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Post by alec on Oct 1, 2022 20:37:02 GMT
I think the dismal performance of this government, an outrider of the US billionaire funded IEA, and the last version of government we had from Johnson, dominated by a sect of former Revolutionary Communist Party members (see here - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/01/why-johnsons-tories-fell-for-a-tiny-sect-of-libertarian-provocateurs-rcp ) share the common factor that both of them have swallowed whole an external ideology that is completely alien to traditional Conservative traditions. I can't help feeling that this stems from the simple fact that British Conservatives don't actually have any of their own beliefs. The much vaunted 'pragmatism' is nothing more than a complete absence of principle, which manifests most of the time by just making sure everything stays more or less the same. But when that gets a bit tough, for whatever reason, they seem then to cast around for something to believe in, and we get the laughably bizarre sight of Conservative lining up to clap for the NHS, only then a year later to elect a leader than wants to privatise it. The line from Public Enemy comes to mind "If you don't believe in something you'll fall for anything", and I think that's what we're seeing here. The Conservative Party lacks an internal compass, and most of the time that's fine, but we're in an age of change, and Tories don't know what to think, so they latch onto a shiny pebble and hold fast, regardless. |
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Post by matt126 on Oct 1, 2022 20:44:15 GMT
Truss never had the support of most Tory MP's which was a disaster in the making. In the scenario any leader wins through members but not the MP's to make any success of it they have to build bridges with the MP's and have many of them onside in the Cabinet rather than drive a coach and horses through what they think. If she wants to remain PM she must build bridges with the Sunak supporting MP's change course and bring many of them into the cabinet. If she does not do this she is finished as they will attempt replace her, and if they cannot replace her they will rebel against the government.
The Tories have a majority of 80, but there comes a point when a party polling in the low 20's as no moral mandate to govern and Tory MP's knowing likely to lose seats anyway have no fear of rebelling against the government on anything.
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Post by jimjam on Oct 1, 2022 20:49:38 GMT
Hireton, thanks for the Chris Curtis.
''As I have been saying, the number to watch is the Tory to Labour switcher %.
Last week it was 12%. This week it is 23%!!!!''
It shows that Opiniums and Curtis' forecasts based on past parliaments eventual votes of previous voters who are don't knows at the time of the survey is flawed at best and probably totally invalid; as a way higher proportion have moved to Labour, and away from the Tories, than their reallocations did.
Glad to say that the community on here knew better.
Hopefully Opinium will re-examine their forecast approach but I doubt it?
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pjw1961
Member
Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
Posts: 8,572
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Post by pjw1961 on Oct 1, 2022 20:50:50 GMT
I think the dismal performance of this government, an outrider of the US billionaire funded IEA, and the last version of government we had from Johnson, dominated by a sect of former Revolutionary Communist Party members (see here - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/01/why-johnsons-tories-fell-for-a-tiny-sect-of-libertarian-provocateurs-rcp ) share the common factor that both of them have swallowed whole an external ideology that is completely alien to traditional Conservative traditions. I can't help feeling that this stems from the simple fact that British Conservatives don't actually have any of their own beliefs. The much vaunted 'pragmatism' is nothing more than a complete absence of principle, which manifests most of the time by just making sure everything stays more or less the same. But when that gets a bit tough, for whatever reason, they seem then to cast around for something to believe in, and we get the laughably bizarre sight of Conservative lining up to clap for the NHS, only then a year later to elect a leader than wants to privatise it. The line from Public Enemy comes to mind "If you don't believe in something you'll fall for anything", and I think that's what we're seeing here. The Conservative Party lacks an internal compass, and most of the time that's fine, but we're in an age of change, and Tories don't know what to think, so they latch onto a shiny pebble and hold fast, regardless. Isn't it simpler than that. Johnson is not and never was a Conservative of the post-Thatcher variety or really had an ideology of any sort. Johnson is interested in Johnson and nothing else. In consequence he was quite happy to offer a populist agenda that was right-wing on social policy (anti-woke, migrant bashing) but leftish on economics - at least on paper - i.e. leveling up. That was a policy platform that AW always said had majority support in England. In Truss the membership elected a true believer, someone who thought like them, and the result has been electoral poison. |
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Post by hireton on Oct 1, 2022 20:55:22 GMT
Some more findings from Opinium:
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Post by jib on Oct 1, 2022 20:58:05 GMT
Truss never had the support of most Tory MP's which was a disaster in the making. In the scenario any leader wins through members but not the MP's to make any success of it they have to build bridges with the MP's and have many of them onside in the Cabinet rather than drive a coach and horses through what they think. If she wants to remain PM she must build bridges with the Sunak supporting MP's change course and bring many of them into the cabinet. If she does not do this she is finished as they will attempt replace her, and if they cannot replace her they will rebel against the government. The Tories have a majority of 80, but there comes a point when a party polling in the low 20's as no moral mandate to govern and Tory MP's knowing likely to lose seats anyway have no fear of rebelling against the government on anything. One suspects that there a lot of former UKIP supporters in the Tory membership now. A similar situation to when Labour elected Corbyn and the Momentum brigade. However, Corbyn wasn't PM as a result, and never really got at all close to power. As for 2024, 2019 was a freak election in my view and 2015 and 2017 offer better reference points. |
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Post by leftieliberal on Oct 1, 2022 20:58:32 GMT
The trouble was Nixon took the dollar off the 'gold standard', and so everything now floats. The ERM and ultimately monetary union is an attempt to put the genie back in the bottle.
Why does having a single currency work for the USA; simply because the proportion of the total tax collected at the Federal level is sufficient to redistribute to the poorer states (although being the USA there is a lot of pork-barrel politics involved). The EU's problem was (and still is) that its income was too small a part of the total economy to do this (and a large part of it was going to the Eastern states to bring them back up to Western standards after more than half a century of Communism). The Euro would work if the EU was really the federal super-state that the Tory brexiteers feared, but it is much weaker than that. Monetary union should have followed political union, rather than preceding it with the intention of forcing political union after a crisis. |
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Post by jib on Oct 1, 2022 21:01:31 GMT
Opinium polling gives Labour a 19 point lead - 46% to 27%  |
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Post by ptarmigan on Oct 1, 2022 21:03:59 GMT
Just been looking at the leantossup projection for Mole Valley. I have to say I think it's garbage, at least for my constituency of Mole Valley. They show the Lib Dem vote actually going down from 35% to 31%! That is not going to happen - I've every hope that the Lib Dems will take the seat. That got me thinking.... It's obvious that ukpr2 people have a huge amount of local knowledge between them and pretty much cover the entire UK - I suspect we all know our own areas better than any of the polling companies. How about if we start a spreadsheet combining all our own predictions for the constituencies we know well? For example, I think Mole Valley is Con 50% Lab 50% at the moment. If did that for the whole country we could make a national prediction, keep it up to date and then compare it with the polling companies at the next election. Anyone willing to give it a go? I'm quite familiar with Mole Valley myself and I agree with you here. Obviously these models are based on what the polls are telling us at the moment ie Labour in the huge 45-55% range, and Lib Dems stuck around the 10% mark, so in that sense it's probably not that wild to imagine Labour benefiting at everyone else's expense. Having said that, I suspect these sort of projections are underestimating Lib Dem support and overestimating Labour support in areas in which the Lib Dems are the clear challengers to the Conservatives. Leaving aside the fact that it's not a natural Labour area anyway, in Mole Valley the Lib Dems' share of the vote went up quite a lot in the last GE and they've taken the council since then so that feels like important context. It's interesting to think that in 1997 the Lib Dem share of the vote was actually down on the previous GE, and yet they won a lot more seats. Goes to show that when the Conservatives are highly unpopular people are very happy to vote tactically to remove them. lululemonmustdobetter on the same topic, apologies for the pedantry but I believe Mole Valley was actually majority Remain in the referendum by 53/47 (the parliamentary seat doesn't exactly mirror the MV local authority, but the only real difference is the addition of a few wards from Guildford borough which I think were similarly Remainy). |
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oldnat
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Extremist - Undermining the UK state and its institutions
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Post by oldnat on Oct 1, 2022 21:04:15 GMT
OK. I know it's the Express, but really ....
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Post by crossbat11 on Oct 1, 2022 21:08:01 GMT
These recent polls are indeed sensational but it's worth recording, and maybe even raising a glass of bubbly too when the anniversary occurs next month, that the fabled crossover in the polls occurred as far back as November 2021, almost a full year ago. Labour took the lead in the poll of polls back then and have been ahead ever since. The lead was increased steadily too.
In fact, the polls started to narrow noticeably as far back as July 2021 with the Tory lead slowly evaporating from that point.
Put another way, Starmer has been doing some unheralded but essential donkey work for some time now that has allowed him to take full advantage of the current Tory implosion now.
Labour, almost unnoticed, has been chipping away at the Tories for quite some time.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Oct 1, 2022 21:08:10 GMT
I think it is fair to say the tectonic plates have moved.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2022 21:10:05 GMT
OK. I know it's the Express, but really .... That photo - especially enlarged - absolutely sums her up. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Oct 1, 2022 21:11:06 GMT
OK. I know it's the Express, but really .... The only thing she's leader of is her own imagination |
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Post by leftieliberal on Oct 1, 2022 21:11:22 GMT
But at least that was the Test where Eric Hollies bowled Bradman for a duck in his last Test innings, so England had something to console themselves with. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Oct 1, 2022 21:16:29 GMT
I wonder if at some point soon the Sun (newspaper, not yellow dwarf star) will decide that Starmer isn't really all that bad after all and once Labour win the subsequent election will claim it was them 'wot done it'.
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Post by robbiealive on Oct 1, 2022 21:17:23 GMT
Dunno much about cricket but idea you can't in effect win a match on 1st day is indeed Sophia-stry. I remember somewhere Broad bowled out Australia for 50 & England (forgive the synecdoche) scored 250 odd for a few wickets, all in a day.. There was no losing from there. |
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Post by ptarmigan on Oct 1, 2022 21:18:05 GMT
When I heard Varoufakis saying Kwarteng had made a rookie mistake I started wondering just how a banker with an economics degree and PhD on bank runs could make a rookie mistake. Obvious conclusion- he didn't. Well, so far as I can gather his degree was in classics and history and he did his PhD in economic history, with a thesis titled Political thought of the recoinage crisis of 1695–7. Although he did work in the City I'm not sure these are unimpeachable credentials when it comes to being CoE and running a modern day economy. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Oct 1, 2022 21:22:32 GMT
Truss never had the support of most Tory MP's which was a disaster in the making. In the scenario any leader wins through members but not the MP's to make any success of it they have to build bridges with the MP's and have many of them onside in the Cabinet rather than drive a coach and horses through what they think. If she wants to remain PM she must build bridges with the Sunak supporting MP's change course and bring many of them into the cabinet. If she does not do this she is finished as they will attempt replace her, and if they cannot replace her they will rebel against the government. The Tories have a majority of 80, but there comes a point when a party polling in the low 20's as no moral mandate to govern and Tory MP's knowing likely to lose seats anyway have no fear of rebelling against the government on anything. One suspects that there a lot of former UKIP supporters in the Tory membership now. A similar situation to when Labour elected Corbyn and the Momentum brigade. However, Corbyn wasn't PM as a result, and never really got at all close to power. As for 2024, 2019 was a freak election in my view and 2015 and 2017 offer better reference points. "As for 2024, 2019 was a freak election in my view and 2015 and 2017 offer better reference points." - I've found something I agree with you on! I totally agree, 2019 had too many special, temporary factors in play. It's not comparable to Thatchers landslide in '87 for example. |
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Post by graham on Oct 1, 2022 21:24:11 GMT
When I heard Varoufakis saying Kwarteng had made a rookie mistake I started wondering just how a banker with an economics degree and PhD on bank runs could make a rookie mistake. Obvious conclusion- he didn't. Well, so far as I can gather his degree was in classics and history and he did his PhD in economic history, with a thesis titled Political thought of the recoinage crisis of 1695–7. Although he did work in the City I'm not sure these are unimpeachable credentials when it comes to being CoE and running a modern day economy. Though Osborne read History as did Gordon Brown. Darling was a lawyer as were Kenneth Clarke and Geoffrey Howe. Healey read Classics.. |
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Oct 1, 2022 21:27:11 GMT
I think the dismal performance of this government, an outrider of the US billionaire funded IEA, and the last version of government we had from Johnson, dominated by a sect of former Revolutionary Communist Party members (see here - www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/aug/01/why-johnsons-tories-fell-for-a-tiny-sect-of-libertarian-provocateurs-rcp ) share the common factor that both of them have swallowed whole an external ideology that is completely alien to traditional Conservative traditions. I can't help feeling that this stems from the simple fact that British Conservatives don't actually have any of their own beliefs. The much vaunted 'pragmatism' is nothing more than a complete absence of principle, which manifests most of the time by just making sure everything stays more or less the same. But when that gets a bit tough, for whatever reason, they seem then to cast around for something to believe in, and we get the laughably bizarre sight of Conservative lining up to clap for the NHS, only then a year later to elect a leader than wants to privatise it. The line from Public Enemy comes to mind "If you don't believe in something you'll fall for anything", and I think that's what we're seeing here. The Conservative Party lacks an internal compass, and most of the time that's fine, but we're in an age of change, and Tories don't know what to think, so they latch onto a shiny pebble and hold fast, regardless. Isn't it simpler than that. Johnson is not and never was a Conservative of the post-Thatcher variety or really had an ideology of any sort. Johnson is interested in Johnson and nothing else. In consequence he was quite happy to offer a populist agenda that was right-wing on social policy (anti-woke, migrant bashing) but leftish on economics - at least on paper - i.e. leveling up. That was a policy platform that AW always said had majority support in England. In Truss the membership elected a true believer, someone who thought like them, and the result has been electoral poison. There was some discussion months back on whether the Tory members were primarily ideological idiots or did actually have a nose for an election winner. Well we certainly know the answer to that question now! And so do Tory MPs. |
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Post by jib on Oct 1, 2022 21:31:57 GMT
It's worth reiterating how relatively small Truss' support is within the Parliamentary Tory MPs. Incompetent and vulnerable.  |
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Post by peterbell on Oct 1, 2022 21:33:22 GMT
Does anyone have info as to how the polling figures were obtained, ie. was it using their recent methodology or the original methodology when they first started reporting which was reasonably in line with other pollsters. If it was the recent method then what are the "true" figures, 33% lead???
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Post by davwel on Oct 1, 2022 21:38:49 GMT
Labour needs to plan what has to be done to frustrate Truss and Kwarteng ready for action in 3 or 4 days` time, if the Tory conference does not definitely control her evil intentions.
There is no fat that can be trimmed from public spending, instead it must increase, so 1) benefits cannot be cut, 2) rewards for public-sector staff have to keep pace with inflation, 3) our MOD spending simply has to rise to cope with Putin, Middle East fanaticism, 4) climate warming, 5) continued loss of biodiversity.
So any tax cuts for the top 10% of earners have to be abandoned.
The dash for growth has to be modified to improving UK productivity, property insulation, levelling-up to peripheral UK (NOT SE England)
If Truss does not totally change course, then action is needed later next week - big peaceful protests outside all cabinet ministers` offices, sit-downs in the HoC once it resumes, co-ordinated strikes. All this to gain the attention of the world`s media, and cause another run on the pound - the short-term damage will be much less than if maniac Truss is allowed to ruin the UK state.
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Post by peterbell on Oct 1, 2022 21:39:27 GMT
According to Sky, the Palace have said No10 did not tell Charles not to attend COP 27.
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Post by caroline on Oct 1, 2022 21:42:41 GMT
I don’t agree with those arguing that party members should have no say in electing their party leader. I do agree that both LP members and CP members have made mistakes but this doesn’t stand up as an argument against party members being involved in the selection process. Labour party members elected Corbyn as their leader but he was rejected by the electorate as a Prime minister. Conservative members elected a new leader and she became PM without a public ballot. The two things are not the same. I would support the proposition that if a party elects a new leader during a term in government then a General Election should be called. This would concentrate the minds of party members, they would be more reluctant to change leaders mid term and they would be less likely to select a leader with no electoral appeal (assuming electoral appeal means competence as well as other characteristics)
There are few incentives for people to actually join a political party. Most do so because they believe that in some small way they can influence the policy direction of that party. Tory party members have very little influence on their party policy ......their conferences are tightly staged managed and their input to policy decision are limited by the fact that they are local associations. They do have a role in fund raising but even this is minimal as the Tory party are much more reliant on large corporate donors than Labour is. The LP is a much bigger membership organisation and much more dependent on an army of foot soldiers to run elections, they can’t afford to pay people to do it for them.
As a membership organisation to side line members from electing their leader would violate principles of democracy, anyone can join the party and vote for their leader who then faces the wider electorate. It is when leaders are changed part way through an election cycle that the process becomes undemocratic.
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Post by reggieside on Oct 1, 2022 21:47:12 GMT
Labour needs to plan what has to be done to frustrate Truss and Kwarteng ready for action in 3 or 4 days` time, if the Tory conference does not definitely control her evil intentions. There is no fat that can be trimmed from public spending, instead it must increase, so 1) benefits cannot be cut, 2) rewards for public-sector staff have to keep pace with inflation, 3) our MOD spending simply has to rise to cope with Putin, Middle East fanaticism, 4) climate warming, 5) continued loss of biodiversity. So any tax cuts for the top 10% of earners have to be abandoned. The dash for growth has to be modified to improving UK productivity, property insulation, levelling-up to peripheral UK (NOT SE England) If Truss does not totally change course, then action is needed later next week - big peaceful protests outside all cabinet ministers` offices, sit-downs in the HoC once it resumes, co-ordinated strikes. All this to gain the attention of the world`s media, and cause another run on the pound - the short-term damage will be much less than if maniac Truss is allowed to ruin the UK state. totally this. they absolutely have to be stopped. a deranged extremist cult has hijacked our government - and has no democratic mandate. |
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Post by hireton on Oct 1, 2022 21:49:01 GMT
Does anyone have info as to how the polling figures were obtained, ie. was it using their recent methodology or the original methodology when they first started reporting which was reasonably in line with other pollsters. If it was the recent method then what are the "true" figures, 33% lead??? Yes, it's using their new methodology. |
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Post by Mark on Oct 1, 2022 21:49:50 GMT
Patiently waiting for the new Opinium to be posted so I can start the new polling thread....Reuters have published bits but the full VI doesn't seem to be up anywhere yet....
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 1, 2022 21:59:37 GMT
I have no objection to a governing party electing a new leader and hence a new PM - but I do object to new policies that weren’t in the manifesto or worst still completely reverse the manifesto commitments
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