that is the GE.
Watson is a curious one, he stopped the exodus (apparently to the chagrin of many) and now he bolts.... I wonder if despite there being no devious plan as was being speculated some of those he 'held back' might now think sod it, I'm not going down with Corbyn on my political epitaph? Hodge was rumored to be thinking about resigning the whip a few weeks ago for example......
I don't think time of year or weather will make an impact and I think Brexit fatigue will drive people to the polls either on a 'get Brexit done' or 'bollocks to Brexit' line.
I can't see Brexit fatigue leading to people wanting yet another referendum [or 2 more referendums next year] but I could be wrong.
Obviously the Windrush scandal never happened in the Thompson universe, and Jewish people have no reason to be worried either. The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises, universities struggling to fill posts with highly skilled foreign staff, etc, etc.
We are seen as xenophobes and those who have choices about where to take their skills are avoiding us. No doubt you will say that plenty still want to come here and you would be right but they do not tend to be the highly educated, highly skilled people that the Brexiteers told us they would permit to enter the Brexit Paradise.
Do you think the wider publics perception of XR is a broad church with no blaming or shaming? If not, why not?
Windrush happened, Jewish people do have reasons to be concerned. However what is great about this country - and why we shouldn't talk ourselves down so often - is that people are saying the oppositions antisemitism is bad and they can't vote for them because of their racism. In too many other nations like Hungary people vote for the government because they like their leaders antisemitism and racism.
We are not seen as xenophobes. And if we are not getting highly educated, highly skilled people to come here then why on Earth are we getting hundreds of thousands of people NET coming here each year?
But yes, they have done a good job of hiding them.
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2019/11/coming-brexit-farce/601558/
...However, after Johnson’s sudden pivot to agree to a deal with the EU last month, despite fierce opposition in Northern Ireland, the EU has calculated, according to those who spoke to me, that the prime minister is prepared to turn on his closest political allies as it suits him when significant pressure is applied. The choice for Britain in this scenario, according to one experienced diplomat, will be a “diamond-hard Brexit” set out in a wafer-thin free-trade agreement negotiated hurriedly or an effective “no deal” exit on WTO terms. Both will create significant trading barriers between the U.K. and the EU, which currently do not exist.
Put simply, while Brexiteers believe the threat of “no deal” increases British leverage, the EU calculates the threat increases its leverage, and is therefore happy to play along. The result: an inevitable crisis. If history repeats itself first as tragedy and then as farce, the tragedy of the past three years of protracted and bitter negotiations is that it was all so predictable. The farce is that it might be about to happen all over again.
Surely not, Richard ?
https://mobile.twitter.com/skisidjames/status/1192279187861770240
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/may/02/britons-more-sold-on-immigration-benefits-than-other-europeans
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/abroad/are-the-british-really-as-xenophobic-as-they-ve-been-made-out-to-be-since-brexit-1.3910892
" the EU’s own agency for fundamental rights released findings last year revealing that the UK has had some of the lowest rates of race-related harassment in the EU, with only 3 per cent of UK-based respondents reporting harassment. In Ireland, the figure was 13 per cent. While it’s true that authorities have reported a spike in hate crimes since the referendum, this appears to be a depressing trend across the continent."
If that goes hard left, another nail in the moderate coffin?
How about starting with The European medical staff that are fleeing the NHS and causing staffing crises ?
Given that employment in the NHS has increased by over a hundred thousand in the last three years:
https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/employmentandemployeetypes/timeseries/g7fg/lms
https://twitter.com/jamesjohnson252/status/1192382322370338819
However Brexit has made minorities, not just Europeans here, feel that they are not valued or as welcome here as they thought they were.
Both statements can be true at the same time.
When I lived there, there was a Tory Council in Walsall because Labour had ran it so badly it got put in special measures, so they will certainly vote Tory if required although it didn’t feel particularly right wing with all the old industrial sites dotted around.
There was a few comments yesterday. Yes - there is a lot of local colour and internecine politics. Much fun.
Personally I am calling it for a majority (could be a big majority) for the Independents on the basis of:
1 - They have 30 out of 35 Councillors, and are well organised - unlike say Bolsover.
2 - The won 65-70% of the vote at the locals.
3 - They have not yet given any honking reasons why they should not be supported since that vote.
3 - There is a "not Corbyn" tendency amongst some Labour voters (probably from anti-military not anrisemitism).
4 - The Tory candidate is Gloria de Piero's former office manager who as a very popular councillor with a strong personal vote crossed the floor. May drive 3 towards the Indies. Bad call by the Tories I suspect.
5 - Lib Dems have vanished. I believe the branch has merged with Mansfield. Independents seem to have inherited their infrastructure including the shopfront in the High Street. Lib Dems are a not-Corbyn option that is very obviously a wasted vote.
6 - The Lab Candidate is running a locally based campaign - "one of Ashfield's own", and I do not see that outdoing the Independents on that theme.
(But I am not betting any amounts above £10 this time, having got the Tories the wrong way on the spreads in 2017 and taken a small hiding).
Personally, I suspect that Zadrozny has this constituency for as long as he wants and does not make a huge mistake, Black Swans excepted.
Typical ...
The Lib Dems need Labour to be polling as badly just ahead of the election as they have been with no sign of 2017-type recovery. Then the LDs will do well with loads of strong performances. They then need Labour to choose another unelectable Corbynista leader like Long-Bailey or Piddock.
If those stars align for the LDs we could see a major political shift. Alternatively they could be badly squeezed at both ends if Labour look as though they are in with a chance and Labour could go on to replace Corbyn with a non-Corbynista
I'm betting on Labour doing very badly but still not coming to its senses.
I doubt there’s any game changer in there though, like what? They know who handled the ambassador destroying leak to the Mail and it came from Russia? The constituency voted Labour in the past? And Mogg like Tony Benn is very much a “get them” type candidate for all opponents. If this is the way media are going to play it, some days both main party’s will just have to roll with these punches in this particular campaign. I do like your boxing analogy. In the ring you are going to get hit, and it’s how you deal with that and focus on the game plan and the thinking on your feet. Labour dealt with it well so far, but then this leaderships been blessed with plenty of practice 🙂
Labour with their friends across the world there, winning here
So if you knew it, why couldn’t those who anointed him?
This was also the case with Labour where they had problems with weird people on the fringes. Unfortunately one was made leader and he can’t see the problems with his mates views - they have held them for 40 years.
And before anyone points out that it is a minority of men, I agree that it is, but they do not wear badges or stickers to separate the good from the bad and sometimes, the ones you think are safe to be around give you a very nasty surprise.
The anti-GM movement has lot to answer for.
It's anecdote time so prepare the salt bucket...
That keen political animal, Mrs Stodge, has opined on the GE. Now, despite being married to an LD, I'm pretty sure she's no LD - I think in the past she's voted Labour but we genuinely don't talk politics as a couple apart from the very local stuff where her perception of and my knowledge of how local Government functions often collide.
Yesterday, she suddenly piped up she had no one to vote for at the GE and wasn't going to bother. She told me she couldn't vote for that "lunatic" Corbyn and as a LEAVE voter couldn't back the LDs and was going to vote for Johnson until she read up on the changes to IR35 introduced by Philip Hammond which, as a contractor in financial services, are going to make life much harder for her and cost her money.
I advised her she could still go to the polling station and spoil her ballot paper and I advised her as to the best way of doing it (or rather what not to do).
So that's one fewer vote for the Conservatives not that it makes much difference in East Ham but it reminds me it's not all about Brexit and other policy areas can affect people's voting intentions.
It's also got me thinking about numbers of spoilt ballot papers - in East Ham in 2017 56,633 votes were cast and 179 papers were rejected. That's 0.3% of the total and I don't know if that's a representative share for the UK as a whole. I think there could be a lot more spoilt papers but I suspect there's no market. Any thoughts?