FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
Lucky Tories or not, the LibDems will need something more to offer these seats next time if they are not to travel backwards.
FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
A huge problem for the LDs was their poor result at GE2017 and generally tactical voting choices were based on what happened then. In just about all of them the CON lead over the LDs was smaller than the LAB vote. Also the LDs campaign was poor
If only the voters had had a LibDem polling expert advising them.....
All the biased medja fault....so much for period of reflection and learning what went wrong. I mean cos Boris got no incoming at all, none at all...racist, liar, adulterer, and worst of all BREXITEER.
FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
Lucky Tories or not, the LibDems will need something more to offer these seats next time if they are not to travel backwards.
Starmer being PM not Corbyn if they vote LD might be enough in these southern Remain areas
That said, it's the closest to a mass membership party that I can think of anywhere in the modern Western world, when such things have become unfashionable. It's not a sufficient basis to win elections, but it's nonetheless very preferable to the common pattern of a declining membership of elderly folk plus a bunch of careerists.
Building more houses is not by itself the solution, but it’s certainly a prerequisite.
That's just sloppy thinking. Major developments such as Battersea/Nine Elms, Barking Riverside and Fresh Wharf are about thousands of new homes, mainly if not exclusively flats.
Some will be affordable and some will be available on shared ownership though nowhere near enough in my view. The point is if you build 3,000 flats you add a minimum of 6,000 (and likely more) people to an area.
That puts pressure on transport, health care provision, schools and a range of other services including (not surprisingly) sewage, water supply, electrical infrastructure all of which need spending to be improved and you'd better believe a Section 106 doesn't get anywhere near that.
A Section 106 might get you a new community facility for a medical centre which is fine for the 6,000 people who all need a GP but what about transport? Let's say 4,500 commute so that's extra people being jammed onto a system already at or beyond capacity in peak periods so where are the extra trains, the extra tracks, the extra capacity?
Answer came there none.
Housing needs planning - housing needs infrastructure, housing needs money spent before a single flat is built. That, unfortunately, is not how we are doing it. we are doing it to maximise profit for property developers, construction companies (many of whom employ EU migrant workers so that'll be interesting) and estate agents as well as the Government.
Onto things far more important than Welsh opinion polls.
Housing, as I have to remind Conservatives regularly, isn't just a question of building houses and flats and watching property developers and estate agents (and of course the Government) grow fatter on the process.
It's also about those who don't have a home and the truth is the increasing gap between rents and housing benefits combined with the shortage of affordable housing is causing families (remember the "hard working families" so beloved of the modern Tories) real distress.
7,110 households are currently in bed and breakfast accommodation, a 15-year high while Council spending on the homeless rose to £643 million which was in itself an overspend on the planned spend of £502 million.
Of that spend, £115 million goes on keeping families in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Now, Government supporters might argue the Homelessness Reduction Act of 2019 is the answer to all this - no, it isn't. The Act puts more duties onto Councils but doesn't provide additional funding nor does it magically provide the affordable housing so badly needed.
As an aside, we are also seeing with this Government a clear agenda to weaken the rental sector in favour of home ownership but not everyone can afford to buy and a strong rental sector is vital to satisfy the demand in that sector of the housing market.
Why is the Conservative agenda all about home ownership? Simply because all the evidence suggests once you own your own home you're more likely to vote Conservative so it's a political agenda rather than a genuine attempt to tackle the chronic housing problems in this country which start of course with the price of land and its limited supply.
Boris has promised 1 million new homes by 2024 including lifetime rental deposits
FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
A huge problem for the LDs was their poor result at GE2017 and generally tactical voting choices were based on what happened then. In just about all of them the CON lead over the LDs was smaller than the LAB vote. Also the LDs campaign was poor
If only the voters had had a LibDem polling expert advising them.....
Perhaps next General Election Lib Dem polling experts can do better at targeting seats.
Seeing Lib Dem polling experts tell voters in seats like Warrington South that voting Conservative was a wasted vote and that Conservative voters should vote Liberal Democrat to deny Labour the seat was especially bemusing.
Onto things far more important than Welsh opinion polls.
Housing, as I have to remind Conservatives regularly, isn't just a question of building houses and flats and watching property developers and estate agents (and of course the Government) grow fatter on the process.
It's also about those who don't have a home and the truth is the increasing gap between rents and housing benefits combined with the shortage of affordable housing is causing families (remember the "hard working families" so beloved of the modern Tories) real distress.
7,110 households are currently in bed and breakfast accommodation, a 15-year high while Council spending on the homeless rose to £643 million which was in itself an overspend on the planned spend of £502 million.
Of that spend, £115 million goes on keeping families in bed and breakfast accommodation.
Now, Government supporters might argue the Homelessness Reduction Act of 2019 is the answer to all this - no, it isn't. The Act puts more duties onto Councils but doesn't provide additional funding nor does it magically provide the affordable housing so badly needed.
As an aside, we are also seeing with this Government a clear agenda to weaken the rental sector in favour of home ownership but not everyone can afford to buy and a strong rental sector is vital to satisfy the demand in that sector of the housing market.
Why is the Conservative agenda all about home ownership? Simply because all the evidence suggests once you own your own home you're more likely to vote Conservative so it's a political agenda rather than a genuine attempt to tackle the chronic housing problems in this country which start of course with the price of land and its limited supply.
Boris has promised 1 million new homes by 2024 including lifetime rental deposits
FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
I’ve said before on here that I think Boris should write Conservative Remainers a thank you letter.
They’ve been absolutely staunch in an environment that now smells almost 100% leave.
Depends whether you define "winning" as "gaining a majority" or "forming a functional government". It is, of course, the latter that they need.
I guess my point is that anyone in Labour who is focusing on the electoral system right now has the wrong priority. Let the Electoral Reform Society and the Lib Dems do that.The less time the Opposition spends complaining about FPTP, the more chance they have of getting rid of it.
Frankly, I can see no chance of a Labour "win" -- however defined -- without a substantial recovery in Scotland.
I'd say Keir & Becky have come to the same conclusion:
Devo-max, or a fully federal UK, is probably the only thing that can help Labour in Scotland now. This kind of change goes hand in hand with electoral reform.
My guess is that if the Labour party "wins" the next election, it will do only with a mandate for, and support from, those wanting massive constitutional change.
They will have no recovery under those donkeys, labour have been promising home rule since 1888, they are a bunch of liars. Until they have a real Scottish labour party rather than London sock puppets , they will remain where they are circling the drain
"Nations and regions". I'm sure that doesn't mean Dyfed, or Lothian. They want to destroy England and split it into penny packets.
Lindsay Hoyle slaps down Bercow's previous actions
What did he say?
Funny how PMQs only takes half an hour again now.
Effectively any decision the speaker makes which is not agreed in principle by the clerks will be open to challenge removing the speakers ability to make unaccountable decisions
Lindsay Hoyle slaps down Bercow's previous actions
What did he say?
Funny how PMQs only takes half an hour again now.
Effectively any decision the speaker makes which is not agreed in principle by the clerks will be open to challenge removing the speakers ability to make unaccountable decisions
As the great eraser of time moves across the pencil marks of Bercow.....
Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
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/blockquote>
I think Labour will lose power in Wales in 2021. They only have a majority now thanks to the defection of DET from Plaid Cymru and the support of the ever pliable Kirsty Williams (the last LibDem standing).
Carwyn Jones (like or him) not was an impressive media performer. His successor Mark Drakeford is not.
My point is only that 2021 is a tough test for the new leader, and it is likely to be very difficult to get a Labour success story to tell.
I don't see much positive emerging in Scotland. The best Labour can hope in Wales is to be largest party (though even that is doubtful), so the headline will be "Labour loses Wales".
Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
being the other parties (except the LibDems).
I think Labour will lose power in Wales in 2021. They only have a majority now thanks to the defection of DET from Plaid Cymru and the support of the ever pliable Kirsty Williams (the last LibDem standing).
Carwyn Jones (like or him) not was an impressive media performer. His successor Mark Drakeford is not.
My point is only that 2021 is a tough test for the new leader, and it is likely to be very difficult to get a Labour success story to tell.
I don't see much positive emerging in Scotland. The best Labour can hope in Wales is to be largest party (though even that is doubtful), so the headline will be "Labour loses Wales".
Much can change in over 15 months.By May 2021 Labour may well be ahead in the polls - particularly in Wales.
FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
Lucky Tories or not, the LibDems will need something more to offer these seats next time if they are not to travel backwards.
Starmer being PM not Corbyn if they vote LD might be enough in these southern Remain areas
"Remain areas" has a limited shelf life. Certainly going to be a bit whiffy by the time of the next election....
As if laryngitis - I assume that’s what having a throat which feels as if barbed wire has been stuffed into it means - wasn’t enough, my car got a flat tyre so I had to leave it at the garage and trudge back home via the beach front on a cold stormy day. At the end of the lane facing the sea, there was a sign proudly announcing the roll out of fast broadband in the area and money from the EU Regional Development Fund. The latter sign had been scratched quite badly. Staring out at the foamy waves of the Atlantic while coughing and wheezing, I felt like some abandoned 19th century governess.
Still the local shop announces proudly that it sells ice cream for dogs. In January.
FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.
That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.
In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.
Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
Lucky Tories or not, the LibDems will need something more to offer these seats next time if they are not to travel backwards.
Starmer being PM not Corbyn if they vote LD might be enough in these southern Remain areas
"Remain areas" has a limited shelf life. Certainly going to be a bit whiffy by the time of the next election....
Depends how a hard Brexit goes with likely only a basic trade deal for goods minimising tariffs with the EU, while strong Leave areas will remain enthusiastic, Remain and soft Leave areas may be less so
As if laryngitis - I assume that’s what having a throat which feels as if barbed wire has been stuffed into it means - wasn’t enough, my car got a flat tyre so I had to leave it at the garage and trudge back home via the beach front on a cold stormy day. At the end of the lane facing the sea, there was a sign proudly announcing the roll out of fast broadband in the area and money from the EU Regional Development Fund. The latter sign had been scratched quite badly. Staring out at the foamy waves of the Atlantic while coughing and wheezing, I felt like some abandoned 19th century governess.
Still the local shop announces proudly that it sells ice cream for dogs. In January.
Hardy types, Cumbrians.
At least some of the membership fee had been put to good use then.
Be in no doubt, this is a deeply unsatisfactory position for the Government - and the country - to have got itself into. How on earth did we come to rely for critical infrastructure on a single supplier from a potentially hostile world superpower? The new Prime Minister must be cursing his predecessors for having left him with such a hot potato.
The UK has never had any significant mobile carrier technology supplier.
You can go right back to the post-war years to lay blame. Back when we just assumed than Made in Japan meant cheap crap knock-offs, but instead Japan rapidly became one of the main suppliers of electronics. You might have thought we would learn our lesson when South Korea did the same trick, and that we would certainly have twigged that China would follow the same path. We did not learn any such lesson.
So we now live in a world were electronics = Asia, and even the richest companies rely on Asian suppliers and manufacturers to turn their designs into products...
On all of those cases, though, there was effectively some form of state capitalism which gave the new sectors room to grow. Here we had either state, or capitalism, but never the combination.
Mind you that kind of interventionist capitalism came at a high price, it wasn't as though any of the countries I mentioned were happy-clappy liberal democracies when their economies were being transformed. If you want to get stuff done, either do away with democracy or make sure that only the right people can ever win.
That was rather my point - that those kinds of successful state interventions have never really been available to us (though South Korea has been a relatively liberal democracy since the 1987 June Democracy Movement, and Samsung has enjoyed significant state support in developing since then).
And again, it's not as though its not possible to compete against the Chinese behemoth - South Korea (again) has successfully eaten their lunch in the bulk shipbuilding market.
Perhaps we should be taking a closer look at S. Korea...
Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.
Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.
Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.
It looks as if evacuees to the UK will also be quarantined for 2 weeks
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-this-might-be-the-most-competitive-iowa-caucuses-ever/ ...despite those caveats, the data we do have suggests that this year’s caucuses may be the most competitive and crowded Iowa has ever had. There are more candidates polling within 10 points of the leading contender than in any race since 1980 and a record-tying number of candidates polling above 15 percent, with another just below that mark. Whether one candidate will get a late boom or bust remains to be seen, but with a week to go, no candidate is close to being a clear favorite. That makes for an exciting and potentially unpredictable finish, so get ready for the final sprint.
Be in no doubt, this is a deeply unsatisfactory position for the Government - and the country - to have got itself into. How on earth did we come to rely for critical infrastructure on a single supplier from a potentially hostile world superpower? The new Prime Minister must be cursing his predecessors for having left him with such a hot potato.
The UK has never had any significant mobile carrier technology supplier.
You can go right back to the post-war years to lay blame. Back when we just assumed than Made in Japan meant cheap crap knock-offs, but instead Japan rapidly became one of the main suppliers of electronics. You might have thought we would learn our lesson when South Korea did the same trick, and that we would certainly have twigged that China would follow the same path. We did not learn any such lesson.
So we now live in a world were electronics = Asia, and even the richest companies rely on Asian suppliers and manufacturers to turn their designs into products...
On all of those cases, though, there was effectively some form of state capitalism which gave the new sectors room to grow. Here we had either state, or capitalism, but never the combination.
Mind you that kind of interventionist capitalism came at a high price, it wasn't as though any of the countries I mentioned were happy-clappy liberal democracies when their economies were being transformed. If you want to get stuff done, either do away with democracy or make sure that only the right people can ever win.
That was rather my point - that those kinds of successful state interventions have never really been available to us (though South Korea has been a relatively liberal democracy since the 1987 June Democracy Movement, and Samsung has enjoyed significant state support in developing since then).
And again, it's not as though its not possible to compete against the Chinese behemoth - South Korea (again) has successfully eaten their lunch in the bulk shipbuilding market.
Perhaps we should be taking a closer look at S. Korea...
Have you been there? It’s shit, absolutely no redeeming features. Mind you in the business I work in Koreans are making the same mistakes that the Chinese made 10 years ago and some new ones. In particular they believe that they know better, all the time.
After Boris had a word Jack 'clarified' his comments and confirmed there would be no indyref2 even if the SNP won a majority at the 2021 Holyrood elections
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-this-might-be-the-most-competitive-iowa-caucuses-ever/ ...despite those caveats, the data we do have suggests that this year’s caucuses may be the most competitive and crowded Iowa has ever had. There are more candidates polling within 10 points of the leading contender than in any race since 1980 and a record-tying number of candidates polling above 15 percent, with another just below that mark. Whether one candidate will get a late boom or bust remains to be seen, but with a week to go, no candidate is close to being a clear favorite. That makes for an exciting and potentially unpredictable finish, so get ready for the final sprint.
Whoever wins will probably go odds on, unless it's Buttigieg, Warren or Klobuchar - whose price will crash just as much in implied % terms. Mind you the way Betfair acts, Bloomberg will probably be even money when we reach New Hampshire.
Really interesting programme by Tom Mangold on the Profumo affair which strongly suggests that Stephen Ward was framed by the Establishment. The Judiciary came out of it very badly as pretty corrupt - as did the Metropolitan Police.It seems to have been a clear miscarriage of justice. There must be a strong case for revisiting the matter . Perhaps Corbyn should bring it up at PMQs!
Fishing ports now are represented by more Tory MPs than inner London, Manchester and Liverpool, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Nottingham and Cardiff and Newcastle combined so have a lot of influence with the Government
After Boris had a word Jack 'clarified' his comments and confirmed there would be no indyref2 even if the SNP won a majority at the 2021 Holyrood elections
ITV had a British / American guy who was being evacuated said that he was told that the city officials are talking about it being until April before Wuhan returns to normal.
ITV had a British / American guy who was being evacuated said that he was told that the city officials are talking about it being until April before Wuhan returns to normal.
"The postmortem was grim. In the room, leading Labour MPs, recent party staffers and assorted Labour figures of long experience pored over the entrails exposed by the high priests of polling and academia. Pointers for the future lie in this gruesome raking over of the details. Too many in Labour give only token nods to the cataclysmic abyss that has opened up between the party and the voters out there."
An interesting example of article writers not being able to write their own headlines. The headline suggests Labour unity is achievable, yet PT’s article suggests the opposite.
An interesting article from Anne Applebaum: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/after-brexit-new-identity-crises-await-uk/605692/ ...if we have learned anything in recent years, it is that strong political emotions do not fade away. The Occupy movement flared and then seemed to fizzle out—until it re-emerged in the form of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and in the far-left surge that made Jeremy Corbyn leader of the British Labour Party. The anti-European Tories were a fringe group—until they took over their whole party. The kinds of people who marched for the People’s Vote, worked for Grieve, or became MEPs are now on the fringes, but they may re-emerge too. Perhaps the next Labour Party leader will find a way to galvanize them. Or perhaps they will end up somewhere else—as climate-change activists, for example, or in some role no one has even thought of yet. ...
Our fisherfolk were always a chip to be bargained away to get what we want for financial services. Those politicians that have led them to believe otherwise will have to carry the can when the inevitable sellout arrives. That our fishing industry employs fewer people than Harrods doubtless reassures those politicians that they can bear the fallout.
Building more houses is not by itself the solution, but it’s certainly a prerequisite.
That's just sloppy thinking. Major developments such as Battersea/Nine Elms, Barking Riverside and Fresh Wharf are about thousands of new homes, mainly if not exclusively flats.
Some will be affordable and some will be available on shared ownership though nowhere near enough in my view. The point is if you build 3,000 flats you add a minimum of 6,000 (and likely more) people to an area.
That puts pressure on transport, health care provision, schools and a range of other services including (not surprisingly) sewage, water supply, electrical infrastructure all of which need spending to be improved and you'd better believe a Section 106 doesn't get anywhere near that.
A Section 106 might get you a new community facility for a medical centre which is fine for the 6,000 people who all need a GP but what about transport? Let's say 4,500 commute so that's extra people being jammed onto a system already at or beyond capacity in peak periods so where are the extra trains, the extra tracks, the extra capacity?
Answer came there none.
Housing needs planning - housing needs infrastructure, housing needs money spent before a single flat is built. That, unfortunately, is not how we are doing it. we are doing it to maximise profit for property developers, construction companies (many of whom employ EU migrant workers so that'll be interesting) and estate agents as well as the Government.
Local plans from councils include infrastructure
Planning infrastructure to meet the needs of growth is basically my job. Vast amounts of publix sector time and effort is spent on it. Google your relevant local authority's infrastructure plan. Infrastructure is hard to deliver, because we aren't a totalitarian state and we are reluctant to inconvenience individuals for the greater good, in comparison to other states. But it does happen. Speaking of which I should probably get back to work.
Oh, and on thread, wasn't there also some story about needing to set upthe site to get away from people wanting to discuss reality television? I found the site when looking for detail about the Cheadle by-election in 2005, rapidly getting drawn into a conversation about cheese.
ITV had a British / American guy who was being evacuated said that he was told that the city officials are talking about it being until April before Wuhan returns to normal.
If "normal" means people paying to visit the place, then that looks on the early side.....
Our fisherfolk were always a chip to be bargained away to get what we want for financial services. Those politicians that have led them to believe otherwise will have to carry the can when the inevitable sellout arrives. That our fishing industry employs fewer people than Harrods doubtless reassures those politicians that they can bear the fallout.
4 years to the next election - the news won't even be chip papers by then it will be completely forgotten.
Railways slowly but surely heading back into public hands.
The big picture of our current politics is that people have elected a Conservative government in circumstances that will force it to do mostly non Conservative things.
A Few Thoughts of a Critical Nature on the Self-Regarding Buffoon Alan Dershowitz https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-few-thoughts-of-a-critical-nature-on-the-self-regarding-buffoon-alan-dershowitz Before we move on I wanted to say a few words about this spectacularly self-regarding man, Alan Dershowitz, and his argument about the constitutional, rather than factual, insufficiency of the impeachment charges brought against President Trump. It is no exaggeration to say that the overwhelming bordering on universal weight of scholarly and historical opinion is that Dershowitz is wrong. But mine isn’t an argument to authority. It’s an overwhelming consensus because it is almost certainly correct. To note just one example, literally during the months in which the Constitution was being written Britain was roiled by an extremely high profile campaign for an impeachment which was on the basis not of statutory crimes but corruption and misrule.
My aim here is not to rehearse the arguments about what constitutes an impeachable offense. Others are doing that. What is so notable is that not only is Dershowitz no expert on this issue and in no way knowledgeable about it. He positively advertises the fact, as part of his own self-glorification and self-involvement. Dershowitz explains that he took a diametrically opposed position about what constitutes an impeachable offense in 1998-99 because he hadn’t yet “researched” the topic. But in recent weeks, he points out, he’s ‘read all the books’ and come to this new conclusion. (Note that in 1998-99 Dershowitz had already been a professor at Harvard Law School for thirty-five years.)...
Our fisherfolk were always a chip to be bargained away to get what we want for financial services. Those politicians that have led them to believe otherwise will have to carry the can when the inevitable sellout arrives. That our fishing industry employs fewer people than Harrods doubtless reassures those politicians that they can bear the fallout.
Wrong financial services votes are now less important to the Tories than fishing under Boris.
More marginal seats are held by the Tories in fishing areas than financial services working areas which are either safe Tory seats in the Home Counties or London Labour or LD seats.
Fishing will get some restrictions on EU boats even at the cost of some restrictions on financial services access to the EU, the City is big enough to cope anyway
Did anyone resign over this or is it like the ex-BBC types who wait till they retire before noticing they've been doing it all wrong these past 20 years?
Our fisherfolk were always a chip to be bargained away to get what we want for financial services. Those politicians that have led them to believe otherwise will have to carry the can when the inevitable sellout arrives. That our fishing industry employs fewer people than Harrods doubtless reassures those politicians that they can bear the fallout.
Wrong financial services votes are now less important to the Tories than fishing under Boris.
More marginal seats are held by the Tories in fishing areas than financial services working areas which are either safe Tory seats in the Home Counties or London Labour or LD seats.
Fishing will get some restrictions on EU boats even at the cost of some restrictions on financial services access to the EU, the City is big enough to cope anyway
"Financial service working areas" is a bizarre term. Almost none of the people who work in either the City or Docklands live there, but those areas still employ at least a million people (directly and indirectly) in the South East of England.
Did anyone resign over this or is it like the ex-BBC types who wait till they retire before noticing they've been doing it all wrong these past 20 years?
Robert Rogers (now Lord Lisvane) did resign as Clerk several years before any expected 'normal' retirement.
Did anyone resign over this or is it like the ex-BBC types who wait till they retire before noticing they've been doing it all wrong these past 20 years?
It’s the current office holder implicitly criticising his predecessor. Several of Bercow’s subordinates have criticised him in the past week:
Danny Kruger's maiden speech just now. I don't entirely agree with his sentiment, but he went about fully justifying Alistair Meeks one to watch prominence.
This bloody Corbyn government - already started renationisation.
Hopefully the Sunday-only Dales Rail from Clitheroe to Hellifield will no longer be cancelled each week...
You mean you've not covered that section? Well, well!
I could do it as a day trip from London Euston via Preston, getting back home around 10pm. Being the uberiest geekiest person on PB, I always prefer to do a new route in both directions (if possible), and in daylight (if possible), always sitting facing forwards on the right-hand side of the train (um, again, if possible...). So sunset at Clitheroe after 17:36 arrival on the return trip would mean third Sunday in February.
One problem for the rail operators is they don't get to operate the bits that cause all the delays ie the track and the signals. Those bits are in public hands already.
And yet nobody ever highlights the track and signals sh7ter than sh1te performance.
Our fisherfolk were always a chip to be bargained away to get what we want for financial services. Those politicians that have led them to believe otherwise will have to carry the can when the inevitable sellout arrives. That our fishing industry employs fewer people than Harrods doubtless reassures those politicians that they can bear the fallout.
Wrong financial services votes are now less important to the Tories than fishing under Boris.
More marginal seats are held by the Tories in fishing areas than financial services working areas which are either safe Tory seats in the Home Counties or London Labour or LD seats.
Fishing will get some restrictions on EU boats even at the cost of some restrictions on financial services access to the EU, the City is big enough to cope anyway
"Financial service working areas" is a bizarre term. Almost none of the people who work in either the City or Docklands live there, but those areas still employ at least a million people (directly and indirectly) in the South East of England.
Our fisherfolk were always a chip to be bargained away to get what we want for financial services. Those politicians that have led them to believe otherwise will have to carry the can when the inevitable sellout arrives. That our fishing industry employs fewer people than Harrods doubtless reassures those politicians that they can bear the fallout.
Wrong financial services votes are now less important to the Tories than fishing under Boris.
More marginal seats are held by the Tories in fishing areas than financial services working areas which are either safe Tory seats in the Home Counties or London Labour or LD seats.
Fishing will get some restrictions on EU boats even at the cost of some restrictions on financial services access to the EU, the City is big enough to cope anyway
The City does generate rather a lot of tax for the government you know - rather more than fishing and its 0.1% of GDP. Wreck that and Boris won't be winning many seats anywhere, let alone Grimsby.
This bloody Corbyn government - already started renationisation.
Hopefully the Sunday-only Dales Rail from Clitheroe to Hellifield will no longer be cancelled each week...
You mean you've not covered that section? Well, well!
...Being the uberiest geekiest person on PB...
A geek is usually somebody who is into the social and spectator aspects of a phenomenon, whereas a nerd is detail-obsessed and participatory. Which would make you the uberiest nerdiest person on PB, not the geekiest.
However since I am currently in distress about the "ohffschibnall" leaks on the internet on how the "Timeless Child" arc is to be resolved on this season's "Doctor Who" (tl:dr Chibnall is going to retcon an entire pre-Hartnell hitherto-unknown regeneration cycle of thirteen new Doctors), I think you have at least one competitor for the post.
Comments
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_(UK)#/media/File:Labour_Party_membership_graph.svg
That said, it's the closest to a mass membership party that I can think of anywhere in the modern Western world, when such things have become unfashionable. It's not a sufficient basis to win elections, but it's nonetheless very preferable to the common pattern of a declining membership of elderly folk plus a bunch of careerists.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7708321/Tories-pledge-million-homes-five-years.html
Seeing Lib Dem polling experts tell voters in seats like Warrington South that voting Conservative was a wasted vote and that Conservative voters should vote Liberal Democrat to deny Labour the seat was especially bemusing.
They’ve been absolutely staunch in an environment that now smells almost 100% leave.
I’ve sailed very close to the wind at times with my use of it at work.
Earlier in my career, my client at the time once said to me, “stop playing angry birds!”, which led to me reining it in a bit.
Funny how PMQs only takes half an hour again now.
And, of course, no-one ever said anything disobliging about Boris - for the sake of balance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D4vFj5GsBnE&
As if laryngitis - I assume that’s what having a throat which feels as if barbed wire has been stuffed into it means - wasn’t enough, my car got a flat tyre so I had to leave it at the garage and trudge back home via the beach front on a cold stormy day. At the end of the lane facing the sea, there was a sign proudly announcing the roll out of fast broadband in the area and money from the EU Regional Development Fund. The latter sign had been scratched quite badly. Staring out at the foamy waves of the Atlantic while coughing and wheezing, I felt like some abandoned 19th century governess.
Still the local shop announces proudly that it sells ice cream for dogs. In January.
Hardy types, Cumbrians.
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1222496715422433281?s=20
And again, it's not as though its not possible to compete against the Chinese behemoth - South Korea (again) has successfully eaten their lunch in the bulk shipbuilding market.
Perhaps we should be taking a closer look at S. Korea...
'Scottish Secretary Alister Jack backs IndyRef2 'mandate' if SNP wins 2021 Holyrood majority'
https://tinyurl.com/syho358
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/why-this-might-be-the-most-competitive-iowa-caucuses-ever/
...despite those caveats, the data we do have suggests that this year’s caucuses may be the most competitive and crowded Iowa has ever had. There are more candidates polling within 10 points of the leading contender than in any race since 1980 and a record-tying number of candidates polling above 15 percent, with another just below that mark. Whether one candidate will get a late boom or bust remains to be seen, but with a week to go, no candidate is close to being a clear favorite. That makes for an exciting and potentially unpredictable finish, so get ready for the final sprint.
Does the folding screen phone now work?&
https://www.thenational.scot/politics/18157682.jack-changed-tune-indyref2-space-month/
Mind you the way Betfair acts, Bloomberg will probably be even money when we reach New Hampshire.
https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/report/summary-of-ncsc-security-analysis-for-the-uk-telecoms-sector
https://twitter.com/TheScotsman/status/1222228375714115587?s=20
"The only question is whether Ed [Miliband] will want to serve more than two terms"
It's a long time since the Scottish SoS was Scotland's representative in Westminster rather than Westminster's satrap in Scotland.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/01/after-brexit-new-identity-crises-await-uk/605692/
...if we have learned anything in recent years, it is that strong political emotions do not fade away. The Occupy movement flared and then seemed to fizzle out—until it re-emerged in the form of Bernie Sanders’s 2016 presidential campaign and in the far-left surge that made Jeremy Corbyn leader of the British Labour Party. The anti-European Tories were a fringe group—until they took over their whole party. The kinds of people who marched for the People’s Vote, worked for Grieve, or became MEPs are now on the fringes, but they may re-emerge too. Perhaps the next Labour Party leader will find a way to galvanize them. Or perhaps they will end up somewhere else—as climate-change activists, for example, or in some role no one has even thought of yet. ...
Speaking of which I should probably get back to work.
Oh, and on thread, wasn't there also some story about needing to set upthe site to get away from people wanting to discuss reality television? I found the site when looking for detail about the Cheadle by-election in 2005, rapidly getting drawn into a conversation about cheese.
East Coast.
London Underground.
NI Railways.
Railways slowly but surely heading back into public hands.
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/a-few-thoughts-of-a-critical-nature-on-the-self-regarding-buffoon-alan-dershowitz
Before we move on I wanted to say a few words about this spectacularly self-regarding man, Alan Dershowitz, and his argument about the constitutional, rather than factual, insufficiency of the impeachment charges brought against President Trump. It is no exaggeration to say that the overwhelming bordering on universal weight of scholarly and historical opinion is that Dershowitz is wrong. But mine isn’t an argument to authority. It’s an overwhelming consensus because it is almost certainly correct. To note just one example, literally during the months in which the Constitution was being written Britain was roiled by an extremely high profile campaign for an impeachment which was on the basis not of statutory crimes but corruption and misrule.
My aim here is not to rehearse the arguments about what constitutes an impeachable offense. Others are doing that. What is so notable is that not only is Dershowitz no expert on this issue and in no way knowledgeable about it. He positively advertises the fact, as part of his own self-glorification and self-involvement. Dershowitz explains that he took a diametrically opposed position about what constitutes an impeachable offense in 1998-99 because he hadn’t yet “researched” the topic. But in recent weeks, he points out, he’s ‘read all the books’ and come to this new conclusion. (Note that in 1998-99 Dershowitz had already been a professor at Harvard Law School for thirty-five years.)...
More marginal seats are held by the Tories in fishing areas than financial services working areas which are either safe Tory seats in the Home Counties or London Labour or LD seats.
Fishing will get some restrictions on EU boats even at the cost of some restrictions on financial services access to the EU, the City is big enough to cope anyway
When will you ever learn?
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/25/john-bercow-peerage-fresh-doubts-bullying-claims-resurface
In January 2020 it was fined £2.3 million for poor performance
And yet nobody ever highlights the track and signals sh7ter than sh1te performance.
When the opponent has approval ratings close or above 50% you can't play it safe.
However since I am currently in distress about the "ohffschibnall" leaks on the internet on how the "Timeless Child" arc is to be resolved on this season's "Doctor Who" (tl:dr Chibnall is going to retcon an entire pre-Hartnell hitherto-unknown regeneration cycle of thirteen new Doctors), I think you have at least one competitor for the post.
That is all.
Conservatives: 41% (+4)
Labour: 36% (-4)
Plaid Cymru: 13% (+3)
Liberal Democrats: 5% (-1)
Brexit Party: 3% (-2)
Greens: 2% (+1)
Others: 1 (no change)