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Post by alec on May 12, 2023 15:18:58 GMT
Talking of getting over it, Sunak's poll boost didn't seem to last that long.
There is a certain desperation about Conservative supporters, as there always is for any party deep in the electoral mire, so some frantic straw clutching is understandable. Everyone is looking for patterns - historic records, swingback, correlations between economic factors and political survival etc, but I sense this time the problem is fundamentally about the government itself.
When things go quiet - pre-local elections - there is some recovery of lost ground in the polls, albeit pretty marginal, but as soon as the government has to get beck to the business of governing, the situation slides again. That, I think, should tell us something.
They basically have no ideas what to do, how to fix their own mess, where to take us as a country; so when they have to show us what they've got, the voters see a bare cupboard, and react accordingly. Sunak's pledges were terribly weak for a government in power for thirteen years, but even these are coming under pressure. He's already failed on the waiting lists target and failure on immigration also now seems likely, and it's a poor look.
I get the feeling that we're in the waiting room for a new arrival. It's going to take longer than anyone wants, but I suspect the next GE will be worse for Conservatives than they currently anticipate.
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2023 15:19:17 GMT
Its called Old Age graham Get over it. And think yourself lucky-you are young enough to have the prospect of life under another Conservative Government ! What chance have I got ?  A Conservative Government headed by Keir Starmer perhaps! Seriously though, I just can't 'get over it.' The closest I get to doing so is by taking myself back 49 years and 2 months to March 1974 - and then repeat that exercise from that date. That takes us back to the beginning of 1925 - and I am able to accept that such a date did seem very distant by early 1974 in that my parents were not born until the late 1920s.
Ha Ha Ha !  RE Old Age-roll with it graham Your not going to stop it-and it has its upsides  |
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2023 15:24:57 GMT
"Its called Old Age graham Get over it." I see our colin has rediscovered his sensitive side. He should think of a second career as a therapist. Worrying about ageing is the most futile of pastimes. .....Particularly on this forum where Old People are told that they are the cause of everything bad in this country. Haven't noticed you pleading for sensitivity on our behalf before. |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2023 15:26:38 GMT
Fascinating - www.theguardian.com/society/2023/may/12/call-for-psychosis-treatment-overhaul-after-evidence-of-autoimmune-triggerDiscovering a connection between psychosis and autoimmune responses isn't too much of a surprise to those of us paying attention to the findings of covid research, where links have been observed between the development particularly of anxiety, along with a range of other psychotic mental conditions post covid infection. Indeed, this case study just out involves the case of sexually deviant behaviour after neurological symptoms brought on by covid infection - onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/npr2.12343I suspect we'll see a hefty rise in a variety of mental health conditions in the years ahead, as indeed is already happening, and in due course, research like this will enable us to understand the causal pathways between viral infection, autoimmune response and mental health breakdowns. |
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Post by graham on May 12, 2023 15:31:41 GMT
A Conservative Government headed by Keir Starmer perhaps! Seriously though, I just can't 'get over it.' The closest I get to doing so is by taking myself back 49 years and 2 months to March 1974 - and then repeat that exercise from that date. That takes us back to the beginning of 1925 - and I am able to accept that such a date did seem very distant by early 1974 in that my parents were not born until the late 1920s.
Ha Ha Ha ! RE Old Age-roll with it graham Your not going to stop it-and it has its upsides To be serious though , my experience of the last 48 hours has probably simply crystalised how I have been feeling more generally. Increasingly I have become aware that so many with whom I have shared life experiences have passed away - whether family - friends - former work colleagues - those I canvassed with in the 80s and 90s - people from church in the 90s and 2000s - even people in pubs etc. It leads to a feeling of 'being left behind' - and has reached the point where I will be content for the next GE to be my last. |
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Post by leftieliberal on May 12, 2023 15:52:01 GMT
I have made myself feel quite unwell over the last 48 hours. It is entirely my own fault , and oddly enough arises from my being blessed - or cursed - with a very good memory. I shall be 69 in early July , and have calculated that my current age - 68 years and 10 months - was the normal male life expectancy in the UK in Feb/March 1974. I was then in the latter part of my first year at University and it coincided with the General Election called by Ted Heath for 28th February that year. I have just watched some 18 hours of the BBC Election Results programme. At one level I should enjoy this , but I keep being faced with the reality that - David Dimbleby excepted - every person appearing on the screen is now deceased. That applies to the politicians - the broadcasters and the journalists giving commentaries and analysis. It really has tipped me into quite a deep depression - and have had to seek Diazepam support. On the second day the declaration at Finchley was included as a 49 year old Margaret Thatcher was re-elected. It struck me that this was less than a year before she became the Tory leader in February 1975 - though there was no suggestion at all on the programme of that being a likely prospect despite some questions being raised as to Heath's long term survival as leader. I somehow just cannot accept that these events - the February 74 election and Thatcher's ascent to the Leadership less than a year later - are more than 'just a few years ago.' You can make yourself feel better by looking at the National Life Tables produced by the Government www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/datasets/nationallifetablesenglandreferencetables(obviously Covid will make things worse for the next three-year tables). As a 69 year-old your median life expectancy (that's the length of time exceeded by 50% of the population of 69 year-old males in England) is another 15.62 years, so you have a better than evens chance of being able to vote in another three General Elections. I'm just over 75 and I have a median life expectancy of 11.40 years so I need to be lucky to have three General Elections left, but should manage another two. My first vote was in the 1970 General Election (in those days the voting age was still 21). |
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Post by graham on May 12, 2023 16:03:39 GMT
I have made myself feel quite unwell over the last 48 hours. It is entirely my own fault , and oddly enough arises from my being blessed - or cursed - with a very good memory. I shall be 69 in early July , and have calculated that my current age - 68 years and 10 months - was the normal male life expectancy in the UK in Feb/March 1974. I was then in the latter part of my first year at University and it coincided with the General Election called by Ted Heath for 28th February that year. I have just watched some 18 hours of the BBC Election Results programme. At one level I should enjoy this , but I keep being faced with the reality that - David Dimbleby excepted - every person appearing on the screen is now deceased. That applies to the politicians - the broadcasters and the journalists giving commentaries and analysis. It really has tipped me into quite a deep depression - and have had to seek Diazepam support. On the second day the declaration at Finchley was included as a 49 year old Margaret Thatcher was re-elected. It struck me that this was less than a year before she became the Tory leader in February 1975 - though there was no suggestion at all on the programme of that being a likely prospect despite some questions being raised as to Heath's long term survival as leader. I somehow just cannot accept that these events - the February 74 election and Thatcher's ascent to the Leadership less than a year later - are more than 'just a few years ago.' You can make yourself feel better by looking at the National Life Tables produced by the Government www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/datasets/nationallifetablesenglandreferencetables(obviously Covid will make things worse for the next three-year tables). As a 69 year-old your median life expectancy (that's the length of time exceeded by 50% of the population of 69 year-old males in England) is another 15.62 years, so you have a better than evens chance of being able to vote in another three General Elections. I'm just over 75 and I have a median life expectancy of 11.40 years so I need to be lucky to have three General Elections left, but should manage another two. My first vote was in the 1970 General Election (in those days the voting age was still 21). 1970 was actually the first General Election at which 18 year olds were able to vote. Two other changes occurred that year in that Polling Day was extended to 10 pm from 9 pm and for the first time the party affiliation of candidates was shown on ballot papers. |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 12, 2023 16:15:55 GMT
Starmer was commenting on the net migration figures, not the "irregular" element. And no serious LoC party, not even the Greens, favours uncontrolled migration - that is just a RoC smear for electoral purposes, so no problem there. The difference is whether you favour a humane and effective immigration policy or 'performance politics' like the ridiculous Rwanda scheme. Recruiting some Border Force officers and boosting the asylum claims processing function - both slashed in the Tory cuts - would be a good place to start. |
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Post by Mark on May 12, 2023 16:19:06 GMT
Reaction to the current government...
There is anger there, but, not quite the very palatable anger that was in the air in the mid-90's before Blair's landslide.
Back then, it was almost tangeable....and the few tories that were still supporting their party were very shy tories. Almost nobody admitted it publicly.
Today, yes, there is anger there, but, not to the same extent. Instead - and this may actually be worse for the government - there is a sense that the government is totally inept.
Even a fair few of those that agree with the government's aims and policies see them as useless.
On programmes such as Question Time, they're not shouting at the government ministers as they were in the 90's...they're laughing at them.
I cannot see how this - or indeed any - government can counter that.
As for the opposition, they've got a straight black on it's spot as frame ball....but, even from here, some fear they could miss...
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Post by wb61 on May 12, 2023 16:22:27 GMT
grahamMy friend says getting older is much better than the alternative. Cheers me up to think on that 😁
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Post by wb61 on May 12, 2023 16:23:52 GMT
By the way you're only 6 years older than me and I feel like I am just reaching my prime
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Post by leftieliberal on May 12, 2023 16:33:27 GMT
You can make yourself feel better by looking at the National Life Tables produced by the Government www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/lifeexpectancies/datasets/nationallifetablesenglandreferencetables(obviously Covid will make things worse for the next three-year tables). As a 69 year-old your median life expectancy (that's the length of time exceeded by 50% of the population of 69 year-old males in England) is another 15.62 years, so you have a better than evens chance of being able to vote in another three General Elections. I'm just over 75 and I have a median life expectancy of 11.40 years so I need to be lucky to have three General Elections left, but should manage another two. My first vote was in the 1970 General Election (in those days the voting age was still 21). 1970 was actually the first General Election at which 18 year olds were able to vote. Two other changes occurred that year in that Polling Day was extended to 10 pm from 9 pm and for the first time the party affiliation of candidates was shown on ballot papers. I forgot when that change came in, I associated it with the Wilson Government after the 1974 election not the Wilson Government after the 1966 election. |
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Post by Deleted on May 12, 2023 17:18:58 GMT
Reaction to the current government... There is anger there, but, not quite the very palatable anger that was in the air in the mid-90's before Blair's landslide. Back then, it was almost tangeable....and the few tories that were still supporting their party were very shy tories. Almost nobody admitted it publicly. Today, yes, there is anger there, but, not to the same extent. Instead - and this may actually be worse for the government - there is a sense that the government is totally inept. Even a fair few of those that agree with the government's aims and policies see them as useless. On programmes such as Question Time, they're not shouting at the government ministers as they were in the 90's...they're laughing at them. I cannot see how this - or indeed any - government can counter that. As for the opposition, they've got a straight black on it's spot as frame ball....but, even from here, some fear they could miss... This was certainly noticeable last night when the hapless Tory panellist, Helen Whately, tried to big up the local Tory MP, Huw Merriman, with some sychophantic tosh and was met with howls of laughter from the audience. The programme came from Bexhill-on-Sea, which has a fairly large elderly population as part of its demographic. In fact, some wag in the audience observed that Eastbourne is full of old people, and their parents live in Bexhill. |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2023 17:20:00 GMT
I think Mark has it about right. It's quite hard to get vocally angry with a clown, and that's kind of what we've got. |
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pjw1961
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Post by pjw1961 on May 12, 2023 17:28:29 GMT
I was mooching about on 538 looking at the current US polling and discovered this item - polling on the individual popularity of members of our royal family among Americans and Brits. I suspect our properly subservient broadcasters and press don't encourage we plebs to see this sort of thing, but our ex-colonies hare always been rebellious of course! Anyway, it seems the King and Queen are not personally very popular - ranking only above Andrew (a very low bar) in the US and Andrew, Meghan and Harry in the UK. fivethirtyeight.com/features/whos-excited-for-the-coronation-of-king-charles/ |
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Post by barbara on May 12, 2023 17:37:55 GMT
Ha Ha Ha ! RE Old Age-roll with it graham Your not going to stop it-and it has its upsides To be serious though , my experience of the last 48 hours has probably simply crystalised how I have been feeling more generally. Increasingly I have become aware that so many with whom I have shared life experiences have passed away - whether family - friends - former work colleagues - those I canvassed with in the 80s and 90s - people from church in the 90s and 2000s - even people in pubs etc. It leads to a feeling of 'being left behind' - and has reached the point where I will be content for the next GE to be my last. I'm the opposite. Since I retired 12 years ago I've become slimmer, fitter, healthier, more motivated and fulfilled and much happier with really good relationships with close friends. My aim is to live till I'm 100, still enjoying life and still dancing. We have several 90 plus people at our weekly dances, still fit and healthy and enjoying life to the full. The past is gone, the secret is to look forward not back and enjoy what can be the best years of your life. I'm 70 in September and if I die next year I'll still have had an amazing life and a fantastic retirement. |
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Post by James E on May 12, 2023 17:53:11 GMT
Omnisus, wow [ Lab 51% (+3), Con 24% (-3) ] Meanwhile, in this satirical parody known as the Daily Telegraph... "Rishi Sunak is the unexpected winner from last week elections. The spectre of a Labour coalition of choas...will terrify voters." /photo/1 |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 12, 2023 17:53:18 GMT
When do we expect crossover...
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 12, 2023 17:57:11 GMT
Say's it how it is, atleast some tories are realists
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Post by graham on May 12, 2023 18:06:21 GMT
To be serious though , my experience of the last 48 hours has probably simply crystalised how I have been feeling more generally. Increasingly I have become aware that so many with whom I have shared life experiences have passed away - whether family - friends - former work colleagues - those I canvassed with in the 80s and 90s - people from church in the 90s and 2000s - even people in pubs etc. It leads to a feeling of 'being left behind' - and has reached the point where I will be content for the next GE to be my last. I'm the opposite. Since I retired 12 years ago I've become slimmer, fitter, healthier, more motivated and fulfilled and much happier with really good relationships with close friends. My aim is to live till I'm 100, still enjoying life and still dancing. We have several 90 plus people at our weekly dances, still fit and healthy and enjoying life to the full. The past is gone, the secret is to look forward not back and enjoy what can be the best years of your life. I'm 70 in September and if I die next year I'll still have had an amazing life and a fantastic retirement. That is fair enough - and at the end of the day it does rather depend on one's personal mindset. I have always tended to look to the past and remain very aware of so many who are no longer here. The Feb 1974 Election programme really did bring it home to me - even though the people appearing were not personally known to me. I have never had any ambition to live to 100 or indeed an age close to that. When still in my 50s I recall saying that faced with having to depart this world at 60 or 100 - with no intermediate options available - I would unhesitatingly choose the 60 option. I am now just over a year off 70 and still have no wish to suffer the frailties and infirmity often associated with advanced old age. There is also a spiritual dimension to my perspective in that I do not share the physical materialist views of those who believe that 'This is it!'. Increasingly I find myself more focussed on 'the next world' rather than the physical world in which I currently live.
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Post by alec on May 12, 2023 18:19:45 GMT
More reports coming in in the last couple of hours of Russian withdrawals in and around Bakhmut. Scale not yet clear.
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Post by leftieliberal on May 12, 2023 18:23:14 GMT
I was mooching about on 538 looking at the current US polling and discovered this item - polling on the individual popularity of members of our royal family among Americans and Brits. I suspect our properly subservient broadcasters and press don't encourage we plebs to see this sort of thing, but our ex-colonies hare always been rebellious of course! Anyway, it seems the King and Queen are not personally very popular - ranking only above Andrew (a very low bar) in the US and Andrew, Meghan and Harry in the UK. fivethirtyeight.com/features/whos-excited-for-the-coronation-of-king-charles/ There are politicians who would kill for Charles' net >+30% approval rating in the UK. One of them is in 10 Downing Street. Interesting also that only 15% of Americans wanted an end to the monarchy. Personally, I wouldn't want to see William and Kate crowned too soon, they should really have time as a family to bring up their kids before becoming King and Queen. It was very evident how much Charles suffered from his mother becoming Queen when he was still a small child - in 21st Century terms his treatment would probably be called child abuse although no-one thought there was anything wrong with it then (I blame his father). |
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neilj
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Post by neilj on May 12, 2023 18:50:56 GMT
More ftom Omnisis, a healthy majority want to rejoin the EU
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domjg
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Post by domjg on May 12, 2023 19:04:25 GMT
Omnisus, wow [ Lab 51% (+3), Con 24% (-3) ] Meanwhile, in satirical parody known as the Daily Telegraph... /photo/1 "Rishi Sunak is the unexpected winner from last week elections. The spectre of a Labour coalition of choas...will terrify voters." Utterly extraordinary desperation and reality estrangement. No combination of opposition parties in govt, no matter how hard they tried could give us the level of chaos, hubris, incompetence, cynicism and disintegration that game playing Tories have these last thirteen years. |
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 12, 2023 19:09:40 GMT
James E/pjw - tbc of course but the LD uplift doesn't seem to have lasted long. Isn't it funny how only when voters are forced to stop and think and actually toddle along to the polling station that they suddenly start supporting the LDs? This is another reason I don’t vote |
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Post by alec on May 12, 2023 19:13:03 GMT
domjg - looks like a refrain of the classic 1980s comedy sketch 'second place in a by election', from (I think?) Not the Nine O'Clock News.
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c-a-r-f-r-e-w
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 12, 2023 19:27:32 GMT
They basically have no ideas what to do, how to fix their own mess, where to take us as a country; so when they have to show us what they've got, the voters see a bare cupboard, and react accordingly. It’s what happens when the basic view - inculcated by Thatch and pursued by governments since - is that government/state isn’t a good thing and that we should leave things more and more to the market. This lack of interest in what the state can do means that as the limitations of leaving things more and more to the market become ever more apparent, they therefore don’t have a lot of ideas for what to do instead. They wind up copying a few ideas, but little is transformative. Discovering - yet again - that just leaving things to the market (esp. regarding essentials) is baloney, they had the supermarket heads in the other day to ask them about food price inflation. As a government they should be doing rather more than just leaving it to the supermarkets but they make a chocolate fireguard seem really quite useful in comparison. Not that I am aware of the response from other parties. Does anyone know what the Labour/LD policies are regarding food inflation etc.? P.s. on the plus side, although the move left is slow going, at least they renationalised the Transpennine Express, or “Distress” as I like to call it. |
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Post by c-a-r-f-r-e-w on May 12, 2023 19:40:02 GMT
I have made myself feel quite unwell over the last 48 hours. It is entirely my own fault , and oddly enough arises from my being blessed - or cursed - with a very good memory. I shall be 69 in early July , and have calculated that my current age - 68 years and 10 months - was the normal male life expectancy in the UK in Feb/March 1974. I was then in the latter part of my first year at University and it coincided with the General Election called by Ted Heath for 28th February that year. I have just watched some 18 hours of the BBC Election Results programme. At one level I should enjoy this , but I keep being faced with the reality that - David Dimbleby excepted - every person appearing on the screen is now deceased. That applies to the politicians - the broadcasters and the journalists giving commentaries and analysis. It really has tipped me into quite a deep depression - and have had to seek Diazepam support. On the second day the declaration at Finchley was included as a 49 year old Margaret Thatcher was re-elected. It struck me that this was less than a year before she became the Tory leader in February 1975 - though there was no suggestion at all on the programme of that being a likely prospect despite some questions being raised as to Heath's long term survival as leader. I somehow just cannot accept that these events - the February 74 election and Thatcher's ascent to the Leadership less than a year later - are more than 'just a few years ago.' Looking back at the past can be depressing at times, but a benefit is that you can learn a lot from it. I try and do it with that in mind. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 12, 2023 19:56:22 GMT
A lot of people conflate 'legal immigration' (eg Students, Ukraine, HK, etc) with 'illegal' (or 'irregular' as they sometimes call it in Brussels) - perhaps you are one such person? Certainly government does. However the Brexit promises were simple -to reduce immigration. What it has delivered is to double immigration, and most of it by government invitation with a visa. That seems to be in doubt. There seems to be some confusion in the article you mention between 'inflation coming down' and 'prices coming down. The first absolutely does not guarantee the second. or, of course, Brexit means there are real extra price rises in the Uk which germany will not get. A commentator was saying the problem for the Bof E was to get the balance right between too much interest rises causing a recession, and too little allowing inflation to persist. The evidence from the Thatcher era was that indeed we got both inflation and recession at the same time. I saw no evidence high interest halted inflation, rather it followed it to try to maintain the value of cash deposits. Another reporter foolishly said that at least higher interest was good news for depositors, missing entirely the problem that inflation has risen way ahead of interest, so the net result is devaluation of cash held. and then of course, the main reason for the Uk to raise interest rates is that the pound and investment in sterling generally are locked to the relative difference in rates between the UK and foreign competitors for investment, principally the US. So the main reason we increased interest was to match what the US had done. This is not what is normally said, but some bankers have stuck their heads above the papapet and said so. My crystal ball says that a few years ago we had some historically low energy prices. We will not be going back to this what with energy policy as it is. So base inflation may fall, but feed though inflation is going strong, fuelled as it has been by 10 years of government austerity preceding the current crisis. Indeed, everyone has had enough and think con must go. The tide has finally turned and even brexiteers are deserting con. Why? Most of the price of food in shops is added costs, not the raw cost of the basic ingredients where produced. |
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Danny
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Post by Danny on May 12, 2023 20:10:40 GMT
James E/pjw - tbc of course but the LD uplift doesn't seem to have lasted long. Isn't it funny how only when voters are forced to stop and think and actually toddle along to the polling station that they suddenly start supporting the LDs? Except of course an opinion poll is not at all the same as a real vote. An opinion poll tries to mirror what voters would do by a process of reasoning, luck and what worked last time, using an utterly inadequate sample statistically. There is huge scope to go horribly wrong when it starts to get messy with more than two parties or cross party issues like Brexit (winding up or now winding down). Thats one reason trends are valued more than exact numbers.Trending badly for government. |
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