steve
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Post by steve on Jan 17, 2024 6:42:17 GMT
The GOP those staunch defenders of electoral integrity collected the votes at the Iowa caucus in popcorn boxes and repurposed McDonalds Brown paper bags with " votes" hand written on the side! You couldn't make it up. Meanwhile 4000 votes have been found from wrongly allocated from Virginia in 2020, is this the traitors evidence. Given that they consisted of 1600 votes missed from Biden's total and 2400 votes for Biden wrongly allocated to the traitor I suspect not! youtu.be/2qu9IskEgKY?si=DyJmyBh5woRhXt5w
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Post by alec on Jan 17, 2024 7:11:10 GMT
leftieliberal - and just out, inflation up this morning, unexpectedly. Don't think the economy is riding to rescue the Conservatives.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 7:11:44 GMT
Danny - Not a published study in sight. Why does that not surprise me? That's a very longwinded way of admitting you're an evidence-free bullshitter. But thank you for confirming this. Wont let this go will you? I remind you that posters are not permitted to insult others on this website with the risk of being banned. Since you insist, I will reply again.
Perhaps its a question of how we were educated. I followed a largely science side education, where I was taught to look at boundary conditions and worry less about what is happening inside the black box. Thats because in many mathematical or physics problems we dont know whats happening inside. The medical experts did something of the sort in the late covid epidemic, where they claimed exponential growth had begun and would therefore engulf the nation. They applied the procedure wrong, the problem with using fundamental and simplified principles, is to apply them properly. They assumed 100% of the nation was susceptible to covid, that largely 0% of the population had had covid, that exponential growth was therefore inevitable given it was already in the community. Whereas the true figures could have been more like only 60% was ever susceptible, 30% had already had covid by the time they made their pronouncements, with the upshot it had actually nearly reached the point of exhausting the available susceptible people and ending anyway. In this particular case, I simply juxtaposed two known facts which I hope you agree with. 1)Most people who died from covid were old. 2)Most people who caught corona virus diseases prior to the covid epidemic were young. The obvious reason for this is that children are always the group catching commonly circulating diseases most frequently, because we lump them together in classrooms where thousands are crammed into the same building most days. Thats why schools were closed to stop community spread, and SAGE figures anticipated this would cut total cases by 1/3, and also implied that ALL OTHER MEASURES combined would only reduce it by a similar amount. An expert on corona virus infections who had studied their incidence reported kids got 3 or 4 such infections a year, and I dont see you have disputed this number, nor do any of the research reports you cite elsewhere. I dont think they comment on frequency of such infections, or that it declines with age. The expert said in old age corona infections were more like 1 every ten years. Given 1 and 2, then its a very simple deduction that the group in the UK which had the highest frequency of corona virus infections before the epidemic also had the lowest death rate. Which is what I said. Now, the papers you cited were seeking to determine whether this was causal. I havnt had time to read them in detail to see what I make of their case. They seem to be rather mixed, one for example concludes that having more respiratory infections (without identifying what they were) prior to covid made you less likely to have bad covid. They confirm that in lab tests corona infections do create cross immune reactions against covid, and actually that a covid infection boosts circulating antibodies which work against other corona viruses. They are less clear whether this is effective protection, but do say covid stimulates the body to produce antibodies from stored patterns which were laid down against other corona viruses. The strongest response seemed to be to internal capsid proteins rather than spike, which could very well be what you might expect from other stuff you mentioned, that covid has a unique infection mechanism with its spike, but antibodies created against the capsid contents of other corona viruses had more in common to work against covid. There is a suggestion that previous corona infections behaved just like the covid vaccines, in that the vaccines are now considered only to protect against serious disease, not against repeat infections numerically.
Its also possible of course that older people dont get these infections so frequently not simply because they have less social contact, but because after a lifetime experiencing corona infections they have lots more stored immunity. The real problem why people died from covid seems to have been they had impaired immune response compared to a fully healthy human. This being the case, a fully naive healthy human was always safe, as we saw happen. But a human with impaired immune system could never be safe whether they had past exposure creating immunity, or a vaccine (which works the same way).
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 7:25:05 GMT
News covered flood risk...something obviously increasing with global warming. The flood protection agency is underfunded and has has to cut more projects it had planned because of the latest bout of inflation. Not that there was ever any pretence its exisiting plans covered everyone at risk, more a question of picking the worst cases and rationing work.
Anyone, another example which had slipped my mind where massively more money needs to be spent, but the problem is awaiting the next government.
Interviewee said we need a national plan just what we are going to save from flooding, presumably funding this, and what we are going to let flood.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 7:33:39 GMT
The rwanda bill...it was suggested that government is trying to buy off rebels by promising to change working procedures, so that any injunctions arriving from the court of human rights will simply be ignored by officials. This would presumably result in people being deported and ending up in Rwanda, but the Uk eventually being found in default of those injunctions.
Now that strikes me as a clever ploy aimed squarely at labour. Con presumably hoping this exact situation will arise so that lab have to say what they will do. Will they obey the injunctions and bring those people back to britain, or leave them where they are and formally accept full findings they have refused to agree to fundamental international laws. At this point Rwanda might refuse to accept any more refugees because it has said it will not break international law itself. So labour could find itself in breech of this law AND accepting back the refugees. Probably also blamed that Rwanda gets to keep the money even while not keeping those refugees.
Obviously Con see this as a vote winner otherwise they wouldnt be doing it. Or at least, it is hogging the media attention and its a better issue to be doing that than many others, so its net good. But its also another mechanism to load the next government with the fabled poisoned chalice, so that its virtually impossible for whoever is elected next to succeed.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 7:37:05 GMT
Fujitsu in the news again. yadayada..they knew it didnt work way back in 1999. Yadayada...post office knew fujitsu was altering accounts way back in early 2000s when it was busy prosecuting postmasters and denying anyone except them had access to their branch accounts. Yadayada...despite all this evidence, no compensation payments this side of a general election. Problem deferred to the next government.
(it seems there is now an implication Fujitsu will have to fund some of this compensation, and so the bill will be transferred in part from government. perhaps this will be sorted before the next century?)
Further to my wondering what had happened in crown post offices, ie ones run directly by the PO. It seems we now know these also showed accounting losses. But the post office simply ignored them. It surely had to be the case that if they believed these were real thefts, then they should have been trying to detemine which of their clerks was walking home with thousands of pounds in their pockets? presumably they had physical evidence this simply could not have happened and so the accounted losses were simply bogus? Prosecuting postmasters relied upon the idea being in charge of their own offices they could have physicaly removed the cash from the premises, leading to searches to find it which never succeeded. Presumably this was simply impossible in a multiply staffed office.
The overall cost of the horizon computerisations seems to be around £3 billion. For a system which the post office didnt actually need, which was only commenced in a drive to prevent benefit fraud. It turned the PO from a profitable business into one with massive losses, leading to its further shrinkage trying to stem those losses. if you miss your local post office branch, blame the major government which began this.
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Post by alec on Jan 17, 2024 8:09:33 GMT
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 17, 2024 8:31:38 GMT
Honest to god, I read that as "Personal Massage" the first time. And to think I was planning an early night. crossbat11 has told me that the Personal Massage parlours in Droitwich are the very best he's ever encountered in his extensive experience. What you haven't mentioned here is the fact that we first met in one of these establishments. The rather novel floating one in Droitwich Marina, if you recall It was called "The Burlesque Bargepole" for some strange reason.
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 17, 2024 8:44:37 GMT
If this latest Rawlings and Thresher calculation is right, and it was reported prominently on ITN news last night, and with the new constituency boundaries Labour now needs a 12% swing in it's favour to gain an overall majority, it begs an interesting question. Particularly so in the light of our interesting discussion on representative voting systems.
Is it possible that Labour could "win" the next election on the popular vote and yet the Tories remain the largest party? If so, what are the critical margins here? Labour win 36-34 but Tories largest party?
I take JamesE's expert coaching on UNS and the weaknesses in the R&T modelling, but could we get a 1951 style result in the next election, I wonder? A classic disproportionate one on the cards?
If R&T are right, it rather blows both mine and Jimjam"s predictions out of the water!! No 50 seat overall Labour majority on a 6% lead.
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Post by jimjam on Jan 17, 2024 9:04:53 GMT
R&Ts calculations will be right in that they have been asked to look at what UNS is required to produce a Labour majority.
It is not the calculations that are wrong but the premise.
Not going to rehearse again the reasons why UNS won't apply with large swings but imo the case is compelling.
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Post by crossbat11 on Jan 17, 2024 9:10:28 GMT
leftieliberal - and just out, inflation up this morning, unexpectedly. Don't think the economy is riding to rescue the Conservatives. I think the mistake some political commentators often make is thinking that favourable economic statistics always help incumbent governments. Positive fleeting headlines maybe, but little else They only really help if they translate into genuinely and widely felt improvements in standards of living. Most economic statistics generate just noise, exciting only those viewing them academically. It's the feelgood wot wins it.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2024 9:13:51 GMT
Here's a young chap who doesn't read UKPR2:-
" “There is no future in Iraq for me. They are hurting and robbing my father,” “Britain is the best country in the world. They treat refugees well and respect human rights. They have no racism. When I arrived in France all I faced was racism and violence. But Britain is different. They respect you as a human — that is why I want to go.”
Ali, a 21-year-old quoted from Grande-Synthe
in "Migrants not fazed by Rwanda bill or perilous Channel crossing" by Ali Mitib, Times today.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 9:17:59 GMT
'More or less' talking about health. They report the good news that there was indeed a wave of covid end of last year, but it is now in decline with perhaps the least impact of any wave. Tens of millions of people had covid (in the UK), didnt get very sick.
However on more conventional measures there are problems. Average waiting time of 45 minutes after calling an ambulance for a heart attack, ie thats for a category 2 call deemed urgent with a target time of 18 minutes. 2000 extra people died December 2023 because they had to wait in A&E over 12 hours to be seen. The count of people waiting this long was just 5 in 2011, its risen x10000 since then.
On life expectancy, they noted the ONS is being rather pessimistic. It uses a measure averaged over the last three years, and so the latest data has just dropped 2019 out of the figures. Replacing the last good year with the three worst covid years. Wheras year on year, while we arent back to 2019 levels, we have seen life expectancy improve each year since the first covid year. The calculated reduction is about 1 year.
However MoL also explain this is NOT a prediction of life expectancy for someone alive now, merely a record for that last year gone by. Expectation of life expectancy for anyone still alive now is largely unaffected by covid. We are still proceeding on the long term trend of 10% extra free, that for every ten years you have lived life expectancy has gone up 1 year, and it still is on the best guesstimates.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2024 9:27:06 GMT
leftieliberal - and just out, inflation up this morning, unexpectedly. Don't think the economy is riding to rescue the Conservatives. Think you're right. Actually I was wondering if the suggested November 15 GE date , could, perhaps for the first time, bring an oversees election result into play here in UK . If Trump is elected POTUS on November 5 , both Sunak & Starmer will intone the mantra about working with elected leaders. But I wonder if the UK electorate is sufficiently worried about the effects of Trump isolationism on European-indeed global-defence & security, that they might ask themselves which party could best mitigate the fallout ? ...and if so what their answer might be ?
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Post by hireton on Jan 17, 2024 9:33:30 GMT
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2024 9:40:10 GMT
I was interested in this passage :- "Where the party had previously categorised a "conversation" on the doorstep as anything from an unsubtle attempt to 'get the vote out' to an unconvinced voter grunting as they slammed the door on canvassers' faces, now a new approach has been adopted. It's been refined in previous by-election campaigns and has been dubbed "Give Before You Get". Canvassers will ask what voters are interested in, rather than either forcing party policy down their throats or eliciting voting intention straight away. Based on genuine conversations, strategists can try to work out if a vote is up for grabs and can also then get the party machine to target appropriate digital messages." What a novel idea-having a "genuine conversation" !
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domjg
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Post by domjg on Jan 17, 2024 9:40:32 GMT
Here's a young chap who doesn't read UKPR2:- " “There is no future in Iraq for me. They are hurting and robbing my father,” “Britain is the best country in the world. They treat refugees well and respect human rights. They have no racism. When I arrived in France all I faced was racism and violence. But Britain is different. They respect you as a human — that is why I want to go.” Ali, a 21-year-old quoted from Grande-Synthe in "Migrants not fazed by Rwanda bill or perilous Channel crossing" by Ali Mitib, Times today. "Britain is the best country in the world. They treat refugees well and respect human rights. They have no racism. When I arrived in France all I faced was racism and violence. But Britain is different. They respect you as a human — that is why I want to go." - Where on earth do they get this nonsense from, maybe from the traffickers? Maybe some very outdated notion of Britain as some bastion of decency that's loonng past it's sell by date. What I find particularly galling is those many DM readers etc on the right who are simultaneously vehemently hostile to refugees on the one hand and at the same time still like to enjoy a superior glow of righteousness in claiming that Britain is a lovely, fluffy, welcoming country compared to others. I think the last part of the that sentence probably explains it, just another attempt at oneupmanship in regard to other European countries
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2024 9:42:26 GMT
Here's a young chap who doesn't read UKPR2:- " “There is no future in Iraq for me. They are hurting and robbing my father,” “Britain is the best country in the world. They treat refugees well and respect human rights. They have no racism. When I arrived in France all I faced was racism and violence. But Britain is different. They respect you as a human — that is why I want to go.” Ali, a 21-year-old quoted from Grande-Synthe in "Migrants not fazed by Rwanda bill or perilous Channel crossing" by Ali Mitib, Times today. "Britain is the best country in the world. They treat refugees well and respect human rights. They have no racism. When I arrived in France all I faced was racism and violence. But Britain is different. They respect you as a human — that is why I want to go." - Where on earth do they get this nonsense from, maybe from the traffickers? Maybe some very outdated notion of Britain as some bastion of decency that's loonng past it's sell by date. Well not from you-clearly . Perhaps you should offer to swap places with him-you would both be happy then.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 10:03:45 GMT
One of the Post office auditors was questioned at the enquiry about why she described security arrangements at one suspect post office as inadequate, which was used in court to suggest that the postmaster might have negligently allowed thefts to take place, explaining missing funds. Now she states that her original statement was prepared 'to a template' and did not reflect actual conditions in the post office.
Meanwhile, some fujitsu employees had begun circulating documents internally concerned that convictions were being made based on incorrect statements by fujitsu. The only thus far apparent reaction to this by fujitsu was to remove the person reporting this from the people giving evidence in court.
Not forgetting, all this was happeneg way back more like 2005, during the labour government and way before con started handling this. When of course the post office was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Uk government, as it still is. When as shareholders, government had full responsibility for its actions. But the bottom line seems to be that no shadow of doubt could be allowed to fall on the horizon system itself, which was now inextricably at the heart of post office activities, installed at the insistence of ministers (dating back to the Major conservative government) at prohibitive financial cost to the post office.
Its utterly unamazing how parliament united in sympathy for the victims, yet has failed to expedite compensation, and parties have declined to blame each other - because they have all been at fault in covering up this scandal.
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Danny
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Post by Danny on Jan 17, 2024 10:07:35 GMT
"Britain is the best country in the world. They treat refugees well and respect human rights. They have no racism. Well we are certainly in the business of selling citizenship to anyone with enough money or services we want, regardless of their background.
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neilj
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Post by neilj on Jan 17, 2024 10:47:08 GMT
Savanta NEW Westminster Voting Intention
📈17pt Labour lead.
🌹Lab 44 (-1) 🌳Con 27 (+1) 🔶LD 11 (+1) ➡️Reform 7 (-1) 🌍Green 4 (-1) 🎗️SNP 3 (=) ⬜️Other 4 (=)
2,148 UK adults, 12-14 January
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 17, 2024 10:52:54 GMT
If this latest Rawlings and Thresher calculation is right, and it was reported prominently on ITN news last night, and with the new constituency boundaries Labour now needs a 12% swing in it's favour to gain an overall majority, it begs an interesting question. Particularly so in the light of our interesting discussion on representative voting systems. Is it possible that Labour could "win" the next election on the popular vote and yet the Tories remain the largest party? If so, what are the critical margins here? Labour win 36-34 but Tories largest party? I take JamesE's expert coaching on UNS and the weaknesses in the R&T modelling, but could we get a 1951 style result in the next election, I wonder? A classic disproportionate one on the cards? If R&T are right, it rather blows both mine and Jimjam"s predictions out of the water!! No 50 seat overall Labour majority on a 6% lead. You might like to read what John Curtice says on the same issue. The bias that existed in 2019 can be seen if we assume there was a 5.85% swing from Conservative to Labour in each and every constituency as compared with the outcome in 2019 (while leaving the shares of the vote won by other parties unchanged). Such a swing would mean that, with 38.9% of the vote each, the Conservatives and Labour would be tied in terms of their share of the vote across Great Britain as a whole. Yet under this scenario the Conservatives would, on the old boundaries, have won 290 seats, 23 more than Labour’s 267.... So why might the electoral system still be heavily biased against Labour at the next election? The explanation lies in the fact that Labour’s vote is less efficiently distributed across constituencies. In particular, if the two parties have the same share of the vote nationally, Labour would win many more seats than the Conservatives by very large majorities. That disadvantage has not been affected by the boundary review, indeed if anything it has been increased somewhat.It's that bit in parentheses that gives the clue. If the SNP percentage share of the vote in 2024 were to be the same as in 2019, then there would be few Labour gains from SNP (and because there are few Tory seats in Scotland, by definition there can only be few if any gains from them). If we assume (as the Scottish polling suggests) that Labour could win around half of the SNP's (48) seats then that 23 seat difference becomes one in Labour's favour. There is still an advantage to the Tories from the less efficient distribution of the Labour vote but it may be much smaller than R&T and Curtice think. In a soundbite, "Labour's route to victory at Westminster lies through Edinburgh". (Using Edinburgh as shorthand for the Central Belt in Scotland). Edit: If you read R&T's actual article as opposed to what was reported they do make exactly this comment about the SNP on page 4, saying that a 10% SNP to Labour swing would yield Labour 15 more seats in Scotland.
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Post by davem on Jan 17, 2024 10:57:15 GMT
I was interested in this passage :- "Where the party had previously categorised a "conversation" on the doorstep as anything from an unsubtle attempt to 'get the vote out' to an unconvinced voter grunting as they slammed the door on canvassers' faces, now a new approach has been adopted. It's been refined in previous by-election campaigns and has been dubbed "Give Before You Get". Canvassers will ask what voters are interested in, rather than either forcing party policy down their throats or eliciting voting intention straight away. Based on genuine conversations, strategists can try to work out if a vote is up for grabs and can also then get the party machine to target appropriate digital messages." What a novel idea-having a "genuine conversation" ! Not that novel, I have been canvassing for Labour for 50 years and I have always started with, “are there any local issues you would like to raise with me while I am here”
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steve
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Post by steve on Jan 17, 2024 11:02:34 GMT
In the first total bollocks that came into your mind news.
Immigration minister Michael Tomlinson claims Illegal migration minister claims Rwanda policy will have 94% deterrent effect on small boat crossings.
The basis for this barmy claim is that the returns agreement with Albania has seen a 94% reduction in Albanian asylum seekers in the U.K..
If the purpose of the pointless Rwanda gimmick was to deport Rwandans back to Rwanda he might have a point!
And they let these people have unsupervised use of sharp implements.
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Post by James E on Jan 17, 2024 11:18:44 GMT
If this latest Rawlings and Thresher calculation is right, and it was reported prominently on ITN news last night, and with the new constituency boundaries Labour now needs a 12% swing in it's favour to gain an overall majority, it begs an interesting question. Particularly so in the light of our interesting discussion on representative voting systems. Is it possible that Labour could "win" the next election on the popular vote and yet the Tories remain the largest party? If so, what are the critical margins here? Labour win 36-34 but Tories largest party? I take JamesE's expert coaching on UNS and the weaknesses in the R&T modelling, but could we get a 1951 style result in the next election, I wonder? A classic disproportionate one on the cards? If R&T are right, it rather blows both mine and Jimjam"s predictions out of the water!! No 50 seat overall Labour majority on a 6% lead. It is good to finally have notional 2019 results for the new boundaries, but these are really no surprise. The old boundries also showed Labour needing about a 12-13% UNS swing, and the pattern of the changes makes a very slight shift towards the Conservatives. But the reporting of this by the BBC (and ITN) is downright misleading. There have been numerous cases in the past 30 years where the apparent, UNS-based target for either Lab or Con to achieve a majority has shifted by as much as 7 points. For example, going into GE1997, the Tories appeared to need about a 5-6% lead to get an overall majority, but after the 1997 election, this rose to around 13%. Labour's apparent target for a majority rose from 2-3% on the basis of GE2010 to 9% after the 2015 results. So a fall in the apparent Labour target from 12-13% to 4-5% would be a similar-sized shift to what has happened in the recent past. My own model, which is consistent with MRPs from Savanta, Survation, YouGov and the Electoral Calculus models, shows that in the event of a tie, Con and Lab would probably have around 290 seats each. I believe that Con could still get a majority with a 3-4% lead in the popular vote, and Labour most likely need a 4-5% lead for 325 seats+. But if I am right, these figures are unlikely to be reliable in determining what size of lead will really be needed in 2029 or 2030.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2024 11:21:50 GMT
“ Here's a young chap who doesn't read UKPR2:-” “ What a novel idea-having a "genuine conversation" !” As always, colin is full of put-downs and sarcasm but seemingly has nothing positive to discuss or offer. The story of the “young chap” made me ashamed of the reality he might one day face. As for going door to door to chat with prospective voters - I wonder if this is something he has ever done? I haven’t but I can imagine it takes a great deal of commitment from Party members of all types.
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Post by leftieliberal on Jan 17, 2024 12:02:39 GMT
leftieliberal - and just out, inflation up this morning, unexpectedly. Don't think the economy is riding to rescue the Conservatives. Up by 0.1%, rather than down by 0.1% alec It's not significant except for those who like to grab at any straw to support their argument. I still think that the overall trend of inflation will be downwards. www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-67993276Inflation, which measures how prices rise over time, rose marginally to 4% in December, up from 3.9% in November.
Economists had forecast a slight fall, but rises in tobacco and alcohol prices were behind the surprise rise.
But with energy bills predicted to come down in 2024, there are expectations of rate cuts later this year.
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pjw1961
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Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one.
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Post by pjw1961 on Jan 17, 2024 12:32:22 GMT
crossbat11 has told me that the Personal Massage parlours in Droitwich are the very best he's ever encountered in his extensive experience. What you haven't mentioned here is the fact that we first met in one of these establishments. The rather novel floating one in Droitwich Marina, if you recall It was called "The Burlesque Bargepole" for some strange reason. The employees certainly earned their money that day.
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Post by robbiealive on Jan 17, 2024 12:34:58 GMT
“ Here's a young chap who doesn't read UKPR2:-” “ What a novel idea-having a "genuine conversation" !” As always, colin is full of put-downs and sarcasm but seemingly has nothing positive to discuss or offer. The story of the “young chap” made me ashamed of the reality he might one day face. If the word snide had not been invented . . . . . Perhaps colin should swap with guy in Iran. Then everyone would hv a nice holiday
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 17, 2024 12:37:34 GMT
“ Here's a young chap who doesn't read UKPR2:-” “ What a novel idea-having a "genuine conversation" !” As always, colin is full of put-downs and sarcasm but seemingly has nothing positive to discuss or offer. The story of the “young chap” made me ashamed of the reality he might one day face. As for going door to door to chat with prospective voters - I wonder if this is something he has ever done? I haven’t but I can imagine it takes a great deal of commitment from Party members of all types. Positive ?-Definitely. My put down of the accusation that the british are xenophobic racists was a pleasant opportunity to quote someone who , having clearly thought about it deeply while in France, decided that we aren't. As you can see , UKPR2's chief exponent of this view is not persuaded and believes the young Afghan to be deluded. On political activism at GE time-No I have never done that. Party members do I assume and obviously they are committed in doing so. I have had the impression that it really consists of a box tick as to the vote to be anticipated. I am more than a little cynical about that sort of visit every five years. So it was an opportunity to use a little sarcasm about a report that "genuine conversations" are planned. As you can see davem told me that this is not new-so I guess the report is wrong. Its difficult for me to judge because in 18 years in this house we have never been visited by a political party member. I remain cynical about mass political door knocking at GE time. Just a thought on sarcasm and cynicism in general . My impression is that there is a lot of it about at the moment. And it is probably going to be to the benefit of the Labour Party. So easy on the put downs about sarcastic cynics
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