Howdy, Stranger!

It looks like you're new here. Sign in or register to get started.

politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » How the Iowa Democratic caucuses at WH2004 were the trigger fo

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited January 2020 in General

imagepoliticalbetting.com » Blog Archive » How the Iowa Democratic caucuses at WH2004 were the trigger for the establishment of PB

In January 2004 the former governor of Vermont, Howard Dean, looked as though he might make it right through to the nomination. He had been a big pioneer of utilising the internet for online donations and mobilising volunteers something that was quite new at the time. In the polls ahead of Iowa, then like now the first state to decide, he looked strong and was tight favourite, at one stage odds-on in the betting, for the nomination.

Read the full story here


«13

Comments

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Any excuse to watch that video. :)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    This time though looks like Sanders will pull off the Iowa caucuses win Dean failed to do for the populist left of the Democratic party
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%
  • CyclefreeCyclefree Posts: 25,074
    So rail nationalisation and a commie internet. Have I missed something and Corbyn is really PM?
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    Last PMQs in the EU......
  • isam said:

    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%

    Really? That seems to suggest that the popularity of Boris in that region is a myth - a massive antipathy towards Jezza was the driving factor. Once this sinks in I suspect that the Tories' currently fascination with the north will turn out to be a five-minute wonder.
  • isamisam Posts: 40,730
    edited January 2020

    isam said:

    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%

    Really? That seems to suggest that the popularity of Boris in that region is a myth - a massive antipathy towards Jezza was the driving factor. Once this sinks in I suspect that the Tories' currently fascination with the north will turn out to be a five-minute wonder.
    A significant amount of people, who normally vote Labour, wanted Brexit but couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    Cyclefree said:

    So rail nationalisation and a commie internet. Have I missed something and Corbyn is really PM?

    One for you to enjoy:
    https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/23/business/cum-ex.html
    ...Exactly how that machine operated is a central question in the first cum-ex prosecution, which began in September in Bonn, Germany. In a trial expected to last until February, German prosecutors intend to make an example of Mr. Shields, 41, and a former colleague. (Mr. Mora, 52, was indicted in December and will be tried separately in the coming months.) The men in the Bonn case have been charged with “aggravated tax evasion” that cost the German treasury close to $500 million.

    Last month, the presiding judge issued a preliminary ruling that, for the first time, declared cum-ex a felony, calling it a “collective grab in the treasury.” Punishment has yet to be determined, but the give-it-back and the go-to-prison phases of this calamity are about to begin.

    German prosecutors say they will now pursue 400 other suspects, unearthed in 56 investigations. Banks large and small will be ordered to hand over cum-ex profits, which could have serious consequences for some. Two have already gone bust...
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited January 2020

    isam said:

    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%

    Really? That seems to suggest that the popularity of Boris in that region is a myth - a massive antipathy towards Jezza was the driving factor. Once this sinks in I suspect that the Tories' currently fascination with the north will turn out to be a five-minute wonder.
    It was enthusiasm for Brexit actually, they voted for Corbyn in 2017 when he promised to deliver Brexit but not in 2019 when he had not
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    edited January 2020
    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
    Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
    Wales has been losing interest in the Labour party gradually, the beneficiaries being the other parties (except the LibDems).

    At the next Welsh Assembly elections, I think an interesting question is where do the 7 UKIP seats go ?

    I think it must be very likely the next WA election delivers a result in which either a Lab or Tory led alliance could in principle hold power.

    Although the Tories may be tarnished by 1 year or so of being in control in Westminster, it is very difficult to see Mark Drakeford repeating the electoral performance of Carwyn Jones.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    Cyclefree said:

    So rail nationalisation and a commie internet. Have I missed something and Corbyn is really PM?

    We won the argument.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
    Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
    Wales has been losing interest in the Labour party gradually, the beneficiaries being the other parties (except the LibDems).

    At the next Welsh Assembly elections, I think an interesting question is where do the 7 UKIP seats go ?

    I think it must be very likely the next WA election delivers a result in which either a Lab or Tory led alliance could in principle hold power.

    Although the Tories may be tarnished by 1 year or so of being in control in Westminster, it is very difficult to see Mark Drakeford repeating the electoral performance of Carwyn Jones.
    The first serious doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership came in Labour's disaster in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.

    It could well be that the new Labour leader will be facing a difficult test in Wales & Scotland in the first year.

    If that goes badly -- as it did for Ed -- the leader may well never really recover.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,572
    isam said:

    isam said:

    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%

    Really? That seems to suggest that the popularity of Boris in that region is a myth - a massive antipathy towards Jezza was the driving factor. Once this sinks in I suspect that the Tories' currently fascination with the north will turn out to be a five-minute wonder.
    A significant amount of people, who normally vote Labour, wanted Brexit but couldn't bring themselves to vote Tory
    That was manifest not only in vote shares but also turnout, which was markedly down in many Leave-inclined former Labour voting areas. Many who normally voted Labour wanted Brexit but couldn't bring themselves to vote for any party of the right.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851
    The "Dean scream" - classic. But not sure it would kill him these days. Standards are lower now.

    PT -

    This could well be a "Heard about Robbie and Take That?" type comment but in exchange with @AndyJS I discovered something amazing and fresh (to me).

    The Con vote and the aggregate Lab/LD vote at GE19 were TIED at 43.6%.

    From this I thought that if we treat Lab/LD as a single party - the much touted 'unified centre left' if you will - 'it' would have been close to the Cons in seats under FPTP.

    But no! The Cons would still have won by 321 over 261.

    Sign that the electoral system right now is significantly skewed against the Cognescenti?
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741

    Last PMQs in the EU......

    Will you be celebrating on Friday evening or are you just having one more pop at the "Remoaners" (whoever they may be) ?
  • Did any of you take Starmer at 20-1? Turns out I put £20 on him. I’d completely forgotten!!

    https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/10/09/joff-wild-says-keep-an-eye-on-keir/
  • Did any of you take Starmer at 20-1? Turns out I put £20 on him. I’d completely forgotten!!

    https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/10/09/joff-wild-says-keep-an-eye-on-keir/
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
    Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
    Wales has been losing interest in the Labour party gradually, the beneficiaries being the other parties (except the LibDems).

    At the next Welsh Assembly elections, I think an interesting question is where do the 7 UKIP seats go ?

    I think it must be very likely the next WA election delivers a result in which either a Lab or Tory led alliance could in principle hold power.

    Although the Tories may be tarnished by 1 year or so of being in control in Westminster, it is very difficult to see Mark Drakeford repeating the electoral performance of Carwyn Jones.
    The first serious doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership came in Labour's disaster in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.

    It could well be that the new Labour leader will be facing a difficult test in Wales & Scotland in the first year.

    If that goes badly -- as it did for Ed -- the leader may well never really recover.
    Morning all!
    I would have thought that Scotland's pretty well written off now as far as Labour is concerned. Curious to think that Alex Salmond led just 5 other MP's in the 2010 Parliament.
    However there doesn't ...... yet at any rate ....... seem to be a similar movement which can sweep Wales in the way the SNP has Scotland.
  • isam said:

    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%

    Really? That seems to suggest that the popularity of Boris in that region is a myth - a massive antipathy towards Jezza was the driving factor. Once this sinks in I suspect that the Tories' currently fascination with the north will turn out to be a five-minute wonder.
    It should be noted that the big increase in Conservative vote in Leave areas mostly happened in 2017.

    What tended to happen in 2019 were big Labour falls and small Conservative increases.

    But overall Boris did much better in these areas than Cameron ever did.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Did any of you take Starmer at 20-1? Turns out I put £20 on him. I’d completely forgotten!!

    https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/10/09/joff-wild-says-keep-an-eye-on-keir/

    Well done! Laying it off or letting it run?
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    kinabalu said:

    The "Dean scream" - classic. But not sure it would kill him these days. Standards are lower now.

    PT -

    This could well be a "Heard about Robbie and Take That?" type comment but in exchange with @AndyJS I discovered something amazing and fresh (to me).

    The Con vote and the aggregate Lab/LD vote at GE19 were TIED at 43.6%.

    From this I thought that if we treat Lab/LD as a single party - the much touted 'unified centre left' if you will - 'it' would have been close to the Cons in seats under FPTP.

    But no! The Cons would still have won by 321 over 261.

    Sign that the electoral system right now is significantly skewed against the Cognescenti?

    The pro-Remain/left wing vote is overly concentrated in Greater London and in university seats.
  • Last PMQs in the EU......

    Oh, well... :lol:
  • Sean_F said:

    kinabalu said:

    The "Dean scream" - classic. But not sure it would kill him these days. Standards are lower now.

    PT -

    This could well be a "Heard about Robbie and Take That?" type comment but in exchange with @AndyJS I discovered something amazing and fresh (to me).

    The Con vote and the aggregate Lab/LD vote at GE19 were TIED at 43.6%.

    From this I thought that if we treat Lab/LD as a single party - the much touted 'unified centre left' if you will - 'it' would have been close to the Cons in seats under FPTP.

    But no! The Cons would still have won by 321 over 261.

    Sign that the electoral system right now is significantly skewed against the Cognescenti?

    The pro-Remain/left wing vote is overly concentrated in Greater London and in university seats.
    As I have said before, Johnson's victory was explained by a simple calculation by many people who voted remain. Johnson + Brexit was less, or slightly less repulsive than Corbyn, particularly as we would probably still end up with Brexit anyway. It was an anti-Corbyn election, not a pro-Johnson or Pro-Brexit one. Right wing Tories will still try their best to spin it otherwise.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
    Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
    Wales has been losing interest in the Labour party gradually, the beneficiaries being the other parties (except the LibDems).

    At the next Welsh Assembly elections, I think an interesting question is where do the 7 UKIP seats go ?

    I think it must be very likely the next WA election delivers a result in which either a Lab or Tory led alliance could in principle hold power.

    Although the Tories may be tarnished by 1 year or so of being in control in Westminster, it is very difficult to see Mark Drakeford repeating the electoral performance of Carwyn Jones.
    The first serious doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership came in Labour's disaster in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.

    It could well be that the new Labour leader will be facing a difficult test in Wales & Scotland in the first year.

    If that goes badly -- as it did for Ed -- the leader may well never really recover.
    Morning all!
    I would have thought that Scotland's pretty well written off now as far as Labour is concerned. Curious to think that Alex Salmond led just 5 other MP's in the 2010 Parliament.
    However there doesn't ...... yet at any rate ....... seem to be a similar movement which can sweep Wales in the way the SNP has Scotland.
    I think Labour will lose power in Wales in 2021. They only have a majority now thanks to the defection of DET from Plaid Cymru and the support of the ever pliable Kirsty Williams (the last LibDem standing).

    Carwyn Jones (like or him) not was an impressive media performer. His successor Mark Drakeford is not.

    My point is only that 2021 is a tough test for the new leader, and it is likely to be very difficult to get a Labour success story to tell.

    I don't see much positive emerging in Scotland. The best Labour can hope in Wales is to be largest party (though even that is doubtful), so the headline will be "Labour loses Wales".
  • isam said:

    In the North East Seats at GE 2019, Labour went down by 14.31% on average, The Brexit Party got 11.65% and the Tories gained 1.85%

    Really? That seems to suggest that the popularity of Boris in that region is a myth - a massive antipathy towards Jezza was the driving factor. Once this sinks in I suspect that the Tories' currently fascination with the north will turn out to be a five-minute wonder.
    It should be noted that the big increase in Conservative vote in Leave areas mostly happened in 2017.

    What tended to happen in 2019 were big Labour falls and small Conservative increases.

    But overall Boris did much better in these areas than Cameron ever did.
    Yes, Johnson had an easy opponent. The electorate had already decided they collectively hated Corbyn and his far left agenda.
  • Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    The last line is complete bollox. If you rephrase it to for the last 5 years that is accurate.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Morning All :)

    Onto things far more important than Welsh opinion polls.

    Housing, as I have to remind Conservatives regularly, isn't just a question of building houses and flats and watching property developers and estate agents (and of course the Government) grow fatter on the process.

    It's also about those who don't have a home and the truth is the increasing gap between rents and housing benefits combined with the shortage of affordable housing is causing families (remember the "hard working families" so beloved of the modern Tories) real distress.

    7,110 households are currently in bed and breakfast accommodation, a 15-year high while Council spending on the homeless rose to £643 million which was in itself an overspend on the planned spend of £502 million.

    Of that spend, £115 million goes on keeping families in bed and breakfast accommodation.

    Now, Government supporters might argue the Homelessness Reduction Act of 2019 is the answer to all this - no, it isn't. The Act puts more duties onto Councils but doesn't provide additional funding nor does it magically provide the affordable housing so badly needed.

    As an aside, we are also seeing with this Government a clear agenda to weaken the rental sector in favour of home ownership but not everyone can afford to buy and a strong rental sector is vital to satisfy the demand in that sector of the housing market.

    Why is the Conservative agenda all about home ownership? Simply because all the evidence suggests once you own your own home you're more likely to vote Conservative so it's a political agenda rather than a genuine attempt to tackle the chronic housing problems in this country which start of course with the price of land and its limited supply.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
    Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
    Wales has been losing interest in the Labour party gradually, the beneficiaries being the other parties (except the LibDems).

    At the next Welsh Assembly elections, I think an interesting question is where do the 7 UKIP seats go ?

    I think it must be very likely the next WA election delivers a result in which either a Lab or Tory led alliance could in principle hold power.

    Although the Tories may be tarnished by 1 year or so of being in control in Westminster, it is very difficult to see Mark Drakeford repeating the electoral performance of Carwyn Jones.
    The first serious doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership came in Labour's disaster in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.

    It could well be that the new Labour leader will be facing a difficult test in Wales & Scotland in the first year.

    If that goes badly -- as it did for Ed -- the leader may well never really recover.
    Morning all!
    I would have thought that Scotland's pretty well written off now as far as Labour is concerned. Curious to think that Alex Salmond led just 5 other MP's in the 2010 Parliament.
    However there doesn't ...... yet at any rate ....... seem to be a similar movement which can sweep Wales in the way the SNP has Scotland.
    I think Labour will lose power in Wales in 2021. They only have a majority now thanks to the defection of DET from Plaid Cymru and the support of the ever pliable Kirsty Williams (the last LibDem standing).

    Carwyn Jones (like or him) not was an impressive media performer. His successor Mark Drakeford is not.

    My point is only that 2021 is a tough test for the new leader, and it is likely to be very difficult to get a Labour success story to tell.

    I don't see much positive emerging in Scotland. The best Labour can hope in Wales is to be largest party (though even that is doubtful), so the headline will be "Labour loses Wales".
    It was a little harsh on Ed Miliband in 2011, and it’s going to be a little harsh on whoever is leader next year.

    The bare majority in Wales is probably gone, and Scotland could be anything of a result - but the headlines are unlikely to involve Labour unless it’s a very bad night for them.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Sean_F said:



    The pro-Remain/left wing vote is overly concentrated in Greater London and in university seats.

    And the only solution to increasing concentration of your vote is to change the electoral system from FPTP.

    (I think Kinabula has got there, but whether the Labour Party ever will is doubtful.)
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    stodge said:

    Morning All :)

    Onto things far more important than Welsh opinion polls.

    Housing, as I have to remind Conservatives regularly, isn't just a question of building houses and flats and watching property developers and estate agents (and of course the Government) grow fatter on the process.

    It's also about those who don't have a home and the truth is the increasing gap between rents and housing benefits combined with the shortage of affordable housing is causing families (remember the "hard working families" so beloved of the modern Tories) real distress.

    7,110 households are currently in bed and breakfast accommodation, a 15-year high while Council spending on the homeless rose to £643 million which was in itself an overspend on the planned spend of £502 million.

    Of that spend, £115 million goes on keeping families in bed and breakfast accommodation.

    Now, Government supporters might argue the Homelessness Reduction Act of 2019 is the answer to all this - no, it isn't. The Act puts more duties onto Councils but doesn't provide additional funding nor does it magically provide the affordable housing so badly needed.

    As an aside, we are also seeing with this Government a clear agenda to weaken the rental sector in favour of home ownership but not everyone can afford to buy and a strong rental sector is vital to satisfy the demand in that sector of the housing market.

    Why is the Conservative agenda all about home ownership? Simply because all the evidence suggests once you own your own home you're more likely to vote Conservative so it's a political agenda rather than a genuine attempt to tackle the chronic housing problems in this country which start of course with the price of land and its limited supply.

    Building more houses is not by itself the solution, but it’s certainly a prerequisite.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 431

    Sean_F said:



    The pro-Remain/left wing vote is overly concentrated in Greater London and in university seats.

    And the only solution to increasing concentration of your vote is to change the electoral system from FPTP.

    (I think Kinabula has got there, but whether the Labour Party ever will is doubtful.)
    FPTP should be removed because it's broken rather than out of party-interest.

    But its beneficiaries won't change it, so Labour will need to win an election under FPTP first.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    Sandpit said:



    It was a little harsh on Ed Miliband in 2011, and it’s going to be a little harsh on whoever is leader next year.

    The bare majority in Wales is probably gone, and Scotland could be anything of a result - but the headlines are unlikely to involve Labour unless it’s a very bad night for them.

    The danger is that the narrative becomes Labour has elected another duff leader. Fair or unfair.

    No one said at the time "it's a little harsh on Ed". They only say that 9 years later !
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Cwsc, Labour's next leader will have some advantages, though.

    It's easier to improve from a lower starting point. Lots of people aren't fans of the PM but loathed Corbyn. The Conservatives (if we include the Coalition) have been in power for a decade, so the time for a change line will only grow more potent. Leaving the EU, even if it were done competently, will have some disgruntled with it, and that helps Labour too.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    kicorse said:



    FPTP should be removed because it's broken rather than out of party-interest.

    But its beneficiaries won't change it, so Labour will need to win an election under FPTP first.

    No. Labour don't need to win. The Tories need to lose, which is not quite the same thing.

    The danger of a party winning under FPTP is that they conclude that FPTP is not broken (as Tony Blair and Justin Trudeau both did).
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Mr. Cwsc, Labour's next leader will have some advantages, though.

    It's easier to improve from a lower starting point. Lots of people aren't fans of the PM but loathed Corbyn. The Conservatives (if we include the Coalition) have been in power for a decade, so the time for a change line will only grow more potent. Leaving the EU, even if it were done competently, will have some disgruntled with it, and that helps Labour too.

    I think in Wales & Scotland, those factors either don't apply, or are outweighed by other problems.

    After all Labour in Wales have been in power since 1999. Problems have been building and building.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 431
    On topic: Watching that scream now, it seems unremarkable.

    At the time, I wasn't following US politics closely enough to say how much his campaign's collapse was about the scream and how much was other things (e.g. his unexpectedly poor result). For those who were, was it the election-changing moment? That is, might he have won without that scream?
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718
    kicorse said:

    Sean_F said:



    The pro-Remain/left wing vote is overly concentrated in Greater London and in university seats.

    And the only solution to increasing concentration of your vote is to change the electoral system from FPTP.

    (I think Kinabula has got there, but whether the Labour Party ever will is doubtful.)
    FPTP should be removed because it's broken rather than out of party-interest.

    But its beneficiaries won't change it, so Labour will need to win an election under FPTP first.
    I'm pretty sure, from memory, that the current Home Sec thinks FPTP is the fairest system.
    Of course, Mandy Rice-Davie applies!
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    Offtopic but still related to the USA, one of the quirkiest annual bets, with totally insane amounts of analysis around it.

    How long will the national anthem at the Super Bowl take to be sung?

    https://www.si.com/nfl/jets/news/super-bowl-national-anthem-odds

    (I’m on the ‘under’, but not for real money as it’s almost impossible to get an account with a US bookie).
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. Cwsc, Labour does have big problems in Scotland, that significantly worsens their UK-wide position not just in raw numbers but the risk they're seen as being only able to win with an SNP coalition.

    But they do have advantages elsewhere.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 31,718

    Mr. Cwsc, Labour's next leader will have some advantages, though.

    It's easier to improve from a lower starting point. Lots of people aren't fans of the PM but loathed Corbyn. The Conservatives (if we include the Coalition) have been in power for a decade, so the time for a change line will only grow more potent. Leaving the EU, even if it were done competently, will have some disgruntled with it, and that helps Labour too.

    Remember that Boris Johnson is sufficiently practised and persuasive as a liar to be able to convince people that this government is a break with the past, never mind the fact that he himself was in May's cabinet for a while.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    I found out about the site in 2007 which now seems very early but at the time I felt like a newbie on an extremely well-established site.

    I don't want to try to calculate how many hours I've spent on pb over the years.
  • kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    Well it might help the pensions crisis
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    I found out about the site in 2007 which now seems very early but at the time I felt like a newbie on an extremely well-established site.

    I don't want to try to calculate how many hours I've spent on pb over the years.

    And then multiply that number of hours by your billable rate ;)
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,065
    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    It looks as if evacuees to the UK will also be quarantined for 2 weeks

    BBC News - Coronavirus: Britons on Wuhan flights to be quarantined
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51292590
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Sandpit said:


    Building more houses is not by itself the solution, but it’s certainly a prerequisite.

    That's just sloppy thinking. Major developments such as Battersea/Nine Elms, Barking Riverside and Fresh Wharf are about thousands of new homes, mainly if not exclusively flats.

    Some will be affordable and some will be available on shared ownership though nowhere near enough in my view. The point is if you build 3,000 flats you add a minimum of 6,000 (and likely more) people to an area.

    That puts pressure on transport, health care provision, schools and a range of other services including (not surprisingly) sewage, water supply, electrical infrastructure all of which need spending to be improved and you'd better believe a Section 106 doesn't get anywhere near that.

    A Section 106 might get you a new community facility for a medical centre which is fine for the 6,000 people who all need a GP but what about transport? Let's say 4,500 commute so that's extra people being jammed onto a system already at or beyond capacity in peak periods so where are the extra trains, the extra tracks, the extra capacity?

    Answer came there none.

    Housing needs planning - housing needs infrastructure, housing needs money spent before a single flat is built. That, unfortunately, is not how we are doing it. we are doing it to maximise profit for property developers, construction companies (many of whom employ EU migrant workers so that'll be interesting) and estate agents as well as the Government.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    Well it might help the pensions crisis
    Well regarding my rants the other days with regard to overpopulation and the possible solutions it was intimated I might be secretively suggesting, suspicion may come my way.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 431

    kicorse said:



    FPTP should be removed because it's broken rather than out of party-interest.

    But its beneficiaries won't change it, so Labour will need to win an election under FPTP first.

    No. Labour don't need to win. The Tories need to lose, which is not quite the same thing.

    The danger of a party winning under FPTP is that they conclude that FPTP is not broken (as Tony Blair and Justin Trudeau both did).
    Depends whether you define "winning" as "gaining a majority" or "forming a functional government". It is, of course, the latter that they need.

    I guess my point is that anyone in Labour who is focusing on the electoral system right now has the wrong priority. Let the Electoral Reform Society and the Lib Dems do that.The less time the Opposition spends complaining about FPTP, the more chance they have of getting rid of it.

    I agree with your point about Blair and Trudeau, although I'm optimistic that the winner of the Labour leadership contest won't be so interested on concentrating power on him/herself.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    stodge said:

    Sandpit said:


    Building more houses is not by itself the solution, but it’s certainly a prerequisite.

    That's just sloppy thinking. Major developments such as Battersea/Nine Elms, Barking Riverside and Fresh Wharf are about thousands of new homes, mainly if not exclusively flats.

    Some will be affordable and some will be available on shared ownership though nowhere near enough in my view. The point is if you build 3,000 flats you add a minimum of 6,000 (and likely more) people to an area.

    That puts pressure on transport, health care provision, schools and a range of other services including (not surprisingly) sewage, water supply, electrical infrastructure all of which need spending to be improved and you'd better believe a Section 106 doesn't get anywhere near that.

    A Section 106 might get you a new community facility for a medical centre which is fine for the 6,000 people who all need a GP but what about transport? Let's say 4,500 commute so that's extra people being jammed onto a system already at or beyond capacity in peak periods so where are the extra trains, the extra tracks, the extra capacity?

    Answer came there none.

    Housing needs planning - housing needs infrastructure, housing needs money spent before a single flat is built. That, unfortunately, is not how we are doing it. we are doing it to maximise profit for property developers, construction companies (many of whom employ EU migrant workers so that'll be interesting) and estate agents as well as the Government.
    Indeed, the UK has seen a population increase of close to 10% in the past decade, but with little of the required investment in infrastructure around it. What’s actually needed is new towns, rather than the expansion to breaking point of existing towns.
  • kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    You are Kay Burley and I claim my £5....
  • novanova Posts: 525
    edited January 2020

    Sean_F said:

    HYUFD said:

    Encouraging sign ahead of the Welsh Assembly election next year
    Wales has been trending Tory more or less since 1970 (albeit, Labour has outperformed in some years, like 1987 and 2017).
    Wales has been losing interest in the Labour party gradually, the beneficiaries being the other parties (except the LibDems).

    At the next Welsh Assembly elections, I think an interesting question is where do the 7 UKIP seats go ?

    I think it must be very likely the next WA election delivers a result in which either a Lab or Tory led alliance could in principle hold power.

    Although the Tories may be tarnished by 1 year or so of being in control in Westminster, it is very difficult to see Mark Drakeford repeating the electoral performance of Carwyn Jones.
    The first serious doubts about Ed Miliband's leadership came in Labour's disaster in the 2011 Scottish Parliament elections.

    It could well be that the new Labour leader will be facing a difficult test in Wales & Scotland in the first year.

    If that goes badly -- as it did for Ed -- the leader may well never really recover.
    Morning all!
    I would have thought that Scotland's pretty well written off now as far as Labour is concerned. Curious to think that Alex Salmond led just 5 other MP's in the 2010 Parliament.
    However there doesn't ...... yet at any rate ....... seem to be a similar movement which can sweep Wales in the way the SNP has Scotland.
    Surely voting in Scotland since 2014 has been similar to Brexit/leave remain splits here.

    I had a quick look at polling for the general election and the SNP vote was around 6:1 in terms of Yes/No indy ref votes - whereas Labour is almost 1:6.

    There may be complex arguments, and many reasons why Labour went from Scottish dominance to wipeout, but clearly the big change was the referendum.

    Brexit voting is likely to unwind in England and Wales, but, while there's still a conversation about another indy ref, then it's unlikely Labour will make any inroads in Scotland.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    Foxy said:

    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    It looks as if evacuees to the UK will also be quarantined for 2 weeks

    BBC News - Coronavirus: Britons on Wuhan flights to be quarantined
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51292590
    I wonder if that is after the ranting this morning about the stupidity of what people were being told to do.

    I also wonder whether it is too late. Would it not be better to leave people in place and look after their needs there.
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765

    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.

    I joined in 2004, when Blair was lord of all he surveyed. A very different world now.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458
    kjh said:

    Foxy said:

    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    It looks as if evacuees to the UK will also be quarantined for 2 weeks

    BBC News - Coronavirus: Britons on Wuhan flights to be quarantined
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51292590
    I wonder if that is after the ranting this morning about the stupidity of what people were being told to do.

    I also wonder whether it is too late. Would it not be better to leave people in place and look after their needs there.
    See BBC this morning.
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    Sean_F said:

    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.

    I joined in 2004, when Blair was lord of all he surveyed. A very different world now.
    I think I found PB in the run up to the 2005 election, so that’s almost 15 years ago. Bring back the smiling Gordons is all I can say. :D
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    You are Kay Burley and I claim my £5....
    ?

    I assume she was ranting the same as otherwise I have no idea re the link.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741
    Sandpit said:


    Indeed, the UK has seen a population increase of close to 10% in the past decade, but with little of the required investment in infrastructure around it. What’s actually needed is new towns, rather than the expansion to breaking point of existing towns.

    Yes, Britain's current population is 67.5 million.

    You aren't wrong inasmuch as we need to think beyond adding bits to the existing but London, in particular, is such a distorting force on the economy (for all the comments about "northern powerhouses") that it's the place people feel they need to be - as usual, people go to the money, they always have.

    The supply/demand equation for London would only be resolved if the Green Belt was removed and the capital allowed to sprawl but even then you'd need all the infrastructure to which I referred in my previous and that's the issue with a new town.

    Roads can be built fairly quickly but we should be looking at rail and light rail schemes as an alternative - perhaps replace the traditional "High Street" with retail mixed in with residential and take the notion of "Place" much more seriously - strong digital coverage enabling people to work and relax in the same environment and not doing the daily commute.


  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172
    kicorse said:



    Depends whether you define "winning" as "gaining a majority" or "forming a functional government". It is, of course, the latter that they need.

    I guess my point is that anyone in Labour who is focusing on the electoral system right now has the wrong priority. Let the Electoral Reform Society and the Lib Dems do that.The less time the Opposition spends complaining about FPTP, the more chance they have of getting rid of it.

    Frankly, I can see no chance of a Labour "win" -- however defined -- without a substantial recovery in Scotland.

    I'd say Keir & Becky have come to the same conclusion:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/26/rebecca-long-bailey-calls-for-greater-powers-for-scotland-and-wales

    Devo-max, or a fully federal UK, is probably the only thing that can help Labour in Scotland now. This kind of change goes hand in hand with electoral reform.

    My guess is that if the Labour party "wins" the next election, it will do only with a mandate for, and support from, those wanting massive constitutional change.
  • Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited January 2020
    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    You are Kay Burley and I claim my £5....
    ?

    I assume she was ranting the same as otherwise I have no idea re the link.
    Yes, and they had on a Professor who is an expert in this field and currently working on a vaccine, told her in very clear terms that in his opinion the government's response has been appropriate and proportional.

    What he said was basically everybody being allowed to leave China have already been deemed low risk and will be screened before they even get on a plane, so the very little danger thus being allowed to make their own way home and the self quarantining is just super extra precaution.

    Generally, I normally tend to urge on the government is shit at stuff side of things, but a) when it comes to big crisis stuff the government are normally very good e.g. see how they got 100,000s of people home after airline went bust and b) I tend to believe some non-governmental international expert without an axe to grind and who is involved in the actual field being talked about.
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960
    kinabalu said:

    Cyclefree said:

    So rail nationalisation and a commie internet. Have I missed something and Corbyn is really PM?

    We won the argument.
    Labour are being strangely reticent (Starmer aside) about criticising the government on 5G. The chief opposition seems to be coming from the Tory backbenchers. It's odd that none of the other leadership contenders are trying to make hay out of attacking Johnson for putting his own short term political interests above the national ling term interest - it's a totally believable line of attack and is the sort of thing wannabe Leaders of the Opposition need to be demonstrate they are good at.

    Meanwhile, Long-Bailey is trying to recover some of the points she lost with Momentumites by signing up to the Board of Deputies' proposals on anti Semitism, by vehemently attacking Trump's Middle East peace "plan".
  • mattmatt Posts: 3,789

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    As the main candidates have said that manifesto was near perfect and it was the messenger not the message, then I might not be as sanguine as you.
  • stodgestodge Posts: 12,741

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.

    In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.

    Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
  • stodge said:

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.

    In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.

    Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
    Also worth remembering that Remainers were, by and large, less zealous than Leavers. I voted Remain but I wasn't seething about the result the next day and I'm certainly not seething now. Those who feel great affinity for the EU cause are a minority within a minority (though often eloquent on here).
  • EndillionEndillion Posts: 4,960

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    I wouldn't say that was a thin slice - prior to the referendum being called and polarising everything, that probably described a good half of (say) 2015 Tory voters.

    Worth also pointing out that, while this group is at least as horrified by Corbyn as all the others (albeit more on economic grounds than any other area), they'll also likely be less impressed with Johnson than any other bit of the Tory electoral coalition. Which is a problem that will eventually fix itself.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:

    kjh said:

    Is it me or does it appear we are dealing with this virus very badly. In fact we appear to be doing our level best to spread it by the actions we are taking to control it. We should either be doing nothing or doing it properly.

    Flying people out to all around the world seems exceedingly daft and to top it all we tell people to self quarantine, but expect them to make their own way home from the airport in packed trains, buses and tubes.

    Couldn't plan the spread better if one tried.

    You are Kay Burley and I claim my £5....
    ?

    I assume she was ranting the same as otherwise I have no idea re the link.
    Yes, and they had on a Professor who is an expert in this field and currently working on a vaccine, told her in very clear terms that in his opinion the government's response has been appropriate and proportional.

    What he said was basically everybody being allowed to leave China have already been deemed low risk and will be screened before they even get on a plane, so the very little danger thus being allowed to make their own way home and the self quarantining is just super extra precaution.
    That was clearly contradicted by the evidence from the professor on BBC this morning (same one?) who said you can't bring them back unless you isolate.

    The interviews with people there who were complaining about the advice being nonsense who were just told general advice that they could fly home and self isolate and asking how they got from the airport to home. There was no mention of 'low risk' or 'screening' it was general advice.

    Also how do you screen if you are infectious for 2 weeks without symptoms.

    It also appears that after this became apparent there is now going to be isolation. Of course if you are right it may just be a pointless reaction to people needlessly over-reacting.

    To me the logical thing is to keep people in place and not fly them all around the world.
  • kicorsekicorse Posts: 431
    edited January 2020

    kicorse said:



    Depends whether you define "winning" as "gaining a majority" or "forming a functional government". It is, of course, the latter that they need.

    I guess my point is that anyone in Labour who is focusing on the electoral system right now has the wrong priority. Let the Electoral Reform Society and the Lib Dems do that.The less time the Opposition spends complaining about FPTP, the more chance they have of getting rid of it.

    Frankly, I can see no chance of a Labour "win" -- however defined -- without a substantial recovery in Scotland.

    I'd say Keir & Becky have come to the same conclusion:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/26/rebecca-long-bailey-calls-for-greater-powers-for-scotland-and-wales

    Devo-max, or a fully federal UK, is probably the only thing that can help Labour in Scotland now. This kind of change goes hand in hand with electoral reform.

    My guess is that if the Labour party "wins" the next election, it will do only with a mandate for, and support from, those wanting massive constitutional change.
    Scotland is dominated by the SNP, not the Conservatives. By your notion that what is needed is for the Tories lose, it wouldn't be very important whether Labour recover many of those SNP seats. That is probably, but far from certainly, true.

    So a "win" is certainly possible without any recovery at all in Scotland.

    The potential leaders are doing the sensible thing. They're making positive noises on constitutional change but not making it the focus of their campaign. Some of them are also talking positively about working with other parties (I would like to hear all of them do that). They are all avoiding the catastrophic mistake of whining about the system that created the defeat. That would be so clueless that we could say goodbye to any hope of getting rid of FPTP. I'm glad that they're showing more sense.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    RobD said:

    Sean_F said:

    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.

    I joined in 2004, when Blair was lord of all he surveyed. A very different world now.
    I think I found PB in the run up to the 2005 election, so that’s almost 15 years ago. Bring back the smiling Gordons is all I can say. :D
    We must have arrived here about the same time.
  • stjohnstjohn Posts: 1,777
    I love the story that when OGH was searching the internet forums such as Betfair for gambling pointers and news of (John) Kerry’s presidential prospects, all he could find was news about a popular celebrity singer or soap star called Kerry. And thus PB was born.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,572
    edited January 2020

    Did any of you take Starmer at 20-1? Turns out I put £20 on him. I’d completely forgotten!!

    https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2016/10/09/joff-wild-says-keep-an-eye-on-keir/

    No, but I put significantly more than that on Starmer at 16-1 with Hills in December 2015 (along with smaller sums on Cooper and Sadiq Khan at somewhat longer odds.) And like you I forgot about the bet - Starmer drifted subsequently and I'd mentally written the bet off as the Corbyn faction became ever more dominant.

    Starmer's now 9/2 as next PM which I think is a very attractive price since he is all but nailed on now as next Labour leader. It looks particularly attractive if combined with a bet on the Conservatives having most seats at the next GE at 4/6 on, to create something not too far from an arb.

    Reasoning is as follows: Assuming Labour was the largest party in 2024 but in a minority, I would not expect the LDs and SNP to vote against Starmer-led minoirty Labour government in a vote of confidence, not initially at least. Furthermore, both bets could potentially come good. Even if the Conservatives get most seats in 2024 and continue in Government, the next PM bet would still very probably be live. I would at the very least expect Labour to pick up enough seats at the next GE for Starmer to have a second bite at the cherry in 2029 (aka Kinnock in 1992) even if 2024 is a step too far. The biggest risk to that scenario is how long Johnson might wish to go on as PM and whether Conservative MPs might choose to depose him if things turn seriously against him. As Johnson is still only 55, I think the risk is more in the latter after 2024 and not the former. The possibility of Johnson going before the end of this parliament must be quite long odds.
  • Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,933
    Mr. F, complacency and enervation are responsible for lots of political changes.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    RobD said:

    Sean_F said:

    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.

    I joined in 2004, when Blair was lord of all he surveyed. A very different world now.
    I think I found PB in the run up to the 2005 election, so that’s almost 15 years ago. Bring back the smiling Gordons is all I can say. :D
    We must have arrived here about the same time.
    Same for me. I was a very regular poster then for a few years. I dropped out for many years and just lurked.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited January 2020
    kjh said:



    That was clearly contradicted by the evidence from the professor on BBC this morning (same one?) who said you can't bring them back unless you isolate.

    The interviews with people there who were complaining about the advice being nonsense who were just told general advice that they could fly home and self isolate and asking how they got from the airport to home. There was no mention of 'low risk' or 'screening' it was general advice.

    Also how do you screen if you are infectious for 2 weeks without symptoms.

    It also appears that after this became apparent there is now going to be isolation. Of course if you are right it may just be a pointless reaction to people needlessly over-reacting.

    To me the logical thing is to keep people in place and not fly them all around the world.

    When it comes to what the individuals in an affected area are reporting they have been told / not told. There is often lots of nonsense, half truths and misunderstandings. People are obviously stressed and yes in a fast moving situation the advice can change.

    See all the stuff people said about why weren't they being evacuated from Libya, or even about flights back when Monarch / Thomas Cook went bust.

    My elderly parents were affected by that, and said people didn't listen / want to listen. They saw them appear at airports and scream blue murder about why weren't they on such and such a flight, when they just hadn't read carefully when their flight was or the procedure that was to be followed.

    As for "low risk", remember when we talk about Wuhan, the city bigger than London. The authorities will have a good idea which neighbourhoods it is prevalent in, where individuals have been etc. This is China, nobody goes anywhere without the state being able to find out.

    Basically, I massively dislike this trial by media. We don't know all the details and they want to MAKE a story (not report one), even when their view is contradicted by an independent expert.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 49,958
    stodge said:

    Last PMQs in the EU......

    Will you be celebrating on Friday evening or are you just having one more pop at the "Remoaners" (whoever they may be) ?
    I will probably have a celebratory "Yay!!!!" at 11 pm, but that will be the extent of it.

    Too busy making a success of post-Brexit Britain to take time off for fun.....
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    And the only solution to increasing concentration of your vote is to change the electoral system from FPTP.

    (I think Kinabula has got there, but whether the Labour Party ever will is doubtful.)

    Yes, I think I have. I love FPTP for its drama - the brutal beauty of it - but it's not fair and has to go.
  • novanova Posts: 525
    Surely, they had nearly twice that number in the 1950s?

    It's like "history began with the Premier League" :)
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 41,674

    kicorse said:



    Depends whether you define "winning" as "gaining a majority" or "forming a functional government". It is, of course, the latter that they need.

    I guess my point is that anyone in Labour who is focusing on the electoral system right now has the wrong priority. Let the Electoral Reform Society and the Lib Dems do that.The less time the Opposition spends complaining about FPTP, the more chance they have of getting rid of it.

    Frankly, I can see no chance of a Labour "win" -- however defined -- without a substantial recovery in Scotland.

    I'd say Keir & Becky have come to the same conclusion:

    https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jan/26/rebecca-long-bailey-calls-for-greater-powers-for-scotland-and-wales

    Devo-max, or a fully federal UK, is probably the only thing that can help Labour in Scotland now. This kind of change goes hand in hand with electoral reform.

    My guess is that if the Labour party "wins" the next election, it will do only with a mandate for, and support from, those wanting massive constitutional change.
    They will have no recovery under those donkeys, labour have been promising home rule since 1888, they are a bunch of liars. Until they have a real Scottish labour party rather than London sock puppets , they will remain where they are circling the drain
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    stodge said:

    Sandpit said:


    Indeed, the UK has seen a population increase of close to 10% in the past decade, but with little of the required investment in infrastructure around it. What’s actually needed is new towns, rather than the expansion to breaking point of existing towns.

    Yes, Britain's current population is 67.5 million.

    You aren't wrong inasmuch as we need to think beyond adding bits to the existing but London, in particular, is such a distorting force on the economy (for all the comments about "northern powerhouses") that it's the place people feel they need to be - as usual, people go to the money, they always have.

    The supply/demand equation for London would only be resolved if the Green Belt was removed and the capital allowed to sprawl but even then you'd need all the infrastructure to which I referred in my previous and that's the issue with a new town.

    Roads can be built fairly quickly but we should be looking at rail and light rail schemes as an alternative - perhaps replace the traditional "High Street" with retail mixed in with residential and take the notion of "Place" much more seriously - strong digital coverage enabling people to work and relax in the same environment and not doing the daily commute.
    The main issue stopping the 'live and work in the same place' revolution is that we now change jobs more than we ever did before, and moving home is now more expensive than it's ever been - who has 10-20k in cash for stamp duty and agency fees, when next year's job is in the next town along, and how does that fit in with the wife's job and the kids' school?

    The 'towns' discussion on here a few days ago was enlightening, but it's clear that the two major issues are parking and business rates - both of which encourage people to avoid the town centre.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    Be in no doubt, this is a deeply unsatisfactory position for the Government - and the country - to have got itself into. How on earth did we come to rely for critical infrastructure on a single supplier from a potentially hostile world superpower? The new Prime Minister must be cursing his predecessors for having left him with such a hot potato.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/28/dont-misled-huawei-affair-lot-paranoid-fuss-nothing/
  • RobDRobD Posts: 58,941
    kjh said:

    RobD said:

    Sean_F said:

    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.

    I joined in 2004, when Blair was lord of all he surveyed. A very different world now.
    I think I found PB in the run up to the 2005 election, so that’s almost 15 years ago. Bring back the smiling Gordons is all I can say. :D
    We must have arrived here about the same time.
    Same for me. I was a very regular poster then for a few years. I dropped out for many years and just lurked.
    What did you do with all that extra free time? :o
  • matt said:

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    As the main candidates have said that manifesto was near perfect and it was the messenger not the message, then I might not be as sanguine as you.
    "Sanguine" isn't the word exactly. Johnson is a populist, his campaigning team are pretty ruthless, and that's a strong combination. However, he ought to be careful not to read too much into his mandate- it's wide but shallow, because more of it than usual is "not keen on you, but the other lot are far worse".
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,851

    I found out about the site in 2007 which now seems very early but at the time I felt like a newbie on an extremely well-established site.

    I don't want to try to calculate how many hours I've spent on pb over the years.

    You could have written a series of best selling novels and become rich and famous.

    But so what? Much better to argue politics on the internet.
  • kjh said:

    RobD said:

    Sean_F said:

    King Cole, he was up against a very disliked Corbyn, though.

    Mr. Meeks, 2007 is also when I joined. Very different political world it was.

    I joined in 2004, when Blair was lord of all he surveyed. A very different world now.
    I think I found PB in the run up to the 2005 election, so that’s almost 15 years ago. Bring back the smiling Gordons is all I can say. :D
    We must have arrived here about the same time.
    Same for me. I was a very regular poster then for a few years. I dropped out for many years and just lurked.
    The first thread I read was a report of a PB get-together in a Westminster pub with a photo of Guido hiding his face behind a pint of beer. In those innocent days his identity was a closely-guarded secret!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    nova said:

    Surely, they had nearly twice that number in the 1950s?

    It's like "history began with the Premier League" :)
    You are mistaking the Labour Party with an entity called, confusingly, the Labour Party which existed until Year Zero. It was a capitalistic plot to lead the workers astray.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited January 2020
    kinabalu said:

    I found out about the site in 2007 which now seems very early but at the time I felt like a newbie on an extremely well-established site.

    I don't want to try to calculate how many hours I've spent on pb over the years.

    You could have written a series of best selling novels and become rich and famous.

    But so what? Much better to argue politics on the internet.
    If only a regular PB poster had managed to do both...
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 35,765
    edited January 2020
    stodge said:

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.

    In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.

    Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
    Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574

    kinabalu said:

    I found out about the site in 2007 which now seems very early but at the time I felt like a newbie on an extremely well-established site.

    I don't want to try to calculate how many hours I've spent on pb over the years.

    You could have written a series of best selling novels and become rich and famous.

    But so what? Much better to argue politics on the internet.
    If only a regular PB poster had managed to do both...
    Nah, he gave up on PB.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 10,458

    kjh said:



    T

    When it comes to what the individuals in an affected area are reporting they have been told / not told. There is often lots of nonsense, half truths and misunderstandings. People are obviously stressed and yes in a fast moving situation the advice can change.

    See all the stuff people said about why weren't they being evacuated from Libya, or even about flights back when Monarch / Thomas Cook went bust.

    My elderly parents were affected by that, and said people didn't listen / want to listen. They saw them appear at airports and scream blue murder about why weren't they on such and such a flight, when they just hadn't read carefully when their flight was or the procedure that was to be followed.

    As for "low risk", remember when we talk about Wuhan, the city bigger than London. The authorities will have a good idea which neighbourhoods it is prevalent in, where individuals have been etc.

    Basically, I massively dislike this trial by media. We don't know all the details.
    We clearly don't know the details and I have a low regard for the media re details, but there are some known facts:

    a) We clearly know people have been told to self quarantine. The minister said so in parliament. In itself that might be very logical. The risk may be very low in terms of transmission, impact on most people if they get it, etc. In which case this is a sensible suggestion if we are not too worried.

    b) We then start advising people to leave, and plan to stop flights, etc, etc.

    c) With a virus that is contagious without symptoms for several days we then put people in a sealed box for many hours after which these several hundred were expected to enter some more boxes crammed full of people and travel all over the UK.

    d) When people who challenged this advice raised it this morning the plan changed dramatically within hours.

    What bit of that is wrong?

    As I said in my first post we should be doing this properly or not at all. The original advice may have been all that was needed, but a halfway house is pointless in fact worse than pointless as was obviously realised this morning. This has nothing to do with people not listening or panicking, as of course they will.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited January 2020

    Be in no doubt, this is a deeply unsatisfactory position for the Government - and the country - to have got itself into. How on earth did we come to rely for critical infrastructure on a single supplier from a potentially hostile world superpower? The new Prime Minister must be cursing his predecessors for having left him with such a hot potato.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/28/dont-misled-huawei-affair-lot-paranoid-fuss-nothing/

    The UK has never had any significant mobile carrier technology supplier.

    You can go right back to the post-war years to lay blame. Back when we just assumed than Made in Japan meant cheap crap knock-offs, but instead Japan rapidly became one of the main suppliers of electronics. You might have thought we would learn our lesson when South Korea did the same trick, and that we would certainly have twigged that China would follow the same path. We did not learn any such lesson.

    So we now live in a world were electronics = Asia, and even the richest companies rely on Asian suppliers and manufacturers to turn their designs into products.

    Even the US military has problems manufacturing their most high-tech and security sensitive components, as US manufacturers are not able to offer competitive leading-edge electronics manufacturing technology.
  • Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,572
    nova said:

    Surely, they had nearly twice that number in the 1950s?

    It's like "history began with the Premier League" :)
    Possibly not, in reality.

    From the HoC Library report on political party membership:
    "Reported membership fell from 666,000 to 348,000 between 1979 and
    1980, but the large decrease was probably due to a change in reporting
    standards and suggests Labour’s actual membership before 1980 was
    likely to be exaggerated. From 1956, constituency Labour Parties were
    forced to record a minimum membership of 800, which likely inflated
    the national total."
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574

    matt said:

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    As the main candidates have said that manifesto was near perfect and it was the messenger not the message, then I might not be as sanguine as you.
    "Sanguine" isn't the word exactly. Johnson is a populist, his campaigning team are pretty ruthless, and that's a strong combination. However, he ought to be careful not to read too much into his mandate- it's wide but shallow, because more of it than usual is "not keen on you, but the other lot are far worse".
    He’s also reaping the benefit of not only being able to make decisions , thanks to a substantial majority, but also being willing to do so.
    Which after the May years would make even the most reckless PM look relatively attractive - and thus far he has not been particularly reckless.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,574
    glw said:

    Be in no doubt, this is a deeply unsatisfactory position for the Government - and the country - to have got itself into. How on earth did we come to rely for critical infrastructure on a single supplier from a potentially hostile world superpower? The new Prime Minister must be cursing his predecessors for having left him with such a hot potato.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/28/dont-misled-huawei-affair-lot-paranoid-fuss-nothing/

    The UK has never had any significant mobile carrier technology supplier.

    You can go right back to the post-war years to lay blame. Back when we just assumed than Made in Japan meant cheap crap knock-offs, but instead Japan rapidly became one of the main suppliers of electronics. You might have thought we would learn our lesson when South Korea did the same trick, and that we would certainly have twigged that China would follow the same path. We did not learn any such lesson.

    So we now live in a world were electronics = Asia, and even the richest companies rely on Asian suppliers and manufacturers to turn their designs into products...
    On all of those cases, though, there was effectively some form of state capitalism which gave the new sectors room to grow. Here we had either state, or capitalism, but never the combination.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    On topic, a reminder that 70% of people don't give a **** about politics, and barely 55% actually turn out to elect the President.

    https://spectator.us/battle-cry-politically-homeless/
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    edited January 2020
    Compare and contrast:

    https://twitter.com/PickardJE/status/1222423266045911040



    "The postmortem was grim. In the room, leading Labour MPs, recent party staffers and assorted Labour figures of long experience pored over the entrails exposed by the high priests of polling and academia. Pointers for the future lie in this gruesome raking over of the details. Too many in Labour give only token nods to the cataclysmic abyss that has opened up between the party and the voters out there."

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/jan/28/labour-split-affection-corbyn
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    Nigelb said:

    glw said:

    Be in no doubt, this is a deeply unsatisfactory position for the Government - and the country - to have got itself into. How on earth did we come to rely for critical infrastructure on a single supplier from a potentially hostile world superpower? The new Prime Minister must be cursing his predecessors for having left him with such a hot potato.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2020/01/28/dont-misled-huawei-affair-lot-paranoid-fuss-nothing/

    The UK has never had any significant mobile carrier technology supplier.

    You can go right back to the post-war years to lay blame. Back when we just assumed than Made in Japan meant cheap crap knock-offs, but instead Japan rapidly became one of the main suppliers of electronics. You might have thought we would learn our lesson when South Korea did the same trick, and that we would certainly have twigged that China would follow the same path. We did not learn any such lesson.

    So we now live in a world were electronics = Asia, and even the richest companies rely on Asian suppliers and manufacturers to turn their designs into products...
    On all of those cases, though, there was effectively some form of state capitalism which gave the new sectors room to grow. Here we had either state, or capitalism, but never the combination.
    Mind you that kind of interventionist capitalism came at a high price, it wasn't as though any of the countries I mentioned were happy-clappy liberal democracies when their economies were being transformed. If you want to get stuff done, either do away with democracy or make sure that only the right people can ever win. ;)
  • AlastairMeeksAlastairMeeks Posts: 30,340
    kinabalu said:

    I found out about the site in 2007 which now seems very early but at the time I felt like a newbie on an extremely well-established site.

    I don't want to try to calculate how many hours I've spent on pb over the years.

    You could have written a series of best selling novels and become rich and famous.

    But so what? Much better to argue politics on the internet.
    There's still time. I tell myself that anyway.
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Sean_F said:

    stodge said:

    Sean_F said:

    FPT Conservative Remainers. It should be remembered that many of them didn't like the EU much, and even if, on balance, they thought it better to stay in, they were not much upset about leaving. For at least a generation, if you're strongly pro-EU, the Conservative party has not been your natural home.

    True, but there is a slice of Conservativism which is "No emotional attachment to the EU, not got a problem with leaving as such, but let's be realistic and careful out there. Not fearful, but careful." Think Rory Stewart as an example.

    That slice might be thin, and a lot of them would have chosen Boris over Jez last month. But not every opponent will be as bad as Jez '19.
    Agreed, the Conservative Remainers were the final piece in the voting coalition jigsaw. They obviously couldn't stomach the prospect of Corbyn as PM and couldn't risk an LD protest vote on that basis.

    In addition, there were those Remain voters who, for all they opposed the decision to leave the EU, recognised it was a democratic vote which needed to be enacted and Johnson was the only one pledging so to do.

    Those two groups added to the 75% of Leave voters gave Johnson his victorious coalition. The question for the future is once we have left the EU how or indeed if that coalition can hang together.
    Admittedly, the Conservatives were also lucky to beat the Lib Dems in a number of hyper-marginal Remain seats. South Cambridgeshire, Guildford, Hazel Grove, Wimbledon, Esher & Walton, Cheadle, Winchester, Cheltenham, could all have fallen the other way.
    A huge problem for the LDs was their poor result at GE2017 and generally tactical voting choices were based on what happened then. In just about all of them the CON lead over the LDs was smaller than the LAB vote. Also the LDs campaign was poor
This discussion has been closed.