I do hope historians note how Swinson enabled a ten year period of Tory and Johnson rule.
Not the case, a GE had become inevitable. There was no viable alternative. The only issue is of timing, and denying a GE would have made No Deal on Jan 31st a real risk.
The only card to play was to try a GE, even if the odds were against success. The problem was that the LD manifesto was written to oppose No Deal, rather than Johnson's surrender Deal. Lab were merely drunk on their own delusions that Marxism would be popular.
It's quite remarkable, to me, what the Lib Dems have achieved on Europe. If they had allowed a referendum in first term of the Coalition government, as Cameron wanted, the result would have been an easy win. Instead we got Brexit.
Working with Tory remainers, they managed to give Johnson the narrative that he was a fresh broom - a unique position after a decade in government. And got the remainers wiped out.
I'm not sure quite what they'll achieve next - a rematch of the Agincourt campaign?
You forget that the underlying numbers are unchanged, even while the Parliamentary numbers have. Pro Brexit parties did not get a majority of the popular vote.
The Lib Dems will be back, there is always a place for a party of sane economics and internationalist co-operation, though currently out of fashion.
It's the Tories trying to ride two horses now, of anti-austerity in the North, and low taxes in the South.
The point stands - the Lib Dems have been remarkably destructive towards their professed aim. I was telling Lib Dems in 2010-2015 that they should have gone for a referendum - it would have shot Farage et als fox and kept it dead for decades.
Nick Clegg is as much the father of Brexit as Boris.
I do hope historians note how Swinson enabled a ten year period of Tory and Johnson rule.
Not the case, a GE had become inevitable. There was no viable alternative. The only issue is of timing, and denying a GE would have made No Deal on Jan 31st a real risk.
The only card to play was to try a GE, even if the odds were against success. The problem was that the LD manifesto was written to oppose No Deal, rather than Johnson's surrender Deal. Lab were merely drunk on their own delusions that Marxism would be popular.
It's quite remarkable, to me, what the Lib Dems have achieved on Europe. If they had allowed a referendum in first term of the Coalition government, as Cameron wanted, the result would have been an easy win. Instead we got Brexit.
Working with Tory remainers, they managed to give Johnson the narrative that he was a fresh broom - a unique position after a decade in government. And got the remainers wiped out.
I'm not sure quite what they'll achieve next - a rematch of the Agincourt campaign?
You forget that the underlying numbers are unchanged, even while the Parliamentary numbers have. Pro Brexit parties did not get a majority of the popular vote.
The Lib Dems will be back, there is always a place for a party of sane economics and internationalist co-operation, though currently out of fashion.
It's the Tories trying to ride two horses now, of anti-austerity in the North, and low taxes in the South.
The point stands - the Lib Dems have been remarkably destructive towards their professed aim. I was telling Lib Dems in 2010-2015 that they should have gone for a referendum - it would have shot Farage et als fox and kept it dead for decades.
Nick Clegg is as much the father of Brexit as Boris.
If there was a DNA test to find the father of Brexit it would show John Major in 1992: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pos39wWi4E
Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.
I do hope historians note how Swinson enabled a ten year period of Tory and Johnson rule.
Not the case, a GE had become inevitable. There was no viable alternative. The only issue is of timing, and denying a GE would have made No Deal on Jan 31st a real risk.
The only card to play was to try a GE, even if the odds were against success. The problem was that the LD manifesto was written to oppose No Deal, rather than Johnson's surrender Deal. Lab were merely drunk on their own delusions that Marxism would be popular.
It's quite remarkable, to me, what the Lib Dems have achieved on Europe. If they had allowed a referendum in first term of the Coalition government, as Cameron wanted, the result would have been an easy win. Instead we got Brexit.
Working with Tory remainers, they managed to give Johnson the narrative that he was a fresh broom - a unique position after a decade in government. And got the remainers wiped out.
I'm not sure quite what they'll achieve next - a rematch of the Agincourt campaign?
You forget that the underlying numbers are unchanged, even while the Parliamentary numbers have. Pro Brexit parties did not get a majority of the popular vote.
The Lib Dems will be back, there is always a place for a party of sane economics and internationalist co-operation, though currently out of fashion.
It's the Tories trying to ride two horses now, of anti-austerity in the North, and low taxes in the South.
The point stands - the Lib Dems have been remarkably destructive towards their professed aim. I was telling Lib Dems in 2010-2015 that they should have gone for a referendum - it would have shot Farage et als fox and kept it dead for decades.
Nick Clegg is as much the father of Brexit as Boris.
I do hope historians note how Swinson enabled a ten year period of Tory and Johnson rule.
Not the case, a GE had become inevitable. There was no viable alternative. The only issue is of timing, and denying a GE would have made No Deal on Jan 31st a real risk.
The only card to play was to try a GE, even if the odds were against success. The problem was that the LD manifesto was written to oppose No Deal, rather than Johnson's surrender Deal. Lab were merely drunk on their own delusions that Marxism would be popular.
It's quite remarkable, to me, what the Lib Dems have achieved on Europe. If they had allowed a referendum in first term of the Coalition government, as Cameron wanted, the result would have been an easy win. Instead we got Brexit.
Working with Tory remainers, they managed to give Johnson the narrative that he was a fresh broom - a unique position after a decade in government. And got the remainers wiped out.
I'm not sure quite what they'll achieve next - a rematch of the Agincourt campaign?
You forget that the underlying numbers are unchanged, even while the Parliamentary numbers have. Pro Brexit parties did not get a majority of the popular vote.
The Lib Dems will be back, there is always a place for a party of sane economics and internationalist co-operation, though currently out of fashion.
It's the Tories trying to ride two horses now, of anti-austerity in the North, and low taxes in the South.
The point stands - the Lib Dems have been remarkably destructive towards their professed aim. I was telling Lib Dems in 2010-2015 that they should have gone for a referendum - it would have shot Farage et als fox and kept it dead for decades.
Nick Clegg is as much the father of Brexit as Boris.
If there was a DNA test to find the father of Brexit it would show John Major in 1992: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pos39wWi4E
Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.
Actually, it's seeing which Remainer's policies led inexorably to Leave winning.
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
The last leader of a nationwide party to lose his seat was Archibald Sinclair (Lib) in 1945. Previously there were the examples @Fishing cites, then Henderson (Lab, 1931) Asquith (1924 and 1918) and Balfour (1906).
Thanks for the correction.
Liberals seem very good at this losing a leader lark!
Because they have very few seats and even fewer of them can be considered safe.
Trivia question - how many seats have the Liberal Democrats held consecutively for more than five years?
Orkney and Shetland Westmoreland
And I think that is it
That means they have lost SIX of their eight 2015 holds.
Leeds NW, Sheffield Hallam, North Norfolk, Ceredigion, Carshalton and err...
I look at somewhere I know a bit, Hereford. The seat’s has a restructure but in 1997 the LDs has 47% of the vote. The lost it in 2010 with 41%. In 2019 they received 12%. Is there any way back?
The Liberal Democrats in rural England in the 1990s were to Labour what the Brexit Party are to the Tories. They were a repository for those who couldn’t bring themselves to vote Tory but would never dream of voting Labour, just as the Brexit Party contains a huge chunk of Labour voters who will not vote Blue.
When the Tories took them into coalition, it detoxed the Tories and that effect unwound very spectacularly. So spectacularly it even gobbled up their vote in places the Tories had not been historically strong, including Wales.
I don’t know if there is a way back. They are not going to get far trying to chase Tory votes right now, but they don’t seem to be picking up disaffected Labour voters either probably due to the Coalition.
That said, if Labour elect Lavery or Long Bailey...
LDs picked up 1.3 million votes in the GE, so obviously losses in some places were more than matched elsewhere.
Yes. But they’re not much use if they’re piled up in safe Labour seats.
There are bound to have been quite a few from people like me who voted LD in a safe Tory seat...
I voted Tory in a safe Labour seat...
Outstanding. I imagine you live there for the transport links? (Joke)
I do hope historians note how Swinson enabled a ten year period of Tory and Johnson rule.
Not the case, a GE had become inevitable. There was no viable alternative. The only issue is of timing, and denying a GE would have made No Deal on Jan 31st a real risk.
The only card to play was to try a GE, even if the odds were against success. The problem was that the LD manifesto was written to oppose No Deal, rather than Johnson's surrender Deal. Lab were merely drunk on their own delusions that Marxism would be popular.
It's quite remarkable, to me, what the Lib Dems have achieved on Europe. If they had allowed a referendum in first term of the Coalition government, as Cameron wanted, the result would have been an easy win. Instead we got Brexit.
Working with Tory remainers, they managed to give Johnson the narrative that he was a fresh broom - a unique position after a decade in government. And got the remainers wiped out.
I'm not sure quite what they'll achieve next - a rematch of the Agincourt campaign?
You forget that the underlying numbers are unchanged, even while the Parliamentary numbers have. Pro Brexit parties did not get a majority of the popular vote.
The Lib Dems will be back, there is always a place for a party of sane economics and internationalist co-operation, though currently out of fashion.
It's the Tories trying to ride two horses now, of anti-austerity in the North, and low taxes in the South.
The point stands - the Lib Dems have been remarkably destructive towards their professed aim. I was telling Lib Dems in 2010-2015 that they should have gone for a referendum - it would have shot Farage et als fox and kept it dead for decades.
Nick Clegg is as much the father of Brexit as Boris.
If there was a DNA test to find the father of Brexit it would show John Major in 1992: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pos39wWi4E
Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.
I'm not suggesting it is illegal, but we all know that the rights were acquired on highly advantageous terms as a sweetener to 'let us join'. And I'm not suggesting the foreign fishing fleets who currently benefit should not be compensated - they should be compensated in line with what the departing British fishermen received when we joined.
The reason that non-UK fishermen having access to British fishing quotas is because those quotas (like ownership of a plot of land) are tradeable.
Are we going to say that only British fishermen can own these quotas? (This would be like saying that only British people can own arable land.)
OK... what if Spanish Fishing Company creates a subsidiary in the UK, and that buys a quota. Is that acceptable? If not, why not?
What if a British fisherman with a quota chooses to lease a boat from a Spanish company? What if the Spanish boat that is leased comes with its own crew?
What are we going to do about the fact that not only EU firms own quotas today? There a number of Canadian holders of fishing quotas (bought from British fishermen in the free market). CETA covers EU-Canada transferrable ownership of fishing quotas. If we want to rewrite it so that Canadians now cannot own British fishing quotas, I think we'll struggle to get the deal signed.
The quotas will no longer exist. They are part of the (deeply flawed) CFP which the UK will no longer be part of. Owners of them should be compensated appropriately. We then start again.
All countries manage the amount of fishing in their territorial waters via quotas and licenses. The US has quotas for every type of fish in its territorial waters. Canada and Australia have quotas too. Norway boasts of being the first country in the world to manage its fish stocks via quotas.
Which country are you thinking of that doesn't use quotas to restrict fishing levels?
The last leader of a nationwide party to lose his seat was Archibald Sinclair (Lib) in 1945. Previously there were the examples @Fishing cites, then Henderson (Lab, 1931) Asquith (1924 and 1918) and Balfour (1906).
Thanks for the correction.
I’ve also just found out - and I didn’t realise this until I started investigating a bit just now - that Ernest Brown, the leader of the Liberal Nationals, also lost his seat in 1945. So both factions of the Liberals were left leaderless.
However, it is of course somewhat open to question how far the Liberal Nationals under Brown were a party separate from the Conservatives.
Liberals seem very good at this losing a leader lark!
Because they have very few seats and even fewer of them can be considered safe.
Trivia question - how many seats have the Liberal Democrats held consecutively for more than five years?
Orkney and Shetland Westmoreland
And I think that is it
That means they have lost SIX of their eight 2015 holds.
Leeds NW, Sheffield Hallam, North Norfolk, Ceredigion, Carshalton and err...
I look at somewhere I know a bit, Hereford. The seat’s has a restructure but in 1997 the LDs has 47% of the vote. The lost it in 2010 with 41%. In 2019 they received 12%. Is there any way back?
The Liberal Democrats in rural England in the 1990s were to Labour what the Brexit Party are to the Tories. They were a repository for those who couldn’t bring themselves to vote Tory but would never dream of voting Labour, just as the Brexit Party contains a huge chunk of Labour voters who will not vote Blue.
When the Tories took them into coalition, it detoxed the Tories and that effect unwound very spectacularly. So spectacularly it even gobbled up their vote in places the Tories had not been historically strong, including Wales.
I don’t know if there is a way back. They are not going to get far trying to chase Tory votes right now, but they don’t seem to be picking up disaffected Labour voters either probably due to the Coalition.
That said, if Labour elect Lavery or Long Bailey...
What is lowest no of seats Labour has had in the last 150 yrs?
They were founded in 1892 and won two seats in 1900. Their lowest since universal suffrage came in was 50 in 1931, then 154 in 1935.
ty and since then never really less than 200. ,. but what is rock bottom if the red wall completely collapsed?
The last leader of a nationwide party to lose his seat was Archibald Sinclair (Lib) in 1945. Previously there were the examples @Fishing cites, then Henderson (Lab, 1931) Asquith (1924 and 1918) and Balfour (1906).
Thanks for the correction.
I’ve also just found out - and I didn’t realise this until I started investigating a bit just now - that Ernest Brown, the leader of the Liberal Nationals, also lost his seat in 1945. So both factions of the Liberals were left leaderless.
However, it is of course somewhat open to question how far the Liberal Nationals under Brown were a party separate from the Conservatives.
Liberals seem very good at this losing a leader lark!
Because they have very few seats and even fewer of them can be considered safe.
Trivia question - how many seats have the Liberal Democrats held consecutively for more than five years?
Orkney and Shetland Westmoreland
And I think that is it
That means they have lost SIX of their eight 2015 holds.
Leeds NW, Sheffield Hallam, North Norfolk, Ceredigion, Carshalton and err...
I look at somewhere I know a bit, Hereford. The seat’s has a restructure but in 1997 the LDs has 47% of the vote. The lost it in 2010 with 41%. In 2019 they received 12%. Is there any way back?
T
When the Tories took them into coalition, it detoxed the Tories and that effect unwound very spectacularly. So spectacularly it even gobbled up their vote in places the Tories had not been historically strong, including Wales.
I don’t know if there is a way back. They are not going to get far trying to chase Tory votes right now, but they don’t seem to be picking up disaffected Labour voters either probably due to the Coalition.
That said, if Labour elect Lavery or Long Bailey...
What is lowest no of seats Labour has had in the last 150 yrs?
They were founded in 1892 and won two seats in 1900. Their lowest since universal suffrage came in was 50 in 1931, then 154 in 1935.
ty and since then never really less than 200. ,. but what is rock bottom if the red wall completely collapsed?
150? Surely had to say since if the wall completely disintegrated it would probably be in a scenario where there was a true existential split or something, and thus even rock solid seats outside the wall would be at risk of going to someone else.
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
I realise the left think this is some sort of game.
It's not though. It's not a pass-the-parcel.
The left is not the alternative to the Tories. The alternative to the Tories is better Tories.
If there was an EU referendum anytime after 1992, Leave would have won.
Hmm I tell you what. We step into our tardis and go to 1998. EU Ref with Blair and his New Labour government plus the LDs for Remain. Hague and his Cons for Leave.
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
I realise the left think this is some sort of game.
It's not though. It's not a pass-the-parcel.
The left is not the alternative to the Tories. The alternative to the Tories is better Tories.
The left has no place.
I'll have a pint of whatever you are drinking please.
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
Boris literally had his own brother resign because he thought Boris' policies would hurt the country, and he still won a landslide...
The extent to which Boris started his premiership in the deepest of holes should not be underestimated - virtually no majority, which them turned rapidly negative with expulsions, resignation after resignation, Parliamentary defeats, Supreme Court defeats, boxed in by hostile Parliamentary legislation... Boris literally got the worst bits of a PM's career out of the way first!
According to the UK Parliament website, Boris went into the election with 298 MPs, otherwise known as a majority of minus 54(!). He'd need to lose 67 MPs to be in as weak a position again...
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
I'm not suggesting it is illegal, but we all know that the rights were acquired on highly advantageous terms as a sweetener to 'let us join'. And I'm not suggesting the foreign fishing fleets who currently benefit should not be compensated - they should be compensated in line with what the departing British fishermen received when we joined.
The reason that non-UK fishermen having access to British fishing quotas is because those quotas (like ownership of a plot of land) are tradeable.
Are we going to say that only British fishermen can own these quotas? (This would be like saying that only British people can own arable land.)
OK... what if Spanish Fishing Company creates a subsidiary in the UK, and that buys a quota. Is that acceptable? If not, why not?
What if a British fisherman with a quota chooses to lease a boat from a Spanish company? What if the Spanish boat that is leased comes with its own crew?
What are we going to do about the fact that not only EU firms own quotas today? There a number of Canadian holders of fishing quotas (bought from British fishermen in the free market). CETA covers EU-Canada transferrable ownership of fishing quotas. If we want to rewrite it so that Canadians now cannot own British fishing quotas, I think we'll struggle to get the deal signed.
The quotas will no longer exist. They are part of the (deeply flawed) CFP which the UK will no longer be part of. Owners of them should be compensated appropriately. We then start again.
All countries manage the amount of fishing in their territorial waters via quotas and licenses. The US has quotas for every type of fish in its territorial waters. Canada and Australia have quotas too. Norway boasts of being the first country in the world to manage its fish stocks via quotas.
Which country are you thinking of that doesn't use quotas to restrict fishing levels?
You're attacking a point I haven't made. I am saying, quite self-evidently, that quotas issued as part of a Europe-wide CFP that incorporated British territorial waters, will no longer be in place once Britain and its territorial waters are no longer subject to the CFP. How the Government chooses to manage fishing after we leave will be up to them.
150? Surely had to say since if the wall completely disintegrated it would probably be in a scenario where there was a true existential split or something, and thus even rock solid seats outside the wall would be at risk of going to someone else.
There are still around 45 rural and semi-rural seats that are Labour held.
Most of them southern Welsh, with some in West Yorkshire, Liverpool exurbs, NE towns.
In contrast the Conservatives have 62 Urban or Suburban seats, most of them in London, West Midlands, the Southern Coast.
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
It would surprise me if Rupert Murdoch was for Brexit. The Times has been very anti.
If there was an EU referendum anytime after 1992, Leave would have won.
Hmm I tell you what. We step into our tardis and go to 1998. EU Ref with Blair and his New Labour government plus the LDs for Remain. Hague and his Cons for Leave.
I can have evens on Remain, can I?
If you look at the Mori polling, the times Leave was in the lead was early Eighties, ahead in 2011, and pretty much evens in the late nineties.
Worth noting the volatility over the period, largely reflecting a reaction to the governments Europe policy.
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
It would surprise me if Rupert Murdoch was for Brexit. The Times has been very anti.
With its Southern and City connections, that's always been a necessity for him.
The Sun has always been his main tribune of Brexit, and it's been effectively campaigning for it since the early 1990s, and arguably as early as 1990, when it decided to cast the EU as a social democratic block on business, in the "Up yours Delors" era.
what is Ian Lavery's backstory like, apart being from the loony left?
He's from Northumberland and worked in a colliery. He's always been rather coy about saying what he did, but he had some job or other there (probably as a technician, looking at his qualifications). He then became secretary of the Durham NUM, which had eight members I think, before becoming general secretary of the NUM itself.
If there was an EU referendum anytime after 1992, Leave would have won.
Hmm I tell you what. We step into our tardis and go to 1998. EU Ref with Blair and his New Labour government plus the LDs for Remain. Hague and his Cons for Leave.
I can have evens on Remain, can I?
If you look at the Mori polling, the times Leave was in the lead was early Eighties, ahead in 2011, and pretty much evens in the late nineties.
Worth noting the volatility over the period, largely reflecting a reaction to the governments Europe policy.
Indeed. With the exception of a very brief period between the Berlin Wall falling and the end of the Soviet Union, the British public was lukewarm at best over European membership.
Traditionally society in the British Islands is suspicious or hostile to strangers.
Not the case, a GE had become inevitable. There was no viable alternative. The only issue is of timing, and denying a GE would have made No Deal on Jan 31st a real risk.
The only card to play was to try a GE, even if the odds were against success. The problem was that the LD manifesto was written to oppose No Deal, rather than Johnson's surrender Deal. Lab were merely drunk on their own delusions that Marxism would be popular.
It's quite remarkable, to me, what the Lib Dems have achieved on Europe. If they had allowed a referendum in first term of the Coalition government, as Cameron wanted, the result would have been an easy win. Instead we got Brexit.
Working with Tory remainers, they managed to give Johnson the narrative that he was a fresh broom - a unique position after a decade in government. And got the remainers wiped out.
I'm not sure quite what they'll achieve next - a rematch of the Agincourt campaign?
You forget that the underlying numbers are unchanged, even while the Parliamentary numbers have. Pro Brexit parties did not get a majority of the popular vote.
The Lib Dems will be back, there is always a place for a party of sane economics and internationalist co-operation, though currently out of fashion.
It's the Tories trying to ride two horses now, of anti-austerity in the North, and low taxes in the South.
The point stands - the Lib Dems have been remarkably destructive towards their professed aim. I was telling Lib Dems in 2010-2015 that they should have gone for a referendum - it would have shot Farage et als fox and kept it dead for decades.
Nick Clegg is as much the father of Brexit as Boris.
If there was a DNA test to find the father of Brexit it would show John Major in 1992: /www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pos39wWi4E
Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.
Hmmph. The decision by Angela Merkel to unilaterally abandon the agreement on immigrants and let them into Germany hardly helped.
If there was an EU referendum anytime after 1992, Leave would have won.
Hmm I tell you what. We step into our tardis and go to 1998. EU Ref with Blair and his New Labour government plus the LDs for Remain. Hague and his Cons for Leave.
I can have evens on Remain, can I?
If you look at the Mori polling, the times Leave was in the lead was early Eighties, ahead in 2011, and pretty much evens in the late nineties.
Worth noting the volatility over the period, largely reflecting a reaction to the governments Europe policy.
Indeed. With the exception of a very brief period between the Berlin Wall falling and the end of the Soviet Union, the British public was lukewarm at best over European membership.
Traditionally society in the British Islands is suspicious or hostile to strangers.
Certainly xenophobia is part of Brexit's appeal, but to pretend that is a traditionally British view is rather crude. Most nations exhibit the same tendency, but also there are strong counter movements.
National consciousness is really a product of industrialisation and of printing in particular. A lot of what we see with Populism is a reaction against de-industrialisation and also the rise of internet based communication. National boundaries are not as fixed in a globalised, multicultural world where it is as easy to chat with someone in Lahore as Leicester.
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
Boris literally had his own brother resign because he thought Boris' policies would hurt the country, and he still won a landslide...
The extent to which Boris started his premiership in the deepest of holes should not be underestimated - virtually no majority, which them turned rapidly negative with expulsions, resignation after resignation, Parliamentary defeats, Supreme Court defeats, boxed in by hostile Parliamentary legislation... Boris literally got the worst bits of a PM's career out of the way first!
According to the UK Parliament website, Boris went into the election with 298 MPs, otherwise known as a majority of minus 54(!). He'd need to lose 67 MPs to be in as weak a position again...
Boris was on the ropes after the Supreme Court ruling, a semi-competent LOTO would probably have finished him off. Even Corbyn could have done it if he'd been prepared to let someone else become caretaker PM. Corbyn was ultimately as responsible for Brexit as Boris.
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
Well the idea of Britain parting ways with Europe is as old as Julius Caesar.
Yes. But it does smack of "here's what you could have won". The point is not to increase your vote, the point is to gain seats.
It is a good map of which way the political tide is flowing, and where future swings and swing backs are going to occur. Plenty of places where the LDs have improved prospects, indeed many may be more interesting than trying to rebuild a Red Wall.
And also of the coastal fringes where the swings to Tories occurred, and the turquoise of the BXP. The differing patterns in Scotland and NI are significant too.
150? Surely had to say since if the wall completely disintegrated it would probably be in a scenario where there was a true existential split or something, and thus even rock solid seats outside the wall would be at risk of going to someone else.
There are still around 45 rural and semi-rural seats that are Labour held.
Most of them southern Welsh, with some in West Yorkshire, Liverpool exurbs, NE towns.
In contrast the Conservatives have 62 Urban or Suburban seats, most of them in London, West Midlands, the Southern Coast.
None of these would I really call 'rural' - though obviously it is a question of exactly how you define 'rural'.
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
I realise the left think this is some sort of game.
It's not though. It's not a pass-the-parcel.
The left is not the alternative to the Tories. The alternative to the Tories is better Tories.
The left has no place.
As ever, viewers in Scotland have their own programmes.
The Tories are not the alternative to the SNP. The alternative to the SNP is better versions of any other party (don't hold your breath) than the Tories.
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
It would surprise me if Rupert Murdoch was for Brexit. The Times has been very anti.
With its Southern and City connections, that's always been a necessity for him.
The Sun has always been his main tribune of Brexit, and it's been effectively campaigning for it since the early 1990s, and arguably as early as 1990, when it decided to cast the EU as a social democratic block on business, in the "Up yours Delors" era.
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
Well the idea of Britain parting ways with Europe is as old as Julius Caesar.
I must have missed Boudicca's red bus: "we spend ten thousand sesterces on Rome each year: let's give it to Eboracum instead"...
If there was an EU referendum anytime after 1992, Leave would have won.
Hmm I tell you what. We step into our tardis and go to 1998. EU Ref with Blair and his New Labour government plus the LDs for Remain. Hague and his Cons for Leave.
I can have evens on Remain, can I?
If you look at the Mori polling, the times Leave was in the lead was early Eighties, ahead in 2011, and pretty much evens in the late nineties.
Worth noting the volatility over the period, largely reflecting a reaction to the governments Europe policy.
Indeed. With the exception of a very brief period between the Berlin Wall falling and the end of the Soviet Union, the British public was lukewarm at best over European membership.
Traditionally society in the British Islands is suspicious or hostile to strangers.
Certainly xenophobia is part of Brexit's appeal, but to pretend that is a traditionally British view is rather crude. Most nations exhibit the same tendency, but also there are strong counter movements.
National consciousness is really a product of industrialisation and of printing in particular. A lot of what we see with Populism is a reaction against de-industrialisation and also the rise of internet based communication. National boundaries are not as fixed in a globalised, multicultural world where it is as easy to chat with someone in Lahore as Leicester.
There is a scene in the movie The Eagle has Landed of a grave digger complaining about " Poles, Irish, Americans, Germans, Bloody Foreigners".
It's a traditional view going back to at least the first Roman invasion.
You can find it anywhere at anytime among Irish, Scots, Welsh or English culture. It's about "Bloody X tribe stealing our land".
Indeed. With the exception of a very brief period between the Berlin Wall falling and the end of the Soviet Union, the British public was lukewarm at best over European membership.
Traditionally society in the British Islands is suspicious or hostile to strangers.
Agree with last sentence. Ditto most societies.
But we must distinguish between the mood of the nation and what the result of an EU Referendum would be.
For example, I can well imagine that the mood of here has been for Leave most of the time. Certainly in 2016 it was and far more clearly than 52/48 would primer facey indicate. The mood was more like 60/40 for Leave. But the result was closer (52/48) because (i) most people who are on the fence go for risk averse status quo and (ii) all major political parties plus the establishment in business, unions, arts, law etc were for Remain. So the 60/40 mood for leave mapped only to a 52/48 win for same.
Now, 1998. The mood would have been still Leave but less so. Say 55/45. And the adjustment in favour of Remain for an actual Referendum would have been greater due to the popularity (relative to most) of the Blair government. Thus the 55/45 would have mapped to a 45/55 LOSS for Leave. At least.
No need to get too hung up on my numbers - false precision - but I hope you get the drift.
Bottom line. If you give me that evens on Remain winning that EU Referendum in 1998 I am going to bite your fucking hand off.
Boris literally had his own brother resign because he thought Boris' policies would hurt the country, and he still won a landslide...
The extent to which Boris started his premiership in the deepest of holes should not be underestimated - virtually no majority, which them turned rapidly negative with expulsions, resignation after resignation, Parliamentary defeats, Supreme Court defeats, boxed in by hostile Parliamentary legislation... Boris literally got the worst bits of a PM's career out of the way first!
According to the UK Parliament website, Boris went into the election with 298 MPs, otherwise known as a majority of minus 54(!). He'd need to lose 67 MPs to be in as weak a position again...
Disagree entirely. Boris's position was always much stronger than it looked. Every time he lost a vote on Brexit, he turned round, blamed Parliament and put two to three points on the Conservative poll scores.
Even the extension on October 31st was turned into a triumph - Boris, wanting to enact the democratic will of the people but thwarted at every turn by a rag-tag-and bobtail of the metropolitan elite and the "Remoaners".
It was never likely Farage and BXP would actively compete in Conservative-held seats and of course he was facing Corbyn whose own enormous unpopularity was a huge help to Johnson. He could do or say almost anything he liked because in the end conservatives saw the only alternative as Corbyn and that wasn't a place they wanted to go.
The Opposition was united only in rejecting a No Deal exit on 31/10 - beyond that they were hopelessly divided and that also helped Johnson.
The only thing which could have prevented a Conservative majority on 12/12 would have been if the Party had picked Hunt or another "continuity May" candidate. That would have seen a big poll boost for BXP.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
The last leader of a nationwide party to lose his seat was Archibald Sinclair (Lib) in 1945. Previously there were the examples @Fishing cites, then Henderson (Lab, 1931) Asquith (1924 and 1918) and Balfour (1906).
Thanks for the correction.
I’ve also just found out - and I didn’t realise this until I started investigating a bit just now - that Ernest Brown, the leader of the Liberal Nationals, also lost his seat in 1945. So both factions of the Liberals were left leaderless.
However, it is of course somewhat open to question how far the Liberal Nationals under Brown were a party separate from the Conservatives.
Liberals seem very good at this losing a leader lark!
Because they have very few seats and even fewer of them can be considered safe.
Trivia question - how many seats have the Liberal Democrats held consecutively for more than five years?
Orkney and Shetland Westmoreland
And I think that is it
That means they have lost SIX of their eight 2015 holds.
Leeds NW, Sheffield Hallam, North Norfolk, Ceredigion, Carshalton and err...
I look at somewhere I know a bit, Hereford. The seat’s has a restructure but in 1997 the LDs has 47% of the vote. The lost it in 2010 with 41%. In 2019 they received 12%. Is there any way back?
The Liberal Democrats in When the Tories took them into coalition, it detoxed the Tories and that effect unwound very spectacularly. So spectacularly it even gobbled up their vote in places the Tories had not been historically strong, including Wales.
I don’t know if there is a way back. They are not going to get far trying to chase Tory votes right now, but they don’t seem to be picking up disaffected Labour voters either probably due to the Coalition.
That said, if Labour elect Lavery or Long Bailey...
What is lowest no of seats Labour has had in the last 150 yrs?
They were founded in 1892 and won two seats in 1900. Their lowest since universal suffrage came in was 50 in 1931, then 154 in 1935.
ty and since then never really less than 200. ,. but what is rock bottom if the red wall completely collapsed?
Perhaps another silver lining is that Boris telling Scotland that there will be no Referendum for five years will give them time to contruct the coherent case for Independence lacking in 2014.
And for unionists it gives them a full five years to dismantle the SNP's record in Govt.
Not so much dismantle their record, but actually build an alternative government to the SNP, with a different vision for Scotland. That, particularly, seems to be the problem that the current unionist parties face in Scotland: there isn't really a government in waiting.
LOL we are really in fantasy land now, Scottish Tory surge Klaxon warning on the first day of the year.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
Based on the seat-by-seat Leave/Remain estimates, Leavest Lab seats: Hull East 73% 5th, Doncaster North 72% 8th Remainest C seats: Cities of London and Westminster 28% 30th, Chelsea and Fulham 29% 36th C's only loss EDIT actually Lab's only gain from C was Putney 28% 28th C finished second in the Remainest seat of all (Hackney N 20%) where Greens and LDs split the extreme-Remain vote
Agree with you on the whole but I think the Benn Act was key. It gave Johnson an alibi for the extension. For breaking his "Do or Die" pledge. I think the opposition should have been more partisan and ruthless. Should have placed party interest first and forced Johnson to own a choice between No Deal crash out on 31 Oct or an extension requested by HIM. Screw the economy or screw your reputation as a "proper" Leaver. Devil. Deep blue sea. I personally think he would have chickened out of No Deal and extended but either way, in the GE which in due course would have followed he would not, trust me, have got anywhere close to an 80 seat majority. Could well have lost.
Indeed. With the exception of a very brief period between the Berlin Wall falling and the end of the Soviet Union, the British public was lukewarm at best over European membership.
Traditionally society in the British Islands is suspicious or hostile to strangers.
Agree with last sentence. Ditto most societies.
But we must distinguish between the mood of the nation and what the result of an EU Referendum would be.
For example, I can well imagine that the mood of here has been for Leave most of the time. Certainly in 2016 it was and far more clearly than 52/48 would primer facey indicate. The mood was more like 60/40 for Leave. But the result was closer (52/48) because (i) most people who are on the fence go for risk averse status quo and (ii) all major political parties plus the establishment in business, unions, arts, law etc were for Remain. So the 60/40 mood for leave mapped only to a 52/48 win for same.
Now, 1998. The mood would have been still Leave but less so. Say 55/45. And the adjustment in favour of Remain for an actual Referendum would have been greater due to the popularity (relative to most) of the Blair government. Thus the 55/45 would have mapped to a 45/55 LOSS for Leave. At least.
No need to get too hung up on my numbers - false precision - but I hope you get the drift.
Bottom line. If you give me that evens on Remain winning that EU Referendum in 1998 I am going to bite your fucking hand off.
There were two Referendums in 1997 on devolution, Labour of course won in Scotland but barely won the Welsh Devolution Referendum in 1997 by a margin of 0.6%, that tells you a lot that Blair would have lost an EU related Referendum.
When Labour, the LD and PC combined at their peak political power could barely carry Wales on devolution they would have certainly lost an EU related Referendum.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
No, it was expressly stated in the article that if the person that can make the trains run on time is a socialist then that is fine, the important criteria is the ability to do the job.
Boris literally had his own brother resign because he thought Boris' policies would hurt the country, and he still won a landslide...
The extent to which Boris started his premiership in the deepest of holes should not be underestimated - virtually no majority, which them turned rapidly negative with expulsions, resignation after resignation, Parliamentary defeats, Supreme Court defeats, boxed in by hostile Parliamentary legislation... Boris literally got the worst bits of a PM's career out of the way first!
According to the UK Parliament website, Boris went into the election with 298 MPs, otherwise known as a majority of minus 54(!). He'd need to lose 67 MPs to be in as weak a position again...
Disagree entirely. Boris's position was always much stronger than it looked. Every time he lost a vote on Brexit, he turned round, blamed Parliament and put two to three points on the Conservative poll scores.
Even the extension on October 31st was turned into a triumph - Boris, wanting to enact the democratic will of the people but thwarted at every turn by a rag-tag-and bobtail of the metropolitan elite and the "Remoaners".
It was never likely Farage and BXP would actively compete in Conservative-held seats and of course he was facing Corbyn whose own enormous unpopularity was a huge help to Johnson. He could do or say almost anything he liked because in the end conservatives saw the only alternative as Corbyn and that wasn't a place they wanted to go.
The Opposition was united only in rejecting a No Deal exit on 31/10 - beyond that they were hopelessly divided and that also helped Johnson.
The only thing which could have prevented a Conservative majority on 12/12 would have been if the Party had picked Hunt or another "continuity May" candidate. That would have seen a big poll boost for BXP.
Oh, I quite agree that the ultimate effect of each of Boris' defeats was to strengthen his polling position and increase the size of his eventual majority, but my God it didn't necessarily feel like that at the time to either side, did it?
My point is that Boris will have to fall a long, looong way from here for either the perception or the reality of his political weakness to return to what it was in September-October 2019.
I agree that Corbyn would have been totally miserable as PM, completely out of his depth. The fact that that is so obvious really should make those who voted for him as leader, twice, reflect on the wisdom of their choices.
I agree that the scale of Labour's defeat really should have them asking hard questions about the direction of the party although I see very little evidence of it doing so to date.
I fear a bit for the UK constitution. The reverberations of the prorogation decision will continue for a long time and undermine the division of powers implicit in the previous structures.
I am frankly struggling to see a role for the Liberal Democrats. I would like to see them replace Labour as the official opposition but even in Labour's darkest hour with its most inept leadership it never came close.
I think that Trump will be re-elected. I see no one in the Democratic field that is a real threat to him.
I agree that the EU may well want to finish off the Brexit issue this year and focus on many other things needing their attention. Whether they succeed in doing so will depend on what sort of a deal they strike with the UK.
In short I agree with most of this interesting thread header. Happy New Year to all.
There were two Referendums in 1997 on devolution, Labour of course won in Scotland but barely won the Welsh Devolution Referendum in 1997 by a margin of 0.6%, that tells you a lot that Blair would have lost an EU related Referendum.
When Labour, the LD and PC combined at their peak political power could barely carry Wales on devolution they would have certainly lost an EU related Referendum.
It depends on what the mood of Wales was for or against devolution. If the mood was, say, 65% against but the Referendum result was 50.3 in favour then this supports my view of how the 1998 EU Referendum should be priced rather than yours.
You're attacking a point I haven't made. I am saying, quite self-evidently, that quotas issued as part of a Europe-wide CFP that incorporated British territorial waters, will no longer be in place once Britain and its territorial waters are no longer subject to the CFP. How the Government chooses to manage fishing after we leave will be up to them.
And you're missing the point I'm making, which is that whether the quotas are EU-wide, or British territorial waters-wide, the outlook is bleak for the indigenous British fishing industry. Essentially, the economic thing for holders of British quotas to do will be to sell (or rent) them onto bigger players - whether Canadian or Spanish.
Ultimately, the question that has not been answered (because it will mean upsetting someone) is what exactly is British interest? Is it in maximising the revenue from British fishing waters? (So, allowing anyone to bid on annual quotas.) Is it maximising the existence of a British fishing fleet? (So having very strict rules on the kind of vessels that can fish in British waters.) Is it in conserving British marine resources? Is it in misimising the cost of seafood to British consumers via allowing access to fish from around the world?
And then you have to balance all these things: if we're not going to allow Canadian fishermen to buy quotas from British fishermen, then that will affect trade negotiations with Canada. How important is the British fishing fleet compared to a Canadian trade agreement?
Compromises have to be made, and this is one of those areas where hand waving and saying it will be done in the interests of the British is fundamentally dishonest, because a British maker of fish pies for export has very different priorities to an owner of a Traweler in Falmouth.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
On a net 8% vote loss, comparable to the change between Corbyn 1 and Corbyn 2, Johnson is out with about 310 seats. However, in most of the risk areas, there is a fair Brexit Party and UKIP vote (average 3%). In many of the others, the main contender is LD or SNP rather than Labour. Hairy stuff to replace them in one go!
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
I think they'll struggle with the STEM graduates part, because the civil service simply doesn't pay that well for the average graduate of an engineering degree.
Ministers push Boris Johnson for a Manchester World Cup final
Boris Johnson is being urged to promise a football World Cup final in the north of England as a symbol of his commitment to working-class Conservatives.
With the government under pressure to deliver for the former Labour voters who handed Mr Johnson an 80-seat majority, senior ministers have suggested a “London Olympics-style” emblem of Britain’s changed centre of political gravity.
However, a dispute has already broken out over the idea of holding a World Cup final in Manchester, with some pressing the claims of other northern cities such as Liverpool, home to the current European and world club champions.
The Conservative manifesto pledged to back a potential UK and Ireland bid for the 2030 Fifa World Cup and Mr Johnson has vowed to put his “heart and soul” into bringing the competition to Britain.
Agree with you on the whole but I think the Benn Act was key. It gave Johnson an alibi for the extension. For breaking his "Do or Die" pledge. I think the opposition should have been more partisan and ruthless. Should have placed party interest first and forced Johnson to own a choice between No Deal crash out on 31 Oct or an extension requested by HIM. Screw the economy or screw your reputation as a "proper" Leaver. Devil. Deep blue sea. I personally think he would have chickened out of No Deal and extended but either way, in the GE which in due course would have followed he would not, trust me, have got anywhere close to an 80 seat majority. Could well have lost.
Ah well. Paradise Lost.
The Benn Act, and all the wonderful lawyerly written dexterity of Letwin, Grieve et al, all looked on by a kindly Speaker ( who could forget the “non meaningful vote” machinations), and egged on by Tusk and Verhofstadt, ended up being great tactics and rubbish strategy.
The public, pleasingly, simply isn’t that stupid, they could see it all for what it really was, endless attempts to avoid honouring the referendum whilst desperately trying to appear not to be dishonouring it, whilst hoping, like McCawber, that “something turned up”, if you delayed long enough.
Being an uber clever dick will get you so far, but the frying pan of reality in the face catching up with you when rumbled is going to hurt.
Agree with you on the whole but I think the Benn Act was key. It gave Johnson an alibi for the extension. For breaking his "Do or Die" pledge. I think the opposition should have been more partisan and ruthless. Should have placed party interest first and forced Johnson to own a choice between No Deal crash out on 31 Oct or an extension requested by HIM. Screw the economy or screw your reputation as a "proper" Leaver. Devil. Deep blue sea. I personally think he would have chickened out of No Deal and extended but either way, in the GE which in due course would have followed he would not, trust me, have got anywhere close to an 80 seat majority. Could well have lost.
Ah well. Paradise Lost.
Couldn't Corbyn have told Benn where to stick his Act? As ever, the supposed leader was "present but not involved".
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
Agree with you on the whole but I think the Benn Act was key. It gave Johnson an alibi for the extension. For breaking his "Do or Die" pledge. I think the opposition should have been more partisan and ruthless. Should have placed party interest first and forced Johnson to own a choice between No Deal crash out on 31 Oct or an extension requested by HIM. Screw the economy or screw your reputation as a "proper" Leaver. Devil. Deep blue sea. I personally think he would have chickened out of No Deal and extended but either way, in the GE which in due course would have followed he would not, trust me, have got anywhere close to an 80 seat majority. Could well have lost.
Ah well. Paradise Lost.
The Benn Act, and all the wonderful lawyerly written dexterity of Letwin, Grieve et al, all looked on by a kindly Speaker ( who could forget the “non meaningful vote” machinations), and egged on by Tusk and Verhofstadt, ended up being great tactics and rubbish strategy.
The public, pleasingly, simply isn’t that stupid, they could see it all for what it really was, endless attempts to avoid honouring the referendum whilst desperately trying to appear not to be dishonouring it whilst hoping, like McCawber that “something turned up”, if you delayed long enough.
Being an uber clever dick will get you so far, but the frying pan of reality in the face catching up with you when rumbled is going to hurt.
I could never understand how they thought people would blame Johnson for majorities in the House of Commons against his plans/bills.
Many people were particularly annoyed by the whole "I won't vote against Brexit. But I will use every tactic I can think of to stop it/slow it down." thing. If they had held a vote to cancel revocation of Article 50 - that would at least have got the respect of standing up for beliefs.
Ministers push Boris Johnson for a Manchester World Cup final
Boris Johnson is being urged to promise a football World Cup final in the north of England as a symbol of his commitment to working-class Conservatives.
With the government under pressure to deliver for the former Labour voters who handed Mr Johnson an 80-seat majority, senior ministers have suggested a “London Olympics-style” emblem of Britain’s changed centre of political gravity.
However, a dispute has already broken out over the idea of holding a World Cup final in Manchester, with some pressing the claims of other northern cities such as Liverpool, home to the current European and world club champions.
The Conservative manifesto pledged to back a potential UK and Ireland bid for the 2030 Fifa World Cup and Mr Johnson has vowed to put his “heart and soul” into bringing the competition to Britain.
Ministers push Boris Johnson for a Manchester World Cup final
Boris Johnson is being urged to promise a football World Cup final in the north of England as a symbol of his commitment to working-class Conservatives.
With the government under pressure to deliver for the former Labour voters who handed Mr Johnson an 80-seat majority, senior ministers have suggested a “London Olympics-style” emblem of Britain’s changed centre of political gravity.
However, a dispute has already broken out over the idea of holding a World Cup final in Manchester, with some pressing the claims of other northern cities such as Liverpool, home to the current European and world club champions.
The Conservative manifesto pledged to back a potential UK and Ireland bid for the 2030 Fifa World Cup and Mr Johnson has vowed to put his “heart and soul” into bringing the competition to Britain.
I would like to see Cumming's exam on how to "competently" advise a government. "Are you a bunch of Europhile federast traitor rootless cosmopolitan scum?"
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
I think they'll struggle with the STEM graduates part, because the civil service simply doesn't pay that well for the average graduate of an engineering degree.
The job hopping one is already be held up by civil servants of my acquaintance as an attack on the British Constitution - the suggestion that civil servants be responsible for outcomes is an outrage. Apparently.
I was told this by (among others) a chap who played his part in the Nimrod fiasco. And was outraged that a Minister refused to give an illegal command/order to save the project.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Ministers push Boris Johnson for a Manchester World Cup final
Boris Johnson is being urged to promise a football World Cup final in the north of England as a symbol of his commitment to working-class Conservatives.
With the government under pressure to deliver for the former Labour voters who handed Mr Johnson an 80-seat majority, senior ministers have suggested a “London Olympics-style” emblem of Britain’s changed centre of political gravity.
However, a dispute has already broken out over the idea of holding a World Cup final in Manchester, with some pressing the claims of other northern cities such as Liverpool, home to the current European and world club champions.
The Conservative manifesto pledged to back a potential UK and Ireland bid for the 2030 Fifa World Cup and Mr Johnson has vowed to put his “heart and soul” into bringing the competition to Britain.
Agree with you on the whole but I think the Benn Act was key. It gave Johnson an alibi for the extension. For breaking his "Do or Die" pledge. I think the opposition should have been more partisan and ruthless. Should have placed party interest first and forced Johnson to own a choice between No Deal crash out on 31 Oct or an extension requested by HIM. Screw the economy or screw your reputation as a "proper" Leaver. Devil. Deep blue sea. I personally think he would have chickened out of No Deal and extended but either way, in the GE which in due course would have followed he would not, trust me, have got anywhere close to an 80 seat majority. Could well have lost.
Ah well. Paradise Lost.
The Benn Act, and all the wonderful lawyerly written dexterity of Letwin, Grieve et al, all looked on by a kindly Speaker ( who could forget the “non meaningful vote” machinations), and egged on by Tusk and Verhofstadt, ended up being great tactics and rubbish strategy.
The public, pleasingly, simply isn’t that stupid, they could see it all for what it really was, endless attempts to avoid honouring the referendum whilst desperately trying to appear not to be dishonouring it whilst hoping, like McCawber that “something turned up”, if you delayed long enough.
Being an uber clever dick will get you so far, but the frying pan of reality in the face catching up with you when rumbled is going to hurt.
I could never understand how they thought people would blame Johnson for majorities in the House of Commons against his plans/bills.
Many people were particularly annoyed by the whole "I won't vote against Brexit. But I will use every tactic I can think of to stop it/slow it down." thing. If they had held a vote to cancel revocation of Article 50 - that would at least have got the respect of standing up for beliefs.
Quite. Ken Clarke was nobly against the whole thing consistently. Fine, I disagreed, but fine. All this nonsense about being in favour in theory (fingers crossed behind back), whilst never actually voting for anything to implement in practice was what eventually did for many MP’s on Dec12th. Shame about some like Flint that lost in the general tide, but for the majority in that camp that lost, well good riddance.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Nothing but conjecture and supposition on your part.
I would like to see Cumming's exam on how to "competently" advise a government. "Are you a bunch of Europhile federast traitor rootless cosmopolitan scum?"
Cummings has in mind having Commisars at all level of government. It is all part of his Russophile tendencies.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Do you seriously believe that McDonnell, Milne, and Lansman wouldn't have politicised the CS in ten seconds flat if they managed to seize power, precedent or no precedent? Better to get there first, in my view.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Nothing but conjecture and supposition on your part.
There's a price to pay for winning through relentless demonisation and bridge-burning.
I would like to see Cumming's exam on how to "competently" advise a government. "Are you a bunch of Europhile federast traitor rootless cosmopolitan scum?"
lol - and if you use sentences in comms that the public might see of longer than 3 words you are TOAST.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Do you seriously believe that McDonnell, Milne, and Lansman wouldn't have politicised the CS in ten seconds flat if they managed to seize power, precedent or no precedent? Better to get there first, in my view.
So politicisation it is. No promotion without that party card.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Nothing but conjecture and supposition on your part.
There's a price to pay for winning through relentless demonisation and bridge-burning.
You're attacking a point I haven't made. I am saying, quite self-evidently, that quotas issued as part of a Europe-wide CFP that incorporated British territorial waters, will no longer be in place once Britain and its territorial waters are no longer subject to the CFP. How the Government chooses to manage fishing after we leave will be up to them.
And you're missing the point I'm making, which is that whether the quotas are EU-wide, or British territorial waters-wide, the outlook is bleak for the indigenous British fishing industry. Essentially, the economic thing for holders of British quotas to do will be to sell (or rent) them onto bigger players - whether Canadian or Spanish.
Ultimately, the question that has not been answered (because it will mean upsetting someone) is what exactly is British interest? Is it in maximising the revenue from British fishing waters? (So, allowing anyone to bid on annual quotas.) Is it maximising the existence of a British fishing fleet? (So having very strict rules on the kind of vessels that can fish in British waters.) Is it in conserving British marine resources? Is it in misimising the cost of seafood to British consumers via allowing access to fish from around the world?
And then you have to balance all these things: if we're not going to allow Canadian fishermen to buy quotas from British fishermen, then that will affect trade negotiations with Canada. How important is the British fishing fleet compared to a Canadian trade agreement?
Compromises have to be made, and this is one of those areas where hand waving and saying it will be done in the interests of the British is fundamentally dishonest, because a British maker of fish pies for export has very different priorities to an owner of a Traweler in Falmouth.
If the right to catch fish in British waters is a glittering enough prize to other countries that it is worth abandoning a trade agreement for, I fail to see how the best thing a hapless British fisherman could do with that right is sell it. The proverb about giving a man a fish seems apt here.
Whether those big companies you mention end up owning a big piece of the British fishing industry, is not my area of expertise. It would not be unlike the Scotch whisky industry if that were the case. At least the people who caught and processed the fish would be employed in the UK.
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
I think they'll struggle with the STEM graduates part, because the civil service simply doesn't pay that well for the average graduate of an engineering degree.
Yup. Unfortunately. I'd love to work for them again, but I can get £20k more in the private sector...
Rachel Wolf (Boris adviser) has an article in the Telegraph about what BoJo and Dom have planned for the Civil Service. Seems to be regular exams to test competence, more STEM Grads (17% at present) and no job hopping every 18 months to avoid being held to account (if the task is FUBAR it is "there is the door time.")
So, a politicised Civil Service to go with a politicised judiciary. After all it works so well in the USA.
How is insisting on competence politicising the civil service?
It all depends on how you define and assess competence. If that means following the party line then it is politicisation. If telling the minister that their plans are based on errors means the sack, then ditto.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
So no grounds for the assertion of politicising the civil service.
If politicians get to decide who to hire and fire as Civil Servants, then it is politicised. Ditto Judges.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
Do you seriously believe that McDonnell, Milne, and Lansman wouldn't have politicised the CS in ten seconds flat if they managed to seize power, precedent or no precedent? Better to get there first, in my view.
So politicisation it is. No promotion without that party card.
Have you ever asked yourself why every major public institution or quango in the UK is stuffed to the gills with left-liberals? Cummings would need a full decade to reverse that, and with a little luck, he may get it...
Couldn't Corbyn have told Benn where to stick his Act? As ever, the supposed leader was "present but not involved".
Which is why he's no fun at parties
He should have done. But unfortunately the party was full of centrist pussies who cared more about stopping No Deal and/or puffing up their own importance than they did about winning a GE for Labour.
Have you ever asked yourself why every major public institution or quango in the UK is stuffed to the gills with left-liberals? Cummings would need a full decade to reverse that, and with a little luck, he may get it...
Most people of distinction in this country ARE left liberals. That's one of the reasons.
If the right to catch fish in British waters is a glittering enough prize to other countries that it is worth abandoning a trade agreement for, I fail to see how the best thing a hapless British fisherman could do with that right is sell it. The proverb about giving a man a fish seems apt here.
Whether those big companies you mention end up owning a big piece of the British fishing industry, is not my area of expertise. It would not be unlike the Scotch whisky industry if that were the case. At least the people who caught and processed the fish would be employed in the UK.
So your priority is to maximise employment in the British fishing and processing industry. That's a comprehensible goal.
But again, it's not that simple. To go back to my original example (six or so posts ago...) Imagine that my British fisherman doesn't own a boat, but leases it from a Spanish company. Not complicated. What if it's a "wet lease" where he's renting it with a (foreign) crew? Now he's just a British owner of a quota using a foreign vessel to do the fishing for him. We could ban these kind of things. And we could insist on all fish caught in British waters being landed at British ports. And being processed in the UK. But if we do that, then we're raising the costs of British fish, because we're restricting how they're treated. Are we going to compensate for this by imposing tariffs on fish coming in from other parts of the world?
Looking at that, and also with the combined impetus of Starmer's lead among Tories mentioned earlier, it now looks to be surprising to me only if Starmer doesn't get it.
Comments
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Pos39wWi4E
It was all going so swimmingly.
(Jokes aside his interventions in the current debate are unwise)
A few, it seems, only too happy to continue poking the open wounds suffered by both Labour and the LDs - already sizing up the 2024 Conservative gains perhaps?
Politics doesn't work like that and it's equally probable the Johnson Government will hit its mid-term trough at some point - perhaps after a couple of years much as the incoming Heath and Thatcher Governments did.
The Tories will suffer local losses, poor polls and by-election reverses, none of which means they won't win re-election but perhaps a salutary reminder the only way is up is just a song not a fact of politics.
The new Government has nowhere to hide and no one else to blame so when (it's not an IF) things go wrong (and it's usually the small things not the big things), the question will be the cumulative effect.
It'll be interesting to see how well Johnson does defence and setbacks - how he deals with the first Cabinet resignation for example. He has the huge advantage currently of being the only game in town but that won't always be the case and I'd argue the longer the Conservatives remain in office the harder it is for them to remain in office.
If they remain until 2029, the Conservatives will have been in power for 19 years - an unprecedented period. The argument for a "change" will be much more powerful especially if it comes from a new-look opposition party. That may not look likely now but a decade is an eternity.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.
Which country are you thinking of that doesn't use quotas to restrict fishing levels?
It's not though. It's not a pass-the-parcel.
The left is not the alternative to the Tories. The alternative to the Tories is better Tories.
The left has no place.
I can have evens on Remain, can I?
https://twitter.com/BehindtheHold/status/1212459265107075072?s=19
The extent to which Boris started his premiership in the deepest of holes should not be underestimated - virtually no majority, which them turned rapidly negative with expulsions, resignation after resignation, Parliamentary defeats, Supreme Court defeats, boxed in by hostile Parliamentary legislation... Boris literally got the worst bits of a PM's career out of the way first!
According to the UK Parliament website, Boris went into the election with 298 MPs, otherwise known as a majority of minus 54(!). He'd need to lose 67 MPs to be in as weak a position again...
<< Interesting how many Brexiteers still claim that Brexit is the fault of this or that Remainer, rather than take ownership of it.>
Well the creation of the EU and the ERM crisis that started the ball rolling was John Major's fault, you can trace it back to his decisions during 1990-93.
In fact everything that has gone wrong in Europe or the World can be traced back to 1990-93, every decision made by everyone then was wrong.>>
Brexit was already being hatched as an idea prior to the ERM crisis. It had many fathers, including multiple wealthy businessmen and media owners of the 1990s, such as James Goldsmith and Murdoch.
Most of them southern Welsh, with some in West Yorkshire, Liverpool exurbs, NE towns.
In contrast the Conservatives have 62 Urban or Suburban seats, most of them in London, West Midlands, the Southern Coast.
Worth noting the volatility over the period, largely reflecting a reaction to the governments Europe policy.
The Sun has always been his main tribune of Brexit, and it's been effectively campaigning for it since the early 1990s, and arguably as early as 1990, when it decided to cast the EU as a social democratic block on business, in the "Up yours Delors" era.
With the exception of a very brief period between the Berlin Wall falling and the end of the Soviet Union, the British public was lukewarm at best over European membership.
Traditionally society in the British Islands is suspicious or hostile to strangers.
National consciousness is really a product of industrialisation and of printing in particular. A lot of what we see with Populism is a reaction against de-industrialisation and also the rise of internet based communication. National boundaries are not as fixed in a globalised, multicultural world where it is as easy to chat with someone in Lahore as Leicester.
And also of the coastal fringes where the swings to Tories occurred, and the turquoise of the BXP. The differing patterns in Scotland and NI are significant too.
The Tories are not the alternative to the SNP. The alternative to the SNP is better versions of any other party (don't hold your breath) than the Tories.
Labour 202
LDs 11
https://www.conservativehome.com/thetorydiary/2019/12/conservative-party-members-think-keir-starmer-would-be-the-most-effective-labour-leader.html
It's a traditional view going back to at least the first Roman invasion.
You can find it anywhere at anytime among Irish, Scots, Welsh or English culture.
It's about "Bloody X tribe stealing our land".
But we must distinguish between the mood of the nation and what the result of an EU Referendum would be.
For example, I can well imagine that the mood of here has been for Leave most of the time. Certainly in 2016 it was and far more clearly than 52/48 would primer facey indicate. The mood was more like 60/40 for Leave. But the result was closer (52/48) because (i) most people who are on the fence go for risk averse status quo and (ii) all major political parties plus the establishment in business, unions, arts, law etc were for Remain. So the 60/40 mood for leave mapped only to a 52/48 win for same.
Now, 1998. The mood would have been still Leave but less so. Say 55/45. And the adjustment in favour of Remain for an actual Referendum would have been greater due to the popularity (relative to most) of the Blair government. Thus the 55/45 would have mapped to a 45/55 LOSS for Leave. At least.
No need to get too hung up on my numbers - false precision - but I hope you get the drift.
Bottom line. If you give me that evens on Remain winning that EU Referendum in 1998 I am going to bite your fucking hand off.
Even the extension on October 31st was turned into a triumph - Boris, wanting to enact the democratic will of the people but thwarted at every turn by a rag-tag-and bobtail of the metropolitan elite and the "Remoaners".
It was never likely Farage and BXP would actively compete in Conservative-held seats and of course he was facing Corbyn whose own enormous unpopularity was a huge help to Johnson. He could do or say almost anything he liked because in the end conservatives saw the only alternative as Corbyn and that wasn't a place they wanted to go.
The Opposition was united only in rejecting a No Deal exit on 31/10 - beyond that they were hopelessly divided and that also helped Johnson.
The only thing which could have prevented a Conservative majority on 12/12 would have been if the Party had picked Hunt or another "continuity May" candidate. That would have seen a big poll boost for BXP.
Labour got only 151 in 1924.
Leavest Lab seats: Hull East 73% 5th, Doncaster North 72% 8th
Remainest C seats: Cities of London and Westminster 28% 30th, Chelsea and Fulham 29% 36th
C's only loss EDIT actually Lab's only gain from C was Putney 28% 28th
C finished second in the Remainest seat of all (Hackney N 20%) where Greens and LDs split the extreme-Remain vote
Agree with you on the whole but I think the Benn Act was key. It gave Johnson an alibi for the extension. For breaking his "Do or Die" pledge. I think the opposition should have been more partisan and ruthless. Should have placed party interest first and forced Johnson to own a choice between No Deal crash out on 31 Oct or an extension requested by HIM. Screw the economy or screw your reputation as a "proper" Leaver. Devil. Deep blue sea. I personally think he would have chickened out of No Deal and extended but either way, in the GE which in due course would have followed he would not, trust me, have got anywhere close to an 80 seat majority. Could well have lost.
Ah well. Paradise Lost.
When Labour, the LD and PC combined at their peak political power could barely carry Wales on devolution they would have certainly lost an EU related Referendum.
My point is that Boris will have to fall a long, looong way from here for either the perception or the reality of his political weakness to return to what it was in September-October 2019.
I agree that the scale of Labour's defeat really should have them asking hard questions about the direction of the party although I see very little evidence of it doing so to date.
I fear a bit for the UK constitution. The reverberations of the prorogation decision will continue for a long time and undermine the division of powers implicit in the previous structures.
I am frankly struggling to see a role for the Liberal Democrats. I would like to see them replace Labour as the official opposition but even in Labour's darkest hour with its most inept leadership it never came close.
I think that Trump will be re-elected. I see no one in the Democratic field that is a real threat to him.
I agree that the EU may well want to finish off the Brexit issue this year and focus on many other things needing their attention. Whether they succeed in doing so will depend on what sort of a deal they strike with the UK.
In short I agree with most of this interesting thread header. Happy New Year to all.
Ultimately, the question that has not been answered (because it will mean upsetting someone) is what exactly is British interest? Is it in maximising the revenue from British fishing waters? (So, allowing anyone to bid on annual quotas.) Is it maximising the existence of a British fishing fleet? (So having very strict rules on the kind of vessels that can fish in British waters.) Is it in conserving British marine resources? Is it in misimising the cost of seafood to British consumers via allowing access to fish from around the world?
And then you have to balance all these things: if we're not going to allow Canadian fishermen to buy quotas from British fishermen, then that will affect trade negotiations with Canada. How important is the British fishing fleet compared to a Canadian trade agreement?
Compromises have to be made, and this is one of those areas where hand waving and saying it will be done in the interests of the British is fundamentally dishonest, because a British maker of fish pies for export has very different priorities to an owner of a Traweler in Falmouth.
It is all part of the apparatus of an authoritarian state, and disregard of British tradition and practice.
Ministers push Boris Johnson for a Manchester World Cup final
Boris Johnson is being urged to promise a football World Cup final in the north of England as a symbol of his commitment to working-class Conservatives.
With the government under pressure to deliver for the former Labour voters who handed Mr Johnson an 80-seat majority, senior ministers have suggested a “London Olympics-style” emblem of Britain’s changed centre of political gravity.
However, a dispute has already broken out over the idea of holding a World Cup final in Manchester, with some pressing the claims of other northern cities such as Liverpool, home to the current European and world club champions.
The Conservative manifesto pledged to back a potential UK and Ireland bid for the 2030 Fifa World Cup and Mr Johnson has vowed to put his “heart and soul” into bringing the competition to Britain.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/ministers-push-boris-johnson-for-a-manchester-world-cup-final-0ppg7bd28
As one of the few bona fide Northern soccer fans on PB I'd be ok with Wembley holding the world cup final.
The public, pleasingly, simply isn’t that stupid, they could see it all for what it really was, endless attempts to avoid honouring the referendum whilst desperately trying to appear not to be dishonouring it, whilst hoping, like McCawber, that “something turned up”, if you delayed long enough.
Being an uber clever dick will get you so far, but the frying pan of reality in the face catching up with you when rumbled is going to hurt.
Which is why he's no fun at parties
Many people were particularly annoyed by the whole "I won't vote against Brexit. But I will use every tactic I can think of to stop it/slow it down." thing. If they had held a vote to cancel revocation of Article 50 - that would at least have got the respect of standing up for beliefs.
I was told this by (among others) a chap who played his part in the Nimrod fiasco. And was outraged that a Minister refused to give an illegal command/order to save the project.
Tories would be unwise to set precedents that they wouldn't want an opposition leader to similarly exercise.
2) All the hosts do not qualify automatically, only or two at the most.
Whether those big companies you mention end up owning a big piece of the British fishing industry, is not my area of expertise. It would not be unlike the Scotch whisky industry if that were the case. At least the people who caught and processed the fish would be employed in the UK.
But again, it's not that simple. To go back to my original example (six or so posts ago...) Imagine that my British fisherman doesn't own a boat, but leases it from a Spanish company. Not complicated. What if it's a "wet lease" where he's renting it with a (foreign) crew? Now he's just a British owner of a quota using a foreign vessel to do the fishing for him. We could ban these kind of things. And we could insist on all fish caught in British waters being landed at British ports. And being processed in the UK. But if we do that, then we're raising the costs of British fish, because we're restricting how they're treated. Are we going to compensate for this by imposing tariffs on fish coming in from other parts of the world?
Looking at that, and also with the combined impetus of Starmer's lead among Tories mentioned earlier, it now looks to be surprising to me only if Starmer doesn't get it.