18-OCT 2023 : LAB 44% / CON 28% / LDM 9% / REF 7%

[lens]

Dec 12, 2023 13:27:44 GMT alec said:

c-a-r-f-r-e-w /crossbat11 - odd reporting indeed on that poll.

While 48% were "somewhat or strongly against face mask rules on public transport", 45% were strongly (16%) or somewhat (29%) in favour, so it's evenly balanced. I'm actually gobsmacked that 20% would agree with closing restaurants and 13% shutting nightclubs.

But it is heartening to see so many still showing concern for themselves and those around them, when we are repeatedly told we've moved on.

I go back to the wording of the question - "......whether they would back or oppose the Government reintroducing restrictions if the country’s health situation demanded it."

I'd say "yes" to that if "the health situation" became akin to 2020 - but at the moment, no. Not out of lack of concern, but because the situation at the moment just doesn't justify it. It's a question of being proportionate.

As for the percentages favouring closing restaurants and nightclubs, then frankly I would have expected far more. For the many people who rarely go to restaurants (let alone nightclubs) any such closure is a no-lose situation for them. Yeah - close them, no hardship to me, and if it even brings the minutest benefit to me, I couldn't care less about lost jobs and businesses for others.

[alec]

lens - not sure if that was the actual wording. This says 'at the current time' -

Millenials and red wall voters more likely to back restrictions, which doesn't surprise me too much, as these are the groups getting infected more often and with worse outcomes.

I suspect there is something of a disconnect here. The prevailing wisdom is that we're over covid, but being out and about in my mask, I'm picking up a subtle shift in sentiment. Whereas I used to get disparaging looks, people asking me 'are you ill', and other people kindly telling me 'it's just a cold' etc, over the last month or so that has completely stopped. I'm increasingly being asked 'do you think it's serious', 'I've heard about the new variant', 'my husband had it recently and it was awful' etc etc. and getting into genuine conversations about it, with a lot of hacked off people.

[lens]

Dec 12, 2023 16:52:58 GMT alec said:

lens - not sure if that was the actual wording. This says 'at the current time' - ..........

I was quoting from carfrews original post (top of page 128), which gives the asked question as : “The polling asked adults whether they would back or oppose the Government reintroducing restrictions if the country’s health situation demanded it"

Anybody got a link to the actual poll?

Could it be as simple as that's what people NOW think should be the case *IF* the situation worsened and "the health situation demanded it?"

Certainly I've been in a very large department store much of today, and only saw the occasional mask all day. About to get the tube in central London, so let's see roughly what the situation is there.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Dec 12, 2023 17:16:49 GMT lens said:

Dec 12, 2023 16:52:58 GMT alec said:

lens - not sure if that was the actual wording. This says 'at the current time' - ..........

I was quoting from carfrews original post (top of page 128), which gives the asked question as : “The polling asked adults whether they would back or oppose the Government reintroducing restrictions if the country’s health situation demanded it"

Anybody got a link to the actual poll?

Could it be as simple as that's what people NOW think should be the case *IF* the situation worsened and "the health situation demanded it?"

Certainly I've been in a very large department store much of today, and only saw the occasional mask all day. About to get the tube in central London, so let's see roughly what the situation is there.

I think this is it?

www.moreincommon.org.uk/media/31kfnjxi/mic-covid-restrictions-polling.xlsx

the question wording is: “Currently, there are no legal Covid-19 restrictions in place in the UK. Thinking of the current health situation in the UK, would you support or oppose the government re-introducing each of the following Covid-19 restrictions at the current time?”



(and here is an index of assorted polling by them including VI)

www.moreincommon.org.uk/our-work/polling-tables/

[Deleted]

“ James Daly (Con) says MPs should pass bills that reflect the concerns of their constituents, not ones that appeal to middle-class liberal consciences. “


“Humpf!” as an older William Brown might well have snorted, derisively, over his morning newspaper:

“It’s jolly well news to me if middle-class people with liberal consciences don’t bother voting.”

[Danny]

Dec 12, 2023 12:43:08 GMT athena said:

My most surprising realisation has been that constitutional reform, starting with a codified constitution is crucial to a lot of the political changes I consider most important. In the context of climate policy and environmental protections it's horrifying that any government that can muster a simple majority in the HoC can unpick legislation with long-term objectives enacted by a previous government. When this extends to unpicking international obligations I worry that other countries may regard us as unreliable partners and hesitate to enter into agreements with us. The EU might feel friendly towards Starmer and optimistic about relations with the UK under a Starmer premiership, but it'll be looking over his shoulder at potential successors. I also want radical decentralisation and the creation of a federal UK. Not piecemeal, grace and favour devolution, where power is delegated by Westminster and ultimate control still rests with the centre, but formal, permanent decentralisation such that certain powers are exercised, as of right, by elected governments in the English regions, Scotland, Wales and NI (unless NI prefers to join the Irish Republic). I can't see how we get to that point without a codified constitution.

Germany had a codified constitution, which Hitler trampled underfoot. Ironically, so did Russia, which Putin tore up, and just how close is the US to doing the same? The US was created by the need to oppose Britain with a united front. There is no such existential threat any more to hold some very different states together. It nearly happened 150 years ago, but was held together by force. Ultimately, a written constitution is only as good as the will of the people now.

Having said that, I think it would be an excellent idea for Scoland and Wales to be handed back certain inalienable rights. The problem though with creating a fully feederal united kingdon, is that England massively dominates the others in every respect, and there is no logically sensible way to divide it into autonomous regions.

I made a point of following the recent Lab conference, on the basis that it would be a good guide to the platform on which the party will fight the next GE and the policy programme Starmer will present if elected. None of the individual policies were new, but the presentation and emphasis clarified for me what Starmer stands for much more than I expected. My first reaction to his big speech was that he sounded incredibly old-fashioned. He's offering 20th century strategies for improving social mobility because he simply doesn't get the urgency and magnitude of the climate and biodiversity crises and still thinks they can be relegated and be tackled within the current economic framework. As well as being fundamentally misguided, his approach is short-sighted even on its own terms, because climate catastrophe will of course hit the poorest individuals and communities hardest. His climate myopia is particularly depressing because he made a point of saying that his renewal project would take more than one electoral cycle.

There seems to be a trend of political parties shrinking to appeal to smaller and smaller blocks, because thats also what their opponents are doing. And the name of the game is merely to get an edge on your opponent, it doesnt really matter whetehr findamentally voters are pleased with you or hate you. The start of the 20th centuries was charcterised by crowned heads toppling all over Europe. The good thing about crowned heads, is that the king is the state, and the state is the king. Kings can be terrible, but fundamentally, if you ARE the state then you act to benefit the state. We flipped from this to elected governments, where monority blocks have now usurped the power of the state entirely for their own benefit. Our own monarch is a case in point. Utterly powerless. Useless. A king has to be able to exert power, even if it is limited. The US created a constitution where they sought to keep the position of king without the hereditary element. But this whole idea of deliberate tension forced upon governments to keep them honest seems to have vanished.

It saddens and puzzles me that on something as fundamental as sex-based rights I find myself divided from so many people that are normally on the same political side but this is going to be a dealbreaker issue for me. Half the population is female, we're female all our lives, we still live in a patriarchal society and too often our sex shapes (disfigures would probably be more a accurate term) our life experiences more than any of characteristics that we prefer to think of as central our identity, so I don't think I'm being unreasonable to expect a political party that wants my vote to recognise that sex matters.

Not sure from this what you are after. The two sexes are not equal, they have different outlooks. This would seem to reflect our history as a race. Women are weaker and need protection along with their children. If men were not territorial, it would evolutionarily propbably have led to them letting the women wander off and get eaten by lions. Technology has evened up all this, but the two groups still have different outlooks.

(To pre-empt the argument that polling suggests that sex-based rights are an important issue only for a small percentage of voters, I suspect this is partly because there's not much political choice. Voting Tory is not an option for most gender-critical feminists because, whilst the Tories are in a better position on sex-based rights, the party has a generally poor record on equality and women's issues - although May was responsible for some ground-breaking legislation on domestic abuse - and most of the openly sexist, misogynist MPs sit on its benches.)

I think the problem comes when men assert their own gender based right to be dominant in response to women asseting their right to be equal?

[jib]

You've got to hand it to this Starmer fella, he really knows when to put the boot in.

Will cause a lot of frothing for open borders friends though!


Attachment Deleted

[Danny]

Dec 12, 2023 13:27:44 GMT alec said:

One very odd observation however is where this is being reported; The Telegraph, the Express and GB News. A trio of right wing outlets all giving this coverage, while I can't find anything elsewhere. I have no idea what that means, but the headlines are odd too; GB News "Covid: Return of lockdown measures backed by extraordinary number of people ", Express "Fifth of Brits would be in favour of reintroducing Covid restrictions in the future", Telegraph "Fifth of British public would support reintroduction of Covid restrictions".

At the moment the government seems to be working hard to justify covid interventions, even though there is first a good chance lockdown was either neutral in terms of reducing deaths, or actively made matters worse. While the covid enquiry doesnt really seem to be even challenging the assertion by government that it was beneficial.

I'd like to see some polling on things like mandatory indoor air quality, making employers liable for infections at work, use of masks in healthcare settings, government support for investment in HEPA/UV filters, better sick pay, support for testing etc etc.

How about we concentrate on providing high quality housing for everyone before we start worrying about what the air is like?

By the by, for anyone interested, the study Alec recently mentioned extolling the benefits of masks has a big flaw. It never took account of how workers in hospitals would naturally catch covid and then become immune. It asserts introducing better masks cut case numbers, whereas they were already falling before they were introduced as immunity evolved post infection. This class of error has affected handling of the entire epidemic. At the outset no one seems to have believed it was possibly covid could arrive, pretty rapidly create immunity and then fade away. Its appalling how short sighted so-called expert epidemiologists seem to have been, with elementary mistakes.

[domjg]

Dec 12, 2023 18:02:20 GMT @fecklessmiser said:

“ James Daly (Con) says MPs should pass bills that reflect the concerns of their constituents, not ones that appeal to middle-class liberal consciences. “


“Humpf!” as an older William Brown might well have snorted, derisively, over his morning newspaper:

“It’s jolly well news to me if middle-class people with liberal consciences don’t bother voting.”

Lol what a fool. The loss of those middle class liberal votes is going to cost them a whole load of seats in their erstwhile south east strongholds and likely plunge them into an existential crisis the like of which they've never known.

[Danny]

Dec 12, 2023 13:29:18 GMT neilj said:

Raising the salience of immigration when you are doing so badly may not be the best strategy

This is not about winning an election. Its about an anti EU government, or at least one with a hard anti EU minority, which wants to use the time in office it still has to wreck the chances of the next government to reintegrate with the EU, which is what the Uk public wants. It would rather burn down the reichstag than allow it opponents to occupy it.

[Danny]

Dec 12, 2023 13:58:22 GMT mercian said:

pretending to have views different to your real ones to get into a TV programme is hardly criminal behaviour, and I just think that strongly politically motivated people might be tempted to play the system.

Perhaps the whole problem then is we regard robbery as more serious than political lies? When it really isnt.

[Danny]

Dec 12, 2023 16:52:58 GMT alec said:

and getting into genuine conversations about it, with a lot of hacked off people.

And well might they be hacked off, if all that disruption and cost didnt end covid! What was any of it for?

[athena]

Podcast recommendation:

Something's got to give. I thought this was a really interesting discussion between Dieter Helm (natural capital) and Diane Coyle (universal basic infrastructure) about sustainable economics, the intersection with politics and the problems created by democratic electoral cycles. They talk about what the next govt should do to create a sustainable economy, how likely that is and what happens if we don't address the problems.

[neilj]

Rwanda bill passed by 313 votes to 269 - majority of 44

[pjw1961]

Dec 12, 2023 19:32:00 GMT neilj said:

Rwanda bill passed by 313 votes to 269 - majority of 44

There was never the slightest doubt it would - the media coverage today has been pathetic in trying to whip up non-existent drama. However, the real fun starts now as various groupings try to amend it. 

[neilj]

24 tories abstained

Update: 38 tory MPs abstained

[pjw1961]

Meanwhile, the government's deliberately vicious policy toward asylum seekers claims its first victim. I imagine Braverman is delighted - the deterrent in action.

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/12/asylum-seeker-onboard-bibby-stockholm-barge-dies

[neilj]

Update: 38 tory MPs abstained or were absent/paired

[shevii]

To my mind there's a lot of justice in this for Sunak. Whatever your views on immigration this really wasn't a serious attempt to solve immigration numbers and only in the sense of a "hostile environment" would it be likely to keep asylum seekers away. It was attempting to dog whistle to the electorate that the Tories were being tough on immigration (and to some extent the polling suggests this had the potential to work) but actually it seems to have helped Reform with their polling numbers by highlighting immigration as an issue and in the process also shown up Tory Party divisions.

Hopefully a lesson that dog whistling doesn't always have the desired effect.

[pjw1961]

Dec 12, 2023 18:20:29 GMT jib said:

You've got to hand it to this Starmer fella, he really knows when to put the boot in.

Will cause a lot of frothing for open borders friends though!


View Attachment

Nothing about that in Starmer's speech: labour.org.uk/updates/press-releases/keir-starmers-speech-in-buckinghamshire/

After informing us that "I grew-up working class, my dad was a toolmaker, my mum was a nurse" - which I think he may have mentioned once or twice before - the section on immigration says:

"The Rwanda deal is the perfect example. A policy that they knew would never work and yet the charade continues. Two hundred and ninety million pounds of taxpayers money spent on an exercise – and a failed one at that in Conservative party management. And of course, not a single person has been sent, and even if we did send people we would pay for their hotels and upkeep, and we’d have to resettle refugees from Rwanda in exchange. That’s the ‘deal’ they are voting on today. To be fair, you have to credit the Rwandan Government, they certainly saw Rishi Sunak coming.

But look, I am genuinely grateful to them for one thing, because according to the Prime Minister it is only the concern for international law shown by the Rwandan Government that stopped him from ripping up Britain’s commitment to follow the European Convention on Human Rights. An achievement, not just of this nation, but of Winston Churchill and the Conservative Party that brought peace and protection to the world, following our victory over fascism. You know, even now, they have the cheek to call their kind of politics ‘common sense’. No. Common sense is finding a way to get the job done. Britain is a practical nation. Always has been. Our politics, often led by the Conservative Party, let’s be honest, has always reflected that. But these aren’t Churchill’s Tories anymore. If anything, they behave more and more like Donald Trump. They look at the politics of America and they want to bring that here. It’s all woke, woke, woke. Wedge, wedge, wedge. Divide, divide, divide.

People can’t afford Christmas. If they call an ambulance this winter, they don’t know if it will come. Six thousand crimes go unpunished every day. Common sense is rolling your sleeves up and solving these problems practically, not indulging in some kind of political performance art. This goes for stopping the boats as well. It’s not about wave machines, or armoured jet skis, or schemes like Rwanda you know will never work. It’s about doing the basics better. The mundane stuff. The bureaucratic stuff. Busting the backlogs. Rebuilding a functioning asylum system. Removing people more quickly so you don’t have to run-up hotel bills. And a cross-border police force that can smash the smuggler gangs at source.

I’ve done this before as Director of Public Prosecutions when we took on the terrorists and the people-smugglers. I know it can work and we can do the same here. Stopping the boats means stopping the gimmicks, and if they can’t find a way to do that, if they can’t find a way to focus on the job, fix our problems without breaking international law, unlike every government before them, then it’s time to stand aside and let the Labour Party do it for them."

[pjw1961]

Dec 12, 2023 19:44:21 GMT neilj said:

Update: 38 tory MPs abstained or were absent/paired

You can't really count the ones who had leave to be absent, otherwise you would have to view their Labour pairs as also abstaining, which is obviously not the case. 

[neilj]

Dec 12, 2023 19:57:16 GMT pjw1961 said:

Dec 12, 2023 19:44:21 GMT neilj said:

Update: 38 tory MPs abstained or were absent/paired

You can't really count the ones who had leave to be absent, otherwise you would have to view their Labour pairs as also abstaining, which is obviously not the case. 

Yes it looks as if 16 had a reason to miss the vote, so around 22 abstained

[Rafwan]

Thanks, pjw1961, that is excellent. Starmer is just being frozen out of media platforms (as was Corbyn). And it may not be until the GE that he starts to get a full hearing.

[John Chanin]

Dec 12, 2023 9:30:34 GMT neilj said:

Dec 12, 2023 8:38:47 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

instead of debates, we could have potential leaders doing tasks on telly, like transferring data between phones, analysing antibody data and what it really says about infection rates, assessing the prospects of different battery paradigms, conducting experiments on mask efficacy, and modelling a complex system in software. (Like the Krypton Factor meets The Apprentice. Losers have to eat bugs in the jungle)

With the level of skill required to transfer messages it's more akin to being able to fill your car up at a petrol station...although thinking about that Sunak struggled to do that aswell 😀

I think the point is why would you want to transfer Whats App messages.  They are been and gone,and as we are seeing they are a hostage to fortune. Read your Whats App and delete it.  Not all politicians are idiots, and a bit of precaution shows this.

[John Chanin]

Let's stand back for a minute. How on earth have the Conservatives got themselves into a lather about something as ridiculous as sending refugees to Rwanda? The whole thing is almost entirely irrelevant to issues around immigration, and of minimal importance.

[Danny]

Dec 12, 2023 19:52:18 GMT pjw1961 said:

and we’d have to resettle refugees from Rwanda in exchange. That’s the ‘deal’ they are voting on today. To be fair, you have to credit the Rwandan Government, they certainly saw Rishi Sunak coming.

So if a rwandan wants to get into britain, all he has to do is pay someone to go to britain by unuthorised boat, get sent to Rwanda and then he gets the right to live in Britain?

And we are paying them to hand out british residency permits to whoever they want?

So this becomes a massive charter for Rwandan politicians to get their mates into the UK?

[domjg]

Whatever the practical implications that may or may not result from this as far as I'm concerned the tories have now driven this country to cross yet another grubby, nasty line that takes it yet further away from what, when I was young, I perhaps naively understood Britain to represent and British values to be.

I've an increasingly hazy, distant memory of what it felt like to feel at ease with living in or to feel a smidgeon of pride in this country. Gets hazier by the year. Hopefully next year can be the beginning of a reversal of that. 

[pjw1961]

Dec 12, 2023 20:32:44 GMT Rafwan said:

Thanks, pjw1961 , that is excellent. Starmer is just being frozen out of media platforms (as was Corbyn). And it may not be until the GE that he starts to get a full hearing.

I was at a Labour branch meeting last night and the word was that Labour HQ expect the next election to be the dirtiest one ever, with the Conservatives and their media allies stopping at nothing. 

There were also a few glimmers of hope for those of us who would like to see more money for the public services, which apparently must not be spelled out in any detail until the election is over such is the fear of the Tory press propaganda machine. 

[graham]

Dec 12, 2023 20:03:10 GMT neilj said:

Dec 12, 2023 19:57:16 GMT pjw1961 said:

You can't really count the ones who had leave to be absent, otherwise you would have to view their Labour pairs as also abstaining, which is obviously not the case. 

Yes it looks as if 16 had a reason to miss the vote, so around 22 abstained

The Telegraph is claiming that 29 Tories rebelled. 8 were paired or given permission to be absent.

[domjg]

Dec 12, 2023 21:46:19 GMT pjw1961 said:

Dec 12, 2023 20:32:44 GMT Rafwan said:

Thanks, pjw1961 , that is excellent. Starmer is just being frozen out of media platforms (as was Corbyn). And it may not be until the GE that he starts to get a full hearing.

I was at a Labour branch meeting last night and the word was that Labour HQ expect the next election to be the dirtiest one ever, with the Conservatives and their media allies stopping at nothing. 

There were also a few glimmers of hope for those of us who would like to see more money for the public services, which apparently must not be spelled out in any detail until the election is over such is the fear of the Tory press propaganda machine. 

That is the awful, manipulative power of these organs. Most of their readers probably want better public services and yet they'd spin it as being some kind of attack on conservative England and the readership are so credulous that they'd be successful. 

I think that the advent of Murdoch and a gutter right wing press fifty odd years ago that has no real precedent elsewhere in Western Europe is one of the main things that over decades has dripped poison into minds and public discourse in this country and held it back from becoming the modern European country it could have been. Not only of course, but it's played a not small part I think.