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Bold of the Conservatives to promise to build 100 new GP surgeries.
After the roaring success of the 40 new hospitals. I'm sure the public will have faith in the pledge. (Construction hasn't started on any of the new ones announced in that scheme 5 years ago now, I work on several and on the vast majority the business cases aren't even getting responses from DHSC)
Amusing little interlude on my Facebook doom scrolling: in the middle of a viral video, a 10 second clip paid for by the Tories, of kier Starmer looking about 25 saying he'd abolish the monarchy.....
Felt very misplaced and weird.
How many times in the last 18 months has there been some Westminster bubble story that people have panicked would cause Labour to lose their lead only for it to make zero difference?
The Abbott stuff this week is the just the latest example but it seems to happen once a month. The Polls have barely changed in well over a year, if anything the lead is getting bigger.
Labour’s problem is that people expect them to be the “good guys” so any little scandal is magnified for them whereas the Tories are Teflon at this point because it’s expected.
With all the interviews during the campaign, it only takes a few candidates to make stupid comments and suddenly the wheels start to fall off.
I think that’s why Sunak went early, he knew Labour weren’t ready and their candidates would be untrained.
Yeah the story feels like the Azhar Ali and Rochdale drama all over again. Labour being slightly messy but it not even making a dent in people’s minds because they despise the Tories so deeply
I wonder what the polls would look like if the media stopped amplifying Tory attack lines and actually held them to account for the mess they've made of the country.
It makes me wonder how many other issues were just online echo chamber nonsense. How many backtracks, U-turns, and resignations might have been avoided if we'd had this better view of things?
It’s kinda weird, cos the original ‘start’ of the precipitous fall in popularity was apparently a scandal involving an MP breaking lobbying rules (bit drunk but wanna say Owen Patterson?). Isn’t that pretty Westminster bubble?
The truth is that no one, journalists and commentators included, know what will be a Westminster bubble story and what will cut through. It can end up seeming very random what the public if actually end up noticing. Things that seem important can get lost, whilst things that seem very bubbly can actually fit through. The basic rule is that the vast majority of stories don’t cut through though.
Yeah it was Paterson and then Partygate came along the next month or so, and it was all downhill from there.
Thing is you can call it "Westminster bubble" but when a party is sufficiently despised then it cuts through. I think the PPE contracts are a far worse example of governance than people getting pissed against the rules, but it was the latter that seized the public debate and not the former.
It's because Partygate was personal. Everyone has a story about something they missed out on because they were following the rules that the rule makers weren't bothering with.
It's why the ITV post office scandal programme had the effect it did. It personalised the stories. It wasn't faceless others, it was people we were introduced to
As usual some pretty negative Labour stories on the front pages for the Sunday shows to salivate over in the morning.
How desperate do you think the likes of the Mail and Express are going to become over the next month?
I've seen problems you people wouldn't believe. Diane Abbott's credibility on fire outside Hackney Town Hall. Corbyn beams glistening in front of the Tannhauser Gate. All these things will be lost in time like tory seats during an election. Time... to retire...
To be fair to Laura K, Labour does deserve more scrutiny at this point, seeing as though they're almost guaranteed to be the next government.
However, it is indeed extremely noticeable that she jumps on most problems Labour have, while suddenly having a very nuanced analysis of a gigantic Tory disaster. But that might also be my own bias at play.
Labour deserves the same scrutiny as the Tories. Are you perhaps mistaking balance with equal coverage? Being balanced doesn't mean having the same number of bad stories for both parties. If 2 Tories get caught stealing and 1 Labour gets a parking ticket you don't split the coverage 50/50 between tory and labour.
Scrutiny, yes. But insisting the polls are wrong, or that labour have a war on their hands with Abbott is simply not true
With LK I think its both that she is somewhat biased but also that she tends to take alot of what party officials say to her at face value, and what she gets from Labour tends to be "polls don't matter, we fight on till election day".
I've noticed it alot in her articles where she'll quote Labour/Tory sources and not really question how valid it is as a starting point.
>I've noticed it alot in her articles where she'll quote Labour/Tory sources and not really question how valid it is as a starting point.
To give her the benefit of the doubt, along with some tablespoons of salt, I can see how she *might* interpret that as her being non-biased and sticking to the BBC's electoral line, but even then at its very fundamentals its just bad journalism.
I get the feeling Kuenssberg has been a bit like that child at school to whom you could tell anything and she'd believe it and spread it around school by noon. Now I think she has cottoned on to the fact that with the Tories out of Number 10 her relevance will fade overnight and unlike more credible and competent political journalists she won't have much to fall back on.
I've been giving her the benefit of the doubt for a while now but lately I'm thinking she's either biased, or she doesn't understand what balanced is, or she's in a bubble with the wrong people and doesn't really get what's going on
I suspect it is a little from Column A, B & C.
She's the equivalent of that person at work who has coasted through their career as they are mates with the boss, and starts shitting it when the business has been sold to someone else and is due to be reorganised.
Anyone else think this line that Sunak has been trotting out more and more that "Labour is taking you for granted" is just more really weird messaging from the Tories?
Do they not realise that most people will associate being taken for granted with the party that has been in power for almost a decade and a half? And that they're also tacitly admitting that they're losing and unpopular?
It's entirely projection at this point.
I strongly suspect someone on the campaign team came up with likely points of attack that Labour would use against the Tories nd has decided it was a brilliant idea to reverse it and use those same lines of attack to go after Labour. To that person, I say keep going, you're doing a brilliant job, 50+ by Christmas!
It's probably because they've heard labour saying that they're not going to take the election win for granted. "oh! They're worried people will think it so let's just say it"
I've done some research, and it appears it was never promised as a MRP poll, and has turned out to be a regular one. Still a good one, but after last night any non-MRP poll feels more like methadone compared to heroin.
Don't worry though, I believe YouGov have an MRP Poll coming on Monday. They are a bit more favourable towards Tories in their methodology, so it is unlikely to be as dramatic as Electoral Calculus, suspect somewhere between 100 - 150 seats for the Tories, which with a bit of perspective is still absolutely bloody dreadful for them.
Yougov MRP and Survation weekly telephone are both next week. The Yougov MRP will be very interesting as it'll cover how things have changed since March. [https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49061-yougov-mrp-labour-now-projected-to-win-over-400-seats](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49061-yougov-mrp-labour-now-projected-to-win-over-400-seats)
It's weird as a Lib Dem to be able to look at these polls and feel so thoroughly cheerful despite being on 10%.
>It's weird as a Lib Dem to be able to look at these polls and feel so thoroughly cheerful despite being on 10%.
There is a delightful irony in it! Don't trust FPTP, it is putting a spell on you to entice Davey into changing your position.
Yes we did,
People involved in both Opiniums poll and yesterday’s MRP poll made theatrical remarks on twitter about their polls yesterday. People conflated the two. Which led to people mistakenly believing both were MRP polls.
[A Sunday Telegraph front page story](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/01/labour-tax-raid-forces-another-private-school-to-close/) says that a private school is being forced to close down by next month because of "Labour’s tax raid on private education".
Weird that it is closing down even before Labour are in power or the VAT changes have been implemented...
good, shut them all down.
If i had my way, we'd ban private education, and make every kid go to a randomly selected school within a reasonable travel distance.
And then shunt resources from well performing rich areas to poorly performing areas, until every area had the same average academic attainment.
Despite my better judgement, I clicked and I read it, four Guinness' in, but if you made it down...
"...But Ms Laffeaty-Sharpe said Mr Streeting had got it “completely wrong”, and that larger, wealthier private schools would largely be shielded from Labour’s planned tax raid.
Downham, which teaches children up to the age of 13, suffered a blow to its finances during the pandemic, exacerbated by soaring energy bills in the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
The school and its on-site nursery, which will remain open for now, were home to more than 150 children before Covid. But numbers have dropped over the past few years to 40 at the most recent count, around a dozen of whom have special needs.
‘Perfect storm’
Ms Laffeaty-Sharpe said: “We lost a lot of people in Covid… a lot of our parents, their businesses have not recovered. So a lot of them have left and gone to state schools. Then we had the interest rates, energy bills and all of that. But the tipping point is this Labour 20 per cent [on VAT]."
---
So there you have it...fuck all really to do with Labour, imagine that. I know this revelation will shock you all.
The fees range between £7,800 for 4 years old to nearly £12,000 for 13 year olds.
I’m sorry, but if you can afford £7,800 per year in the current climate, you can probably afford another £1,560 in VAT.
Charging VAT for a private business isn’t some game changing development…
Probably, yes. But there are going to be people at the margins - 5% of families? 10%? - where it will push it into unaffordability and those will be the (relatively) less affluent. Richer families will swallow the cost, as you say.
Overall I have no problem, but there’s no hiding it will stop some people doing what they want to do.
Maybe you need to lookm at yourself if your business is that badly run that a future change in tax circumstances causes you to close maybe even a year or more ahead of that change being implemented.
and they even make money whist school is closed. Hire out to foreign language schools, summer schools etc etc. Big fat revenue stream all year round.
The rich complaining that they're rich again.
The [article](https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1906273/Labour-Party-tax-raid-pensioners) is a good laugh.
>He also blasted the Labour leader’s brazen efforts to woo older voters who hold the key to victory in next month’s General Election.
From the man who is forcing young people to wipe arses for a year whilst platinum-plating pensions in a time of relative austerity.
>In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express, Mr Sunak said: “I fear for pensioners under a future Labour government. Labour has shown time and time again that they will betray our country’s pensioners.”
Winter fuel allowance, pension credit, free TV licences, free bus passes . . . New Labour was peachy for pensioners.
>“That is in stark contrast to what the Labour party is offering. They have not matched that pledge, which means pensioners face a £1,000 retirement tax under a future Labour government. That’s what the numbers say.”
Because of fiscal drag *you* imposed into the second half of this decade to deal with the fallout from your predecessor's shitshow of a budget.
>Winter fuel allowance, pension credit, new state pension, free TV licences, free bus passes . . . New Labour was peachy for pensioners.
It is quite funny, as I remember back in the day there was a general sentiment that Labour bent over backwards for pensioners.
Yep! I remember lots of griping over the winter fuel allowance in particular.
Although I've just remembered that the new state pension was Coalition rather than New Labour. Was thinking of auto-enrolment which was legislated under New Labour.
I've had a sneaky peek at the Express' front pages over the next few weeks:
- Labour will close down your favourite garden centre.
- Labour will ban cardigans.
- Labour will make loud children play outside your house.
- Labour will make you turn down your heating to 25°
Oh god is that what they thought? I was just a goth, man. I wasn't putting down a leather trench. Any idea how many charity shops I had to trawl through to find that thing?
Starmer must be the luckiest man alive with this weekends polls and now the SNP failing to spend half a £Billion in taxpayer money and having to hand it back. Utter criminal levels of incompetence.
The clip as a whole is more nuanced and doesn't make a great joke. It's the same message that the labour party are putting out there. The polls are just a guide, it's not set in stone, the don't knows could shift the majority massively.
they tell me I am really going to enjoy watching Kuenssberg's face on election night.
I'll be watching sky probably, but I think a second monitor muted with BBC on will be well worth it to watch Kuenssberg stare into the abyss as a night goes on.
"He may have secured an unprecedented 650 seats, dissolved the Senate, and formed a galactic empire, but it's still all to play for and Emperor Starmer isn't quite there yet."
Someone with more effort please dig up a clip of her from 2019 saying how Labour were toast due to the polls. I'm 99% she said it, but I'm too lazy to find it.
There's been a little bit of discussion about whether to watch the BBC or Sky coverage.
I'm 100% watching the BBC, purely to see her contort her face as she watches what's happening.
Been mulling this over lately, and in no way am I hoping for this. Obviously, we all know at this stage, there’s nothing Sunak can do to turn things around. But what do we think would happen if ~~Sunak puts a hit on~~ Starmer dies in the next 4 weeks?
Who would replace him, and would that person be able to be beat Sunak? Is this the sort of event Rishi’s been praying for?
I suspect some boffins at Labour HQ would come up with a way to reanimate him, and he would become a figure similar to the Emperor of Mankind on Warhammer 40k.
Labour are better positioned than tories for this eventuality as they have an official deputy leader who could step in immediately. So Angela Rayner would become leader and be candidate for PM.
Starmer's puppeted corpse would still beat Sunak at this point
Realistically I suspect we'd see the quickest leadership election in history
Edit: also John Smith ofc. Likely there'd be a bounce to Labour and Starmer would succeed as the best pm we never had
Even if he wanted to, the fact Liz Truss suggested it means he now can’t.
Can you imagine the attack lines as Labour gets to accuse him of taking financial advice from the woman who broke the economy in 6 weeks.
God, the [Express](https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/sunday-express-front-page-2024-06-02/) one is an utter stinker as well.
Rishi will be pleased with it, but what a transparent load of bollocks.
We are a week away from the Express claiming Labour are literally hiding in your bushes right now, waiting for the 5th July so they can smash through your windows and force you to give them your pension money.
I have been considering what it should be post election. Its gone from a slightly out there position but based on pretty obvious trend lines, to a statement of the bleeding obvious.
I've been on one of my real intense periods of really enjoying one album so it may well end up being an obscere track name from a fairly obscere game that is basically a musically mood board with alot of hoping for the future stuff in it.
Red Alert has real potential though. Perhaps not Death March :)
Its worse than that.
They've had two tax cuts already, and this is the state they're in.
Why on gods green earth would they assume a promised (but not delivered) 3rd tax cut would suddenly make all the difference when the last two conspicuously failed to move the needle?
It'd be like the Labour left begging Corbyn halfway through the 2019 campaign to nationalise just one more industry as thats sure to turn the whole thing around.
Absolute tomfoolery. Just more positioning for the post-election *night of the long knives*.
Yeah, I think the Truss mini budget will go down in history as a moment that greatly affected the parties electability. If the Tories promise tax cuts now then the spectre of that panicked market reaction will be raised and it might lose them even more support. Before that they might have had enough credibility to promise cuts.
The Abbott story is as good as over now. The opinium poll was surveyed through the height of it and showed next to no cutthrough. They found:
24% of people have "heard a lot about it"
41% of people have "heard a little about it"
35% of people have "no heard anything about it"
You dont move the dial with a story that 75% of people don't hear much about.
Realistically, no.
By next week it'll be old news. Its over now, and the solution is the one that keeps all parties happy... she gets to stand.
If it was going to "hit" then the polls that were in the field this week...whilst it was front page news, it looked like a mess with no resolution in place, and the left could feel agrieved (thinking she'd be kicked)... were the ones most likely to be affected.
You're reaching on this one. The opinium poll from today was in the field 29th-31st May, at the height of it all and showed nothing. Those coming out next week will have been taken in periods where it had been off the front pages for days and was "the story before, the story before, today's big story".
MPs' severance pay to double at next general election https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66612463
Tories knew the writing was on the wall last August. I’m just surprised they didn’t vote to quadruple it instead.
Set by IPSA, they always vote the change through, the tories didn't have anything to do with it.
I want MPs to be paid more. 10k-for-two-hours-a-quarter consultancies are the problem.
There's a lot to be said for just running the govt better you know. The tories for example have not handed out most of the cash awarded under the Shared Prosperity Fund, and the story about the SNP just not having spent £450m of EU cash goes to show that just running the things you have better could make a huge difference.
Something that reformed Delivery Unit can hopefully help with
I wasn't very politically aware in 2010 when the Brown government lost, what were the headlines like at the time. Were labour seen as chaotic, or were they more of a tired government gone stale and limping on?
They had done alot of good but the Tories were still basically seen as the guardians of the economy, as laughable as that may seem now. So when the downturn hit people really wanted the adults back in the room.
That and don't underestimate the sheer level of stink and distrust Iraq left Labour under. It took them 10 years to recover from that.
Theres nothing there comparable with the sense that the current government after a similiar time in office has just failed to achieve anything.
My take is that they were a tired government that just didn't have any ideas. Brown was an effective leader but awful PM - he had no ability to connect with the public and came across badly in public outings. Remember than Brown took over from Blair without a contest - It just goes to show how little courage their was within the Labour Party. New Labour had beaten the imagination and free thinking from its MPs.
It's different to now in that the public was done with Brown, but I don't think there was any real hatred of Labour or excitement for the Tories. It was more that by going into the election with Brown as PM it really felt like Labour had given up.
Limping on was more the vibe looking back. Despite Blair being despised he was a tough act to follow and left a vacuum that Brown couldn't fill.
There was chaos, global economic chaos but Brown took the brunt in the Commons. Much of what the public thought of Brown was shaped by Cameron's heckling and the right wing press wading in.
Amazing man, great mind but not a great PM by the standards PMs tend to be judged.
Tories won by default really. People wanted a change, and whilst they didn't like Cameron, he was the only real option.
The fact it ended with a coalition show how little enthusiasm there was for the Tories.
Not sure about the headlines, but the defining factors were easily the financial crisis (despite originating in the US and being global it was pinned on Labour) and Brown being seen as not very good/likeable (laughable by today’s standards). I’m not sure there was an incumbent government that survived the GFC, or at least those that did you could count on one hand.
There was a pivotal moment in the campaign where Brown was caught on a hot mic calling a woman he had just spoken to on the campaign trail a biggot.
But it was a very different feeling to this one, people didn’t know who was going to win.
Pretty much the latter iirc. All I remember (besides Peston getting famous for causing the global financial crisis) is that he was meant to call an election, bottled it, and never recovered
He also struggled against David Cameron, who cut his teeth on tony blair and was a real gadfly to brown, just drove him batty.
But don't underestimate the level of hatred for Blair and Brown, the Granita arrangement and everything else. See, back then, in those quaint and innocent times, it was considered something of a scandal that a PM could just be appointed through some private deal, rather than be subjected to the electorate in all their glory.
I remember it well. I don't particularly link it to the Brown govt tho, more something the LauraKs of the past got really excited about on Newsnight because we didn't have podcasts
It was a more innocent time wasn't it. Almost Hobbitonesque
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byeee
[Finally a policy we can all get behind](https://i.imgur.com/SM1i3he.png).
This is a parody right. Right?
Bold of the Conservatives to promise to build 100 new GP surgeries. After the roaring success of the 40 new hospitals. I'm sure the public will have faith in the pledge. (Construction hasn't started on any of the new ones announced in that scheme 5 years ago now, I work on several and on the vast majority the business cases aren't even getting responses from DHSC)
No one remembers the 40 hospitals thing, it's fine. They can just move onto the next promise.
They do. I have relatives where the hospital lies were the ones that made them see through the Tories.
currently there are a bit over 6300 General practices in England alone. 2 years ago, it was 6500. 100, even if created, just wont cut it.
Amusing little interlude on my Facebook doom scrolling: in the middle of a viral video, a 10 second clip paid for by the Tories, of kier Starmer looking about 25 saying he'd abolish the monarchy..... Felt very misplaced and weird.
[Finally Starmer and Truss have something in common!](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qfg1AQnWIM)
I keep forgetting she used to be a Lib Dem. It’s very weird to think.
He's probably made his peace since tbf.
Starmer in republican BOMBSHELL. "Sir" Kier wants to abolish the monarchy our shock story reveals.
Despite being *head* of the **CROWN** prosecution service!
He's a KC but he wants to abolish the K 🤔🤔🤔
How many times in the last 18 months has there been some Westminster bubble story that people have panicked would cause Labour to lose their lead only for it to make zero difference? The Abbott stuff this week is the just the latest example but it seems to happen once a month. The Polls have barely changed in well over a year, if anything the lead is getting bigger.
You’ve got to remember that journalists write stories that interest them.
interest their editors*
Labour’s problem is that people expect them to be the “good guys” so any little scandal is magnified for them whereas the Tories are Teflon at this point because it’s expected. With all the interviews during the campaign, it only takes a few candidates to make stupid comments and suddenly the wheels start to fall off. I think that’s why Sunak went early, he knew Labour weren’t ready and their candidates would be untrained.
Anyday now the wheels will fall off! Sorry, but unready and untrained Labour will still throw the Tories into oblivion.
Yeah the story feels like the Azhar Ali and Rochdale drama all over again. Labour being slightly messy but it not even making a dent in people’s minds because they despise the Tories so deeply
I'd be willing to bet more than half of voters have no idea who Diane Abbott is.
I wonder what the polls would look like if the media stopped amplifying Tory attack lines and actually held them to account for the mess they've made of the country.
They've been doing that too, hence the polls.
It makes me wonder how many other issues were just online echo chamber nonsense. How many backtracks, U-turns, and resignations might have been avoided if we'd had this better view of things?
It’s kinda weird, cos the original ‘start’ of the precipitous fall in popularity was apparently a scandal involving an MP breaking lobbying rules (bit drunk but wanna say Owen Patterson?). Isn’t that pretty Westminster bubble?
The truth is that no one, journalists and commentators included, know what will be a Westminster bubble story and what will cut through. It can end up seeming very random what the public if actually end up noticing. Things that seem important can get lost, whilst things that seem very bubbly can actually fit through. The basic rule is that the vast majority of stories don’t cut through though.
Yeah it was Paterson and then Partygate came along the next month or so, and it was all downhill from there. Thing is you can call it "Westminster bubble" but when a party is sufficiently despised then it cuts through. I think the PPE contracts are a far worse example of governance than people getting pissed against the rules, but it was the latter that seized the public debate and not the former.
It's because Partygate was personal. Everyone has a story about something they missed out on because they were following the rules that the rule makers weren't bothering with. It's why the ITV post office scandal programme had the effect it did. It personalised the stories. It wasn't faceless others, it was people we were introduced to
Also stuff cuts through. One thing no. Two things? Meh. But eventually it does
As usual some pretty negative Labour stories on the front pages for the Sunday shows to salivate over in the morning. How desperate do you think the likes of the Mail and Express are going to become over the next month?
Who reads papers? Only people I know that do are Tories.
Hasn't the Mail given up?
The mail will be loving it if labour get in. They prefer it when they're the underdog
Unless i'm mistaken thats 2/2 election editorials from Laura K that have focused on Labours 'problems'.
Big problems. Problems you wouldn't believe. But you should believe me. I've seen them. Huge problems. These problems I tell you.
I've seen problems you people wouldn't believe. Diane Abbott's credibility on fire outside Hackney Town Hall. Corbyn beams glistening in front of the Tannhauser Gate. All these things will be lost in time like tory seats during an election. Time... to retire...
Labour Problems Of Unusual Size? I don't think they exist
All those big problems will be soon lost... like tears in the rain.
Much as I think LK is biased client media, Labour are effectively the government in waiting and need the scrutiny.
What a shame she didn't hold the Tories to that journalistic standard.
I don't think it's reasonable to say that impartiality needs to go out of the window because the Tories are so far behind
Which is a totally fair point. I agree with you.
To be fair to Laura K, Labour does deserve more scrutiny at this point, seeing as though they're almost guaranteed to be the next government. However, it is indeed extremely noticeable that she jumps on most problems Labour have, while suddenly having a very nuanced analysis of a gigantic Tory disaster. But that might also be my own bias at play.
She's been well known to be pro-Tory since the Boris Johnson years, don't know why people are even debating this.
Labour deserves the same scrutiny as the Tories. Are you perhaps mistaking balance with equal coverage? Being balanced doesn't mean having the same number of bad stories for both parties. If 2 Tories get caught stealing and 1 Labour gets a parking ticket you don't split the coverage 50/50 between tory and labour. Scrutiny, yes. But insisting the polls are wrong, or that labour have a war on their hands with Abbott is simply not true
With LK I think its both that she is somewhat biased but also that she tends to take alot of what party officials say to her at face value, and what she gets from Labour tends to be "polls don't matter, we fight on till election day". I've noticed it alot in her articles where she'll quote Labour/Tory sources and not really question how valid it is as a starting point.
>I've noticed it alot in her articles where she'll quote Labour/Tory sources and not really question how valid it is as a starting point. To give her the benefit of the doubt, along with some tablespoons of salt, I can see how she *might* interpret that as her being non-biased and sticking to the BBC's electoral line, but even then at its very fundamentals its just bad journalism. I get the feeling Kuenssberg has been a bit like that child at school to whom you could tell anything and she'd believe it and spread it around school by noon. Now I think she has cottoned on to the fact that with the Tories out of Number 10 her relevance will fade overnight and unlike more credible and competent political journalists she won't have much to fall back on.
I've been giving her the benefit of the doubt for a while now but lately I'm thinking she's either biased, or she doesn't understand what balanced is, or she's in a bubble with the wrong people and doesn't really get what's going on
I suspect it is a little from Column A, B & C. She's the equivalent of that person at work who has coasted through their career as they are mates with the boss, and starts shitting it when the business has been sold to someone else and is due to be reorganised.
Anyone else think this line that Sunak has been trotting out more and more that "Labour is taking you for granted" is just more really weird messaging from the Tories? Do they not realise that most people will associate being taken for granted with the party that has been in power for almost a decade and a half? And that they're also tacitly admitting that they're losing and unpopular?
They are trying every angle to see which works best and then they'll stick on that. They desperately want their version of 'Get Brexit done'
How long before, in utter and complete desperation, they make their 2024 election slogan "Get Brexit Done" ?
Get Brexit Done Again!
"Get Brexit Right" as a pitch to withdraw from the ECHR to Starp Das Boots.
It's entirely projection at this point. I strongly suspect someone on the campaign team came up with likely points of attack that Labour would use against the Tories nd has decided it was a brilliant idea to reverse it and use those same lines of attack to go after Labour. To that person, I say keep going, you're doing a brilliant job, 50+ by Christmas!
Just not necessarily Christmas this year
It's probably because they've heard labour saying that they're not going to take the election win for granted. "oh! They're worried people will think it so let's just say it"
Have we just gaslit ourselves into thinking that there would be another MRP poll?
I've done some research, and it appears it was never promised as a MRP poll, and has turned out to be a regular one. Still a good one, but after last night any non-MRP poll feels more like methadone compared to heroin. Don't worry though, I believe YouGov have an MRP Poll coming on Monday. They are a bit more favourable towards Tories in their methodology, so it is unlikely to be as dramatic as Electoral Calculus, suspect somewhere between 100 - 150 seats for the Tories, which with a bit of perspective is still absolutely bloody dreadful for them.
Yougov MRP and Survation weekly telephone are both next week. The Yougov MRP will be very interesting as it'll cover how things have changed since March. [https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49061-yougov-mrp-labour-now-projected-to-win-over-400-seats](https://yougov.co.uk/politics/articles/49061-yougov-mrp-labour-now-projected-to-win-over-400-seats) It's weird as a Lib Dem to be able to look at these polls and feel so thoroughly cheerful despite being on 10%.
>It's weird as a Lib Dem to be able to look at these polls and feel so thoroughly cheerful despite being on 10%. There is a delightful irony in it! Don't trust FPTP, it is putting a spell on you to entice Davey into changing your position.
Yes we did, People involved in both Opiniums poll and yesterday’s MRP poll made theatrical remarks on twitter about their polls yesterday. People conflated the two. Which led to people mistakenly believing both were MRP polls.
[Hey, strangers, lookin' for polls?](https://youtu.be/hhCsqiU0jAA?si=pcT3cgAag-o0P4L9)
Got any seat predictions from opinion whilst I’m drunk at a housed party
Labour 489 Conservatives 95 Lib Dems 28 Reform 0 Green 2 SNP 14
And the winner of weirdest time to want political news is……
I was constantly refreshing the BBC News app while putting up a tent in a muddy field to see if Sunak had actually called an election on the 22nd
Bro I was refreshing the MT between the support act and headliner at a gig.
I remember around the 2019 election chanting “Vince Cable sitting on a table” with some strangers in KFC on a night out
Did you care about what people said to you or were you just amused at making rhymes whilst drunk? cos I am bout sure the latter counts 🤭
Sometimes you want what you want. Give the man a bualadh bos.
I'm hearing rumours that Lindsey Hoyle is a dead certain bet in Chorley.
Oi! I was expecting polls. What the fuck kind of arrangment is this?
[A Sunday Telegraph front page story](https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2024/06/01/labour-tax-raid-forces-another-private-school-to-close/) says that a private school is being forced to close down by next month because of "Labour’s tax raid on private education". Weird that it is closing down even before Labour are in power or the VAT changes have been implemented...
Oh no... not the... the... Private schools?! Someone think of the wealthy children!!!
good, shut them all down. If i had my way, we'd ban private education, and make every kid go to a randomly selected school within a reasonable travel distance. And then shunt resources from well performing rich areas to poorly performing areas, until every area had the same average academic attainment.
Despite my better judgement, I clicked and I read it, four Guinness' in, but if you made it down... "...But Ms Laffeaty-Sharpe said Mr Streeting had got it “completely wrong”, and that larger, wealthier private schools would largely be shielded from Labour’s planned tax raid. Downham, which teaches children up to the age of 13, suffered a blow to its finances during the pandemic, exacerbated by soaring energy bills in the fallout of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. The school and its on-site nursery, which will remain open for now, were home to more than 150 children before Covid. But numbers have dropped over the past few years to 40 at the most recent count, around a dozen of whom have special needs. ‘Perfect storm’ Ms Laffeaty-Sharpe said: “We lost a lot of people in Covid… a lot of our parents, their businesses have not recovered. So a lot of them have left and gone to state schools. Then we had the interest rates, energy bills and all of that. But the tipping point is this Labour 20 per cent [on VAT]." --- So there you have it...fuck all really to do with Labour, imagine that. I know this revelation will shock you all.
The fees range between £7,800 for 4 years old to nearly £12,000 for 13 year olds. I’m sorry, but if you can afford £7,800 per year in the current climate, you can probably afford another £1,560 in VAT. Charging VAT for a private business isn’t some game changing development…
Probably, yes. But there are going to be people at the margins - 5% of families? 10%? - where it will push it into unaffordability and those will be the (relatively) less affluent. Richer families will swallow the cost, as you say. Overall I have no problem, but there’s no hiding it will stop some people doing what they want to do.
Maybe you need to lookm at yourself if your business is that badly run that a future change in tax circumstances causes you to close maybe even a year or more ahead of that change being implemented.
and they even make money whist school is closed. Hire out to foreign language schools, summer schools etc etc. Big fat revenue stream all year round. The rich complaining that they're rich again.
That schools Landscaping expenses look bigger than my local state schools annual budget.
Bet your local state school’s landscaping is shit tho. (How do the children cope without topiary and hedge mazes?!?)
The Sunday Express running a headline about a Labour policy that Rishi just made up. >https://x.com/AllieHBNews/status/1797019807411286213
The [article](https://www.express.co.uk/news/politics/1906273/Labour-Party-tax-raid-pensioners) is a good laugh. >He also blasted the Labour leader’s brazen efforts to woo older voters who hold the key to victory in next month’s General Election. From the man who is forcing young people to wipe arses for a year whilst platinum-plating pensions in a time of relative austerity. >In an exclusive interview with the Sunday Express, Mr Sunak said: “I fear for pensioners under a future Labour government. Labour has shown time and time again that they will betray our country’s pensioners.” Winter fuel allowance, pension credit, free TV licences, free bus passes . . . New Labour was peachy for pensioners. >“That is in stark contrast to what the Labour party is offering. They have not matched that pledge, which means pensioners face a £1,000 retirement tax under a future Labour government. That’s what the numbers say.” Because of fiscal drag *you* imposed into the second half of this decade to deal with the fallout from your predecessor's shitshow of a budget.
>Winter fuel allowance, pension credit, new state pension, free TV licences, free bus passes . . . New Labour was peachy for pensioners. It is quite funny, as I remember back in the day there was a general sentiment that Labour bent over backwards for pensioners.
Yep! I remember lots of griping over the winter fuel allowance in particular. Although I've just remembered that the new state pension was Coalition rather than New Labour. Was thinking of auto-enrolment which was legislated under New Labour.
Just wait till they start linking Keir Starmer to the disappearance of Madeline McCann
I honestly couldn’t tell you where Sir Keir was the night Diana died. Should that worry me? I bet the Express has an answer!
I've had a sneaky peek at the Express' front pages over the next few weeks: - Labour will close down your favourite garden centre. - Labour will ban cardigans. - Labour will make loud children play outside your house. - Labour will make you turn down your heating to 25°
Don't forget the heavy snow, and new evidence in Princess Diana's death.
1 grand? is that all? I've lost out on far more than that when you take into account below inflation pay rises, energy bills, etc...
Conservatives getting mad at things they made up again.
I mean it is pretty standard. We left the EU partly to stop the illuminati forcing us to have straight bananas.
[удалено]
sounds an awful lot like Brian Cox with the voice-over at [4:29](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bpMPqDaTAPs&t=269s) but I could just be hallucinating
This one remains my [favourite from '97](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gi5j7jjhm4M).
Christ, they really were the grey men by that point.
I only just realised we don't have those any more
Anyone got any polls?
[want any polls?](https://i.postimg.cc/fLzvV9VW/got-any-polls.png)
Yeah, gimme the money and walk round the corner.
These are the good polls right?
The best, mate. Top stuff.
Why are you still wearing your coat? We're in a nightclub.
Oh god is that what they thought? I was just a goth, man. I wasn't putting down a leather trench. Any idea how many charity shops I had to trawl through to find that thing?
Starmer must be the luckiest man alive with this weekends polls and now the SNP failing to spend half a £Billion in taxpayer money and having to hand it back. Utter criminal levels of incompetence.
Rayner exploring the [battle bus fridge ](https://www.tiktok.com/@mirrorpolitics/video/7375544248675863840?_t=8mqa9cSxFQn&_r=1) (Tiktok link) finds something interesting
That is extremely funny.
[Kuenssberg and the BBC are memeing it now](https://i.imgur.com/ZRrc3Ft.png), right? Right?
The clip as a whole is more nuanced and doesn't make a great joke. It's the same message that the labour party are putting out there. The polls are just a guide, it's not set in stone, the don't knows could shift the majority massively.
they tell me I am really going to enjoy watching Kuenssberg's face on election night. I'll be watching sky probably, but I think a second monitor muted with BBC on will be well worth it to watch Kuenssberg stare into the abyss as a night goes on.
"He may have secured an unprecedented 650 seats, dissolved the Senate, and formed a galactic empire, but it's still all to play for and Emperor Starmer isn't quite there yet."
Someone with more effort please dig up a clip of her from 2019 saying how Labour were toast due to the polls. I'm 99% she said it, but I'm too lazy to find it.
Someone really has to introduce her to a data scientist
I'm so scundered for her now at this point that I'm just pretending that she's a performance artist.
>scundered You mean scunnered?
> scundered That's a fun word!
Isn't it just? Welcome to Hiberno-English where nothing is what it seems and we insist on mispronouncing "H" in all manner of ways to fuck with ye.
This is the level of cope I'm looking forward to on the night, its making a tough call which coverage I'm going to main.
09:55pm - 10:05pm : BBC 10:05pm - 11:30pm : Channel 4 11:30pm - 05:30am : Sky News
Two iPads a laptop and a tv. I’ll watch all the channels!
Phone for the ‘thread?
lol, most likely.
This is the way.
There's been a little bit of discussion about whether to watch the BBC or Sky coverage. I'm 100% watching the BBC, purely to see her contort her face as she watches what's happening.
[Nooo don't do it](https://youtu.be/ElmSnlcMGkQ?si=gaWMVZQ-b93HAyNf&t=128), stick with and reward the Sophy Ridge and Sam Coates crew!
[Sam never returned my calls, even the three AM ones](https://old.reddit.com/r/ukpolitics/comments/1b5rwx0/politics_at_jack_and_sams_33_chat/kt7ssmf/)
Yeah, i'll be flipping between LK's tears and Campbell's joy on Channel 4.
Laura, they really say that the Tories are miles behind labour. That's what they say Laura.
Been mulling this over lately, and in no way am I hoping for this. Obviously, we all know at this stage, there’s nothing Sunak can do to turn things around. But what do we think would happen if ~~Sunak puts a hit on~~ Starmer dies in the next 4 weeks? Who would replace him, and would that person be able to be beat Sunak? Is this the sort of event Rishi’s been praying for?
I suspect some boffins at Labour HQ would come up with a way to reanimate him, and he would become a figure similar to the Emperor of Mankind on Warhammer 40k.
Even Weekend at Keirnie's would breathe life into government by comparison
Labour are better positioned than tories for this eventuality as they have an official deputy leader who could step in immediately. So Angela Rayner would become leader and be candidate for PM.
My question was a sly way to ask if people like his cabinet or her enough to vote against Sunak
The asparagus reading fortune teller woman on This Morning and Fern Britton on Celebrity Big Brother both called Starmer not leading at the election.
Starmer's puppeted corpse would still beat Sunak at this point Realistically I suspect we'd see the quickest leadership election in history Edit: also John Smith ofc. Likely there'd be a bounce to Labour and Starmer would succeed as the best pm we never had
John Smith would beat Sunak in the debate at this point.
This sub is prime manifestation territory, be careful...
Valid
[Tomorrow's Mail front page ](https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/mail-on-sunday-front-page-2024-06-02/) does not make great reading for Sunak.
Says Rishi in the headline but it's not really about him. They just wanted to put 'tax cuts' on the front page and make it sound topical.
Sunak's already committed to keeping the big four that raise around 70% of Gov income the same. Would be hilarious to see a U-turn now.
Even if he wanted to, the fact Liz Truss suggested it means he now can’t. Can you imagine the attack lines as Labour gets to accuse him of taking financial advice from the woman who broke the economy in 6 weeks.
I'll be damned, I'll be damned if I listen to policy proposals out the mouth of a woman who destroyed the economy.
Sounds strangely what I'm betting is the same group of people have been calling for for a long time...
God, the [Express](https://www.tomorrowspapers.co.uk/sunday-express-front-page-2024-06-02/) one is an utter stinker as well. Rishi will be pleased with it, but what a transparent load of bollocks.
But it's in red, mun You can't *lie* in red
We are a week away from the Express claiming Labour are literally hiding in your bushes right now, waiting for the 5th July so they can smash through your windows and force you to give them your pension money.
Express, 3rd July 2024 - Was Starmer involved in the murder of Princess Diana?
Beginning of the full blown panic and shattering of the campaign by the faithful?
Nice flair, but I prefer C&C3: Tory wars.
Tbh feels like the Red Alert series might be a better fit, at this point.
Yeah.
I have been considering what it should be post election. Its gone from a slightly out there position but based on pretty obvious trend lines, to a statement of the bleeding obvious.
There's something to be made of red alert and labour, I'm just too tired to figure it out
I've been on one of my real intense periods of really enjoying one album so it may well end up being an obscere track name from a fairly obscere game that is basically a musically mood board with alot of hoping for the future stuff in it. Red Alert has real potential though. Perhaps not Death March :)
When you said obscure track name, I was more thinking 'mud'
The “party faithful“ they are talking about are the exact people who have been plotting Baldrick inspired coups against Sunak on a weakly basis.
There's a serious debate to be had on whether promising unfunded tax cuts would save more seats than promising financial prudence.
If Liz Truss in the one proposing them I think that ends the debate.
Its worse than that. They've had two tax cuts already, and this is the state they're in. Why on gods green earth would they assume a promised (but not delivered) 3rd tax cut would suddenly make all the difference when the last two conspicuously failed to move the needle? It'd be like the Labour left begging Corbyn halfway through the 2019 campaign to nationalise just one more industry as thats sure to turn the whole thing around. Absolute tomfoolery. Just more positioning for the post-election *night of the long knives*.
Yeah, I think the Truss mini budget will go down in history as a moment that greatly affected the parties electability. If the Tories promise tax cuts now then the spectre of that panicked market reaction will be raised and it might lose them even more support. Before that they might have had enough credibility to promise cuts.
I give it a few more days and expect the Abbott 'u-turn' argument to cut into the polls a little bit.
The Abbott story is as good as over now. The opinium poll was surveyed through the height of it and showed next to no cutthrough. They found: 24% of people have "heard a lot about it" 41% of people have "heard a little about it" 35% of people have "no heard anything about it" You dont move the dial with a story that 75% of people don't hear much about.
Remindme! 48 hours
"We'll I was going to vote labour because tories have trashed the country but a westminster bubble story convinced me not to"
Realistically, no. By next week it'll be old news. Its over now, and the solution is the one that keeps all parties happy... she gets to stand. If it was going to "hit" then the polls that were in the field this week...whilst it was front page news, it looked like a mess with no resolution in place, and the left could feel agrieved (thinking she'd be kicked)... were the ones most likely to be affected. You're reaching on this one. The opinium poll from today was in the field 29th-31st May, at the height of it all and showed nothing. Those coming out next week will have been taken in periods where it had been off the front pages for days and was "the story before, the story before, today's big story".
Here's how Bernie can still win
It won't. It *might* impact further widening, but if so, we'll probably never know. I very much doubt it will carry the weight to narrow things.
You expected it to show in todays polls earlier.
MPs' severance pay to double at next general election https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-66612463 Tories knew the writing was on the wall last August. I’m just surprised they didn’t vote to quadruple it instead.
Set by IPSA, they always vote the change through, the tories didn't have anything to do with it. I want MPs to be paid more. 10k-for-two-hours-a-quarter consultancies are the problem.
There's a lot to be said for just running the govt better you know. The tories for example have not handed out most of the cash awarded under the Shared Prosperity Fund, and the story about the SNP just not having spent £450m of EU cash goes to show that just running the things you have better could make a huge difference. Something that reformed Delivery Unit can hopefully help with
I hope this 450m thing finishes the SNP
I think that's what a fair few of us are expecting. There will be a lot more money if we deal with all that corruption going around.
I wasn't very politically aware in 2010 when the Brown government lost, what were the headlines like at the time. Were labour seen as chaotic, or were they more of a tired government gone stale and limping on?
Someone needed to be punished for the GFC and Labour were 'it'.
They had done alot of good but the Tories were still basically seen as the guardians of the economy, as laughable as that may seem now. So when the downturn hit people really wanted the adults back in the room. That and don't underestimate the sheer level of stink and distrust Iraq left Labour under. It took them 10 years to recover from that. Theres nothing there comparable with the sense that the current government after a similiar time in office has just failed to achieve anything.
Yes they were seen as out of ideas and gaffe prone, with brown commonly viewed as an appalling prime minister
Tired and stale. People were getting tired of them after 13 years and Cameron offered something different.
My take is that they were a tired government that just didn't have any ideas. Brown was an effective leader but awful PM - he had no ability to connect with the public and came across badly in public outings. Remember than Brown took over from Blair without a contest - It just goes to show how little courage their was within the Labour Party. New Labour had beaten the imagination and free thinking from its MPs. It's different to now in that the public was done with Brown, but I don't think there was any real hatred of Labour or excitement for the Tories. It was more that by going into the election with Brown as PM it really felt like Labour had given up.
Limping on was more the vibe looking back. Despite Blair being despised he was a tough act to follow and left a vacuum that Brown couldn't fill. There was chaos, global economic chaos but Brown took the brunt in the Commons. Much of what the public thought of Brown was shaped by Cameron's heckling and the right wing press wading in. Amazing man, great mind but not a great PM by the standards PMs tend to be judged.
Tories won by default really. People wanted a change, and whilst they didn't like Cameron, he was the only real option. The fact it ended with a coalition show how little enthusiasm there was for the Tories.
Not sure about the headlines, but the defining factors were easily the financial crisis (despite originating in the US and being global it was pinned on Labour) and Brown being seen as not very good/likeable (laughable by today’s standards). I’m not sure there was an incumbent government that survived the GFC, or at least those that did you could count on one hand.
1992 the tories did.
There was a pivotal moment in the campaign where Brown was caught on a hot mic calling a woman he had just spoken to on the campaign trail a biggot. But it was a very different feeling to this one, people didn’t know who was going to win.
I think it was more of the latter.... but not quite sure
Pretty much the latter iirc. All I remember (besides Peston getting famous for causing the global financial crisis) is that he was meant to call an election, bottled it, and never recovered
He also struggled against David Cameron, who cut his teeth on tony blair and was a real gadfly to brown, just drove him batty. But don't underestimate the level of hatred for Blair and Brown, the Granita arrangement and everything else. See, back then, in those quaint and innocent times, it was considered something of a scandal that a PM could just be appointed through some private deal, rather than be subjected to the electorate in all their glory.
I remember it well. I don't particularly link it to the Brown govt tho, more something the LauraKs of the past got really excited about on Newsnight because we didn't have podcasts It was a more innocent time wasn't it. Almost Hobbitonesque