24-April 2023 : LAB 44% / CON 29% / LDEM 11% / GRN 5%

[alec]

Yet another ray of sunshine, this time it's an email from UK TV Play;

"Hi, Arsey

Did you know we're a brilliant mix of channels including Dave, Drama, Yesterday and W?....."

Good to know that their marketing team think they need to sell themselves to Madam Arsey Bumface, aged 137, sex male.

Marketing algorithms; the gift that keeps on giving.

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2023 8:05:09 GMT wb61 said:

Apr 27, 2023 7:58:59 GMT colin said:

THis extraordinary post with its dated concept of "workers" in the age of technology ,hammers home the chasm in perception and understanding of UKplc/ltd between you & I.

So no point in diving into the underlying philosophies .

But perhaps you will allow a few factual responses:-

A-
The UK Small Business sector * ( 0 to 49 employees) -accounts for :-
+5,465,320 businesses-99% of all businesses
+12.9 million employment-48% of all business employment.
+ £1.4bn sales-34% of all business sales

They are not all "self employed". Their entrepreneurship is the foundation stone of UK plc/ltd-not a "soubriquet" ( sic) 

B-
Debt is not the pre-eminent source of funding for UK companies. Debt to Equity ratio is around 70% to 80% **



C-
"Merchant Bankers" don't fund large companies. 

Large Company funding is made up as follows ***:-
Market based securities ( bonds) -46%
Large UK Banks-15%
Non Bank Loans-13%
Crossborder borrowing-13%
Foreign banks-13%

By contrast *** 89%  of SME borrowing was from Banks ( 55% from Large Banks_) 






* ONS-2022 data
**-CPA
*** 2020 data -Bank of England

You are right, we disagree fundamentally, I will not engage in a battle of statistics I agree with Ben Disraeli and Andrew Lang on this

Thanks. We do.

Would be interested to read the thoughts of your sources-any links would be helpful.

[Dave]

The various Trevs seem to be intent on making this place a weird, unreadable mess. I do hope that no more good posters leave here. I think that’s what all those Trevs would want, so I think if only to annoy them, the rest of us should hang around. It would be a shame if we gave up on it because of people with their own, obvious agendas.

[steve]

Steve Barclay 'absolutely not' a bully, says James Cleverly

Cabinet minister says he's never been bullied by other cabinet minister.

Good enough proof that Barclay doesn't bully his subordinates for anyone!

[wb61]

Apr 27, 2023 10:00:07 GMT colin said:

Apr 27, 2023 8:05:09 GMT wb61 said:

You are right, we disagree fundamentally, I will not engage in a battle of statistics I agree with Ben Disraeli and Andrew Lang on this

Thanks. We do.

Would be interested to read the thoughts of your sources-any links would be helpful.

Sorry, I was trying to be at least a little amusing (I am no good at humour so I should avoid trying to be), I was referring to two famous quotes:


Benjamin Disraeli said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" and Andrew Lang said “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.” I thought both were well known enough not to give chapter and verse.

[thylacine]

Apr 27, 2023 10:03:59 GMT Dave said:

The various Trevs seem to be intent on making this place a weird, unreadable mess. I do hope that no more good posters leave here. I think that’s what all those Trevs would want, so I think if only to annoy them, the rest of us should hang around. It would be a shame if we gave up on it because of people with their own, obvious agendas.

I totally agree Dave but I think it should also be recognised that the stand that Jayblanc and Sotonsaint made was honourable and we should recognise their right to make it.
Going forward I think that some posters are keen to exploit fault lines already existing to, as the fat controller might say " cause confusion and delay ".I suppose all we can do is be alert to that manipulation, report and see what Mark decides. It can't be easy being responsible and maintaining balance for a forum where there are so many strong willed participants.

[leftieliberal]

Apr 26, 2023 21:13:02 GMT pjw1961 said:

Apr 26, 2023 20:55:52 GMT domjg said:

Well, that, to me, sums up post brexit and especially post Johnson politics in this country very succinctly!

There's nothing new under the sun.

Btw it didn't work out well for the Athenians in the long run. They built a great state and then blew it all through a combination of greed and arrogance. 

I would also add that the Athenians were notoriously litigious (rather like modern-day Americans, in fact).

[lululemonmustdobetter]

Apr 27, 2023 6:46:14 GMT steve said:

I've included a section from a recent email to lib dem activists and candidates the entire email is several pages long and wouldn't really be relevant here but I thought the extract might be of some interest to people here as an analysis of the issues raised at the local elections by the electorate and some insights into potential impacts at the general election.

Hi steve, thanks for posting this, I for one found it interesting.

Part of it touches on the crucial question of Tory economic competence. The assumption that inflation will fall dramatically and consequently the Tory's will see a revival in their polling fortunes I think is worthy of debate. Over the past few months on this site there has been a lot of analysis/comment around whether we are facing a '97 or '10 GE type scenario. Whether Brown's detractors like it not, he and Darling actually did a good job in mitigating the impact of the Credit Crunch and financial crisis; however, the Tories and LD's (remember it was a LD minister who unsportingly shared the note) successfully managed to embed a narrative of blame on the government and managed to secure a longer term hit on Labour's economic competence.

I think the jury is still out on the extent to which Tory economic competence has taken a fatal blow from the Truss fiasco and inflation/cost of living issues. For the former they are fully to blame, for the latter the extent to which voters pin the blame on them (they have been in power for 13 years, drove Brexit which has clearly been economically damaging etc, but as with the financial crisis, there are genuinely significant exogenous factors at work) will probably be driven by the extent to which people feel better off over the next 18months.  Many will be starting to make up their minds now (my politics lecturer was always keen on the concept that a key indicator of VI was how people viewed their own economic/financial prospects for the next 12-18 months). I'm sceptical that the government has enough time to turn the dial on this before the next GE. There are some structural issues in the UK economy that are acting as a break on the govt's ability to create a 'feel good' factor in the build up to the next GE, and I don't think the electorate has such a short memory that the experience of the last 12-18 month's will be forgotten.

I do think the probability of jimjam scenario of Sunak doing a Brown and denying Starmer an OM is now more likely, but still err on the side of Labour achieving an OM. I think they will do relatively well in Scotland and largely clean up on in the Red-Wall and take most of the remaining Tory seats in metro areas such as London, and win some of the seats in larger Towns such as Northampton 

[Deleted]

Apr 27, 2023 10:17:32 GMT wb61 said:

Apr 27, 2023 10:00:07 GMT colin said:

Thanks. We do.

Would be interested to read the thoughts of your sources-any links would be helpful.

Sorry, I was trying to be at least a little amusing (I am no good at humour so I should avoid trying to be), I was referring to two famous quotes:


Benjamin Disraeli said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" and Andrew Lang said “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.” I thought both were well known enough not to give chapter and verse.

Ah. I see. What was a " lie" in the statistics sources I drew to your attention. ?

[oldnat]

From the Curtice article on the BBC website that wb61 referred us to -

"Nevertheless, each year, BBC News collects and analyses detailed voting figures to estimate the "projected national share" (PNS) - the share of the vote the parties would have won across the whole of Britain, if voters everywhere behaved in the same way as those who cast a local ballot."

What a bizarre thing to do! Since, unlike the other parts of the UK, the polity of England doesn't have simultaneous local elections - or even a common structure, trying to extrapolate each set of English local elections to the whole polity probably makes some kind of sense. But why would anyone in their right mind try to further extend that to "the whole of Britain" (which isn't even a meaningful polity in the way that England or UK are)?

[lululemonmustdobetter]

Apr 27, 2023 10:50:54 GMT leftieliberal said:

Apr 26, 2023 21:13:02 GMT pjw1961 said:

There's nothing new under the sun.

Btw it didn't work out well for the Athenians in the long run. They built a great state and then blew it all through a combination of greed and arrogance. 

I would also add that the Athenians were notoriously litigious (rather like modern-day Americans, in fact).

As were the Romans.

[leftieliberal]

Apr 27, 2023 9:46:34 GMT alec said:

Yet another ray of sunshine, this time it's an email from UK TV Play;

"Hi, Arsey

Did you know we're a brilliant mix of channels including Dave, Drama, Yesterday and W?....."

Good to know that their marketing team think they need to sell themselves to Madam Arsey Bumface, aged 137, sex male.

Marketing algorithms; the gift that keeps on giving.

I'm a digital subscriber to the i newspaper and without any prompting from me when they email me they address me as Dear NULL followed by my name, obviously when I signed up I had not bothered to put in my title - Dr - but they should have at least tested the effect of leaving optional fields blank on their marketing emails.

[Mr Poppy]

Apr 27, 2023 10:40:21 GMT thylacine said:

Apr 27, 2023 10:03:59 GMT Dave said:

The various Trevs seem to be intent on making this place a weird, unreadable mess. I do hope that no more good posters leave here. I think that’s what all those Trevs would want, so I think if only to annoy them, the rest of us should hang around. It would be a shame if we gave up on it because of people with their own, obvious agendas.

I totally agree Dave but I think it should also be recognised that the stand that Jayblanc and Sotonsaint made was honourable and we should recognise their right to make it.
Going forward I think that some posters are keen to exploit fault lines already existing to, as the fat controller might say " cause confusion and delay ".I suppose all we can do is be alert to that manipulation, report and see what Mark decides. It can't be easy being responsible and maintaining balance for a forum where there are so many strong willed participants.

I appreciate some people seem to feel the need to make stuff up (and break rule #2 in the General Rules) but to answer the strange fixation that several people seem to have with me then:

1/ There is only one 'Trev' who posts on UKPR2. A long time ago on UKPR some people did use my account but that stopped a long time ago. I 'play along' with the 'collective' thing as I do have friends in the Real World, as I expect many other people do. People can call me Trevs if that makes them feel better but quite clearly another word starting with 't' would be an example of 'trolling' - although it's unclear if there is any moderation being undertaken to deal with the repeat trolling. 

2/ Why would I be intent on 'destroying' UKPR2 (an earlier comment from one person) or "making this place a weird, unreadable mess"?
Many of the "Issue Specific" threads were set-up by myself to help make the main thread more readable - although, not everyone uses them. Perhaps if people focused on polling and 'general issues' rather than 'cajoling' (bullying) posts where the only content is a reference to me then this place would be less weird and more readable. 

Of course if people have nothing better to do than feel the need to make stuff about me then this place is likely to stay weird and less readable - which would probably mean less people bother to read/post here, few if any new people join.

Might I suggest that people 'move on' from their petty personal vendettas and just engage in constructive discussion - which was the intention when Mark set this site up.

Each person can of course choose who they engage in discussion with and who they don't; which posts they read and which ones they don't. However, if someone wants to add up all the posts on this new thread that mention nothing other than a direct/indirect comment about me then IMO that would quite clearly show where the problem is. 

[Mr Poppy]

R&W were perhaps correct to identify "Raabgate" as an event in their weekly VI tracker as it stands out as the main thing people noticed in w/ending 23April

Reeves makes some ground up on Hunt but is still behind:

and on priorities/missions (when asked as an 'open question' rather than a 'Most Important Issues' tracker??) then

PS Quite a lot of 'cake and eat it' when you ask people for priorities. EG high priority for: funding public services; addressing national debt; reducing taxes and reducing spending. Maybe not that helpful a question to ask - giving choices would perhaps be better

[wb61]

Apr 27, 2023 10:56:21 GMT colin said:

Apr 27, 2023 10:17:32 GMT wb61 said:

Sorry, I was trying to be at least a little amusing (I am no good at humour so I should avoid trying to be), I was referring to two famous quotes:


Benjamin Disraeli said "There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics" and Andrew Lang said “He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts... for support rather than illumination.” I thought both were well known enough not to give chapter and verse.

Ah. I see. What was a " lie" in the statistics sources I drew to your attention. ?

DOH! Don't be such a pedant, I did refer to humour, you obviously lack it as much as I do!

[oldnat]

Were the Athenians and the Romans actually more litigious than folk in other states? Perhaps that reputation is more derived from the obsession with the Classical World that so dominated the thinking of the European elite? The texts of the speeches of Athenian orators in legal cases have survived, but there are few texts of the laws of Athens and no evidence that Athens developed a juristic approach, as Rome did.

In many other states, there were codes of law, and historians are beginning to find the remaining evidence of individuals at many levels of society involved in litigation.

[Mr Poppy]

R&W also have their weekly 'thought bubble' updates for Rishi and Starmer that people can find on the twitter feed. However, this below finding likely explains the 'reversal' in VI as approval ratings on the three top issues all reverse back into deeper -ve territory

[wb61]

Apr 27, 2023 11:15:00 GMT oldnat said:

In many other states, there were codes of law, and historians are beginning to find the remaining evidence of individuals at many levels of society involved in litigation.

It is an obvious step for a complex state to develop a means for individuals to resolve disputes otherwise self-help ensues which as Terry Pratchett has it with regard to neighbour disputes:


"Of course, if your few strict words didn't work and Mr Smith subsequently clambered over the disputed hedge and stabbed Mr Jones to death with a pair of gardening shears, then you had a different job, sorting out the notorious Hedge Argument Murder."

[Mr Poppy]

Labour’s former Kensington MP Emma Dent Coad quits party calling it ‘unrecognisable’
www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/labour-mp-emma-dent-coad-quits-party-keir-starmer-kensington-london-b1077210.html#

[neilj]

Clueless, absolutely clueless

[domjg]

Apr 27, 2023 10:54:56 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

Apr 27, 2023 6:46:14 GMT steve said:

I've included a section from a recent email to lib dem activists and candidates the entire email is several pages long and wouldn't really be relevant here but I thought the extract might be of some interest to people here as an analysis of the issues raised at the local elections by the electorate and some insights into potential impacts at the general election.

Hi steve , thanks for posting this, I for one found it interesting.

Part of it touches on the crucial question of Tory economic competence. The assumption that inflation will fall dramatically and consequently the Tory's will see a revival in their polling fortunes I think is worthy of debate. Over the past few months on this site there has been a lot of analysis/comment around whether we are facing a '97 or '10 GE type scenario. Whether Brown's detractors like it not, he and Darling actually did a good job in mitigating the impact of the Credit Crunch and financial crisis; however, the Tories and LD's (remember it was a LD minister who unsportingly shared the note) successfully managed to embed a narrative of blame on the government and managed to secure a longer term hit on Labour's economic competence.

I think the jury is still out on the extent to which Tory economic competence has taken a fatal blow from the Truss fiasco and inflation/cost of living issues. For the former they are fully to blame, for the latter the extent to which voters pin the blame on them (they have been in power for 13 years, drove Brexit which has clearly been economically damaging etc, but as with the financial crisis, there are genuinely significant exogenous factors at work) will probably be driven by the extent to which people feel better off over the next 18months.  Many will be starting to make up their minds now (my politics lecturer was always keen on the concept that a key indicator of VI was how people viewed their own economic/financial prospects for the next 12-18 months). I'm sceptical that the government has enough time to turn the dial on this before the next GE. There are some structural issues in the UK economy that are acting as a break on the govt's ability to create a 'feel good' factor in the build up to the next GE, and I don't think the electorate has such a short memory that the experience of the last 12-18 month's will be forgotten.

I do think the probability of jimjam scenario of Sunak doing a Brown and denying Starmer an OM is now more likely, but still err on the side of Labour achieving an OM. I think they will do relatively well in Scotland and largely clean up on in the Red-Wall and take most of the remaining Tory seats in metro areas such as London, and win some of the seats in larger Towns such as Northampton 

Thanks @lululemonmustdobetter for the thoughtful post. "Exogenous", like it. Will try to introduce it into conversation

[lululemonmustdobetter]

Apr 27, 2023 11:39:20 GMT domjg said:

Apr 27, 2023 10:54:56 GMT lululemonmustdobetter said:

Thanks @lululemonmustdobetter for the thoughtful post. "Exogenous", like it. Will try to introduce it into conversation

Your welcome domjg. I picked it up when I was studying IPE - who says there aren't benefits to a university education. I try and slip it in when I can.

Sorry to see posters such as Jayblanc, SoSaint and Crofty go - hopefully they will drift back when election time comes. 

[Dave]

Apr 27, 2023 10:40:21 GMT thylacine said:

Apr 27, 2023 10:03:59 GMT Dave said:

The various Trevs seem to be intent on making this place a weird, unreadable mess. I do hope that no more good posters leave here. I think that’s what all those Trevs would want, so I think if only to annoy them, the rest of us should hang around. It would be a shame if we gave up on it because of people with their own, obvious agendas.

I totally agree Dave but I think it should also be recognised that the stand that Jayblanc and Sotonsaint made was honourable and we should recognise their right to make it.
Going forward I think that some posters are keen to exploit fault lines already existing to, as the fat controller might say " cause confusion and delay ".I suppose all we can do is be alert to that manipulation, report and see what Mark decides. It can't be easy being responsible and maintaining balance for a forum where there are so many strong willed participants.

Absolutely. JayBlanc and Sotonsaint made honourable, justifiable decisions (not that they need to justify them to the rest of us) Unfortunately, they are decisions that I think that the likes of Trevor will be happy with and personally, I’d never want to make any of the Trevs happy. 🙂

I can see why they weren’t happy but Mark has such a hard job on here. Imagine living your life and coming on here, a site that wouldn’t exist without him, and have to deal with some of this stuff and people making demands of him and his time. That’s a tough gig, where as we’re seeing he can’t make everyone happy.

Mark - just to say, you’re appreciated bud.

[pjw1961]

Steve - I'm immensely impressed that the Lib Dems know their activists have knocked on exactly 805,342 doors! I couldn't even tell you how many I've knocked on.

Btw - agree with a lot pf the content of that post. In Braintree, the Tories are running as "Local Conservatives" and their leaflets avoid mentioning anything national - which is not the case when things are going well.

[Mr Poppy]

Midwives in England vote to accept NHS pay offer
www.theguardian.com/society/2023/apr/26/midwives-in-england-vote-to-accept-nhs-pay-offer

However, the bigger news will be CON HMG potentially shooting themselves in the foot with a minor victory* that will likely only incentivise the nurses to vote for more strikes. Polling has consistently shown 'solidarity' with the nurses**

* 

** Pretty sure there is more recent polling but IIRC opinion hasn't changed much:

[Mr Poppy]

Dr.Bunting and Prof.Thrasher with a Sky piece on the LEs. The 'symbolic' element being:

"Labour could, and arguably should, finally become the largest party of local government, a position it hasn't held for more than 20 years."

Which would almost certainly be the case if CON lost 1,000+ councillors (which is the 'expectations management' number they've been stating), but less likely if "For the Conservatives losing fewer than 500 seats (net) might leave them feeling relatively unscathed". My guess is somewhere between 500-1,000 which is a broad range so hardly sticking my neck out. 

The article includes lots of specific key battlegrounds across the country.

Local elections 2023: What to expect and how to judge who's won
news.sky.com/story/local-elections-2023-what-to-expect-and-how-to-judge-whos-won-12864961

[alurqa]

Apr 27, 2023 12:22:20 GMT Dave said:

Mark - just to say, you’re appreciated bud.

To be fair to Mark he did us all a favour when AW shut his site down, and gave us all somewhere else to congregate. For that then yes, indeed a big thank you. But we are all adults, FFS. I suspect I'm not alone in saying it is pretty clear when a line is crossed -- although there is always a tendency to view everyone else as having the same view as oneself, so maybe it isn't clear.

I can understand Mark's reluctance to sanction anyone, as politics is a dirty game, often played by some unscrupilous and dispicable people. I for one, never read Trevor's posts. I just know the bile he will put in them, so I simply skip over them. I'm not worried about what I'm missing. And Mercian's posts can also be well below the belt, but to me he just reflects the sort of views I hear when I go to the pub. An appalling indictment of modern Britain, in my view, but there you go. We are all adults, and can choose what we want to read.

Variety is the spice of life, even if some of those spices taste shit.

[Mr Poppy]

IMO it would be foolish for LAB to change Westminster's voting system given they can win an OM via FPTP. I'm not sure about the credibility of the source but bad news for LDEM (and majority of LAB members according to polling) if Starmer has changed his mind on yet another issue that many UKPR2 folks think is important.

[pjw1961]

Apr 27, 2023 7:16:20 GMT wb61 said:

John Curtice always worth a read:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-65387801

If Curtice is correct (i.e. a 4.5% swing from Con to Lab and standstill for the rest) the 2019 Braintree result of Con 34, Green/Ind 9, Halsted Residents 4, Lab 2 would become Con 30 (-4), Green/Ind 8 (-1), Lab 7 (+5), Halsted Res 4.  

I have been saying I expect the Conservatives to retain their majority. Hope for a better result lies mainly in the fact that whatever the position was nationally the 2019 election in these parts was a very bad one for Labour. 

[domjg]

As others talk about the negative effect Trev has had on the board Trev himself carries on blindly putting up large, attention grabbing posts apparently oblivious to the rest of us. He appears to be trying to neutralise the board by turning it into his own blog.