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Post by Adam in Stroud on Feb 29, 2024 23:00:19 GMT
The Lib Dems have no immediate prospects in the seat and the Labour vote would have to split about 10 ways for them to benefit. And then they would still be behind the Tories and others. That is far from clear. Under an unpopular Labour Government the LDs could revive here - as happened when they won the seat back in 2005. I wouldn't completely rule that out, but you're looking a long way ahead. Right now our weakness in this seat is evident from the inability (unwillingness?) to make any sort of running in a by-election where Labour and the Greens have self-immolated while Reform have chosen an alleged sex-pest and the Conservatives are at some sort of record-breaking low in the national polls. (Please don't bother to tell me if they were lower in 1856 or something, I'm making sweeping statements here, don't expect accuracy.)
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Jan 5, 2024 20:20:47 GMT
However, despite dismissive comments from those on the right, I think his reasons for resigning are going to be awkward for Sunak.
Notwithstanding the culture wars approach to climate politics, plenty of people who vote Conservative take the issue seriously. The precise moment when half of the Severn valley is flooded is not a good time to have attention drawn to Sunak's complacency over climate change, especially in a constituency on the edge of Bristol. Climate change is a culture wars wedge issue which firms up one demographic while splitting off another and I think in this particular constituency (and quite a few others in the Severn and Thames valleys) I think Sunak is vulnerable to attack from the centre-left/environmental flank.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Jan 5, 2024 20:11:17 GMT
Another forum has suggested that every single Conservative MP who is currently suspended will do the same, so that there is a new vacancy every week. Is this just opposition members seeking to turn the screw on the Government or could it really happen? Why the hell would they do that? Skidmore clearly has a matter of principle at stake, viz. his opposition to Sunak's energy policy. Otherwise he would have presumably waited until the General Election which will be in the next 12 months and respecting which he has already said he won't stand. Given that his constituency is being abolished, forcing a by-election now only makes sense as a way to put the boot into Sunak on an issue that he feels strongly about. Most of the other suspended MPs have been suspended for some form of misconduct rather than for e.g. defying the whip. Why should they want to give up the pay and privileges of being an MP, and an uncertain future as a disgraced ex-MP from a party which will almost certainly be out of power, just to piss off their former party and/or its leader? What is the screw-turning supposed to achieve?
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 22, 2023 21:11:35 GMT
I'm not convinced that a large number are militantly censorious of adultery in itself, after all many of them or those they know will not be "without sin" in this regard. What has really got up people's noses, and continues to do so, is hypocrisy - preaching morality in public but not observing it in private. This was what made the "Back To Basics" fallout so devastating for the Tories three decades ago. Yes. This is veritably the strident British disease of preferencing hypocrisy as an evil over all the real evils. It could be seen as a rather subtle form of very gross hypocrisy in itself. I know! I know! I am in a desert of one in espousing this; but that is so familiar a country for me these days. No, you're not alone. Hypocrisy irritates me, but it doesn't hurt anyone. Things that do are worse. Conversely, being open about it is no excuse for being a shit.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 22, 2023 12:48:12 GMT
Hypocrisy certainly adds to the sense of outrage as highlighted by 'Back to Basics' but many still find the act of adultery to be morally unacceptable - the Cecil Parkinson- Sarah Keays affair comes to mind. The scandal in that was that he reneged on his commitment to marry her and was secretive about it. Yes, he was deceiving his wife and his mistress - it's like losing both parents in The Importance of Being Ernest. Personally I feel that since sex before marriage is no longer frowned on by most, serial monogamy has become the accepted norm of decent behaviour. Occasionally the jump to a new partner comes before the previous relationship has been legally dissolved and sometimes before the other partner has explicitly accepted its end. On the whole, that seems a matter of bad timing. But I regard repeated betrayal and deception differently, as I would if I was on the receiving end. For example, I don't know the details of Boris Johnson's personal life, and I have no problem with him or anyone else having a string of liaisons with willing partners. Good luck to both sides. However I do have a problem with failure to take responsibility for children and also with persistent lying and betrayal. Not only do I think it is reprehensible, I think it's a red flag when a politician is asking me to trust them with authority by voting for them. Johnson's political allies have often found themselves dumped and it amazes me that they are ever surprised.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 22, 2023 12:27:20 GMT
I'm not convinced that a large number are militantly censorious of adultery in itself, after all many of them or those they know will not be "without sin" in this regard. What has really got up people's noses, and continues to do so, is hypocrisy - preaching morality in public but not observing it in private. This was what made the "Back To Basics" fallout so devastating for the Tories three decades ago. The “Back to Basics” campaign was bad because itmwas interpreted by different people to mean different things. John Major launched it as being basic Conservative and capitalist principles and responsibility, but other people (and the media) jumped on the bandwagon by saying that it was about personal sexual morality and homophobia as well.I've often thought the Tory Press is a two-edged sword for the Conservative Party. Major was making a philosophical point; the likes of the News Of The World, for whom sex scandals and metaphorical queer-bashing were their stock-in-trade, were simply incapable of understanding that. A few backbench MPs were equally dumb, and between them they set up an open goal for Labour under a shiny new leader. (As it happens, I didn't think much of Major's philosophical point - if he'd fleshed it out with a bit more intellectual heft and practical policy then the confusion might not have arisen.)
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 20, 2023 19:07:30 GMT
I'm intrigued: I get why you support Bone, and all your antipathy to the current Conservative Party . What is your objection to Reform? Previously you have spoken quite warmly of Farage, who is its eminence gris. I posted with intemperance yesterday and have consequently re-written a few posts and deleted two altogether. I am no longer a supporter of the Conservative Party or of Farage. I was never a very convinced Reform supporter and am unsure what exactly that party does support now. Reclaim suited me but was never going anywhere and was a one-man-band with all the difficulties that can pose. I am distanced from politics and effectively homeless as such. I need a british form of AfD to be really a bit more happy. I am not expecting anything to shift my way in the time left to me. I know insufficient about the Bone case to make a judgement, but suppose him to have been fitted up by elements who do that sort of thing, either as part of a political 'sting' or a financial one. There must be something behind the allegations for all this to have happened, but I don't imagine it amounts to 'a hill of beans'! My liking of Bone has not been enhanced by the revelations, such as they are. My gripe is with the Recall Act but even more with the toxic and acidic turn of mind that would ever contemplate such an idea. The election cycle is quite good enough. Take care whom one selects and votes for in first instance. The HOC has the power to expel serious miscreants and that should be good enough. We expect far too much of representatives these days. They are human beings with all the baggage most of us have in rudeness, slackness, incompetence, odd habits, nasty practices, stupid actions, silly conduct and things better not said : Because they are Human! It was always thus but earlier we often didn't know. The media was less of a muck-raking, intrusive toad upon us all. This act is made to satisfy malcontents and malign little people who are tribal in their opposition and drool over the prospect of a by-election and doing-down the other side. They love to see an MP brought low and humiliated, with life, career, marriage and assets stripped and destroyed. It panders to the worst elements in society and rights no wrongs and does no good at all. It just reinforces the general view that all MPs are no good and doing bad things. It is a wholly bad idea with a trigger point that is absurdly low. Nothing would convince me to tolerate such an act let alone support it; but in the meantime a trigger of at least 33% should be in place. If not even a third of the electorate can be bothered to sign a simple petition, then there is NO demand amonst them for a removal is there? Thankyou, that helps to clarify.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 20, 2023 1:12:43 GMT
10% is fine. Remember that Recall is already very restrictive in our system. The higher the threshold, the more power given to MPs, and the whole point is to give power to the people. Leaving aside the precise threshold, Bone's argument is that far more people didn't sign, which he takes as an endorsement. The latter us a non-sequitur, but you could introduce a control whereby which people could actively vote against recall, and require the petition to not only surpass 10% but also to exceed the vote against recall.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 20, 2023 1:06:44 GMT
It probably won't be a winter by-election. March looks likelier That might have implications for the date of the GE. With April or May being scouted as possibles, a by-election in March which went badly for the government would be a bit of a nuisance for Sunak if he was planning on calling an election immediately after the Budget. Can he put off the by-election long enough to hold the Budget and then have the By-Election subsumed into the General Election?
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 20, 2023 1:01:15 GMT
If Bone stands , he will split the Tory vote and seriously weaken any challenge mounted by Reform. Oh I do hope so very much indeed. I hope he wins but if not that he beats those two out of sight.I'm intrigued: I get why you support Bone, and all your antipathy to the current Conservative Party . What is your objection to Reform? Previously you have spoken quite warmly of Farage, who is its eminence gris.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 14, 2023 23:12:24 GMT
Fairford, Lechlade etc: Con 624 Lab 73 Ind 53 Lib Dem 705
Lib Dem hold
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 1, 2023 14:37:26 GMT
If the Lib Dems claim to be best placed to beat the Tories, and the result of the election is that the Lib Dems comfortably win and the Tory is second, with Green Party and Labour well behind, can you explain how that claim is a lie, as opposed to an entirely accurate statement borne out by subsequent events? The leaflets I've seen showed bar charts based on election results in completely different wards. It's the equivalent of Labour targeting a Lib Dem seat in a general election - say Kingston and Surbiton - and saying because in 2019 they won 20x the seats and 5x the votes they were best placed to win in a seat they have never won. Of course if the Greens were any good they would have exposed this sort of tactics - but they appear to be useless in the face of a decent non-Tory campaign (Camden excepted assuming Labour actually bothered). The Lib Dems do need to start saying what they are for; not being Tory isn't sufficient, because when in the next few months the Tories are out of office at Westminster their platform will come under scrutiny and being patsies for a dull centrist Starmer government won't do the any good. The Guardian letter yesterday made the point better than I could. Try looking up the definition of "lie" in a dictionary. A chart showing results in another ward isn't a lie unless the result is wrong or the ward isn't disclosed. It might be irrelevant, but not necessarily that either. In a ward where we didn't stand last time, how do voters know the latent LD strength? Evidence from comparable nearby wards could easily be entirely relevant, especially if it's part of a pattern of progress across an area. Labour are welcome to turn up in Kingston and point out that nationally they're the bigger party (which the national media do for them free of charge every day) and see if it convinces anyone that it's relevant to Kingston. You need a degree of credibility for these things to work. If you're LD, Green, or Reform, you operate in a 2-party system where the usual assumption (correctly) is that you can't win. Pointing out you're in with a chance is the first step - until you win that argument no one gives a toss about your policies (unless they're purely registering a protest.) In a local council by-election the only meaningful policies anyway are hyper-local.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 1, 2023 1:53:27 GMT
Maybe? I can't remember one, but I don't follow these things as well as some others on here.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 1, 2023 1:50:56 GMT
Good stuff as usual. The mention of James Herriot in the preview for Sowerby and Topcliffe is apt. My sources there tell me the Lib Dems have been going for the ward big time including endorsement from James Herriot successor - Julian one of the current Yorkshire Vets. They have also been employing their very latest bar chart technology arguing that as they have outpolled Labour and the Greens in various other North Yorkshire by-elections (some the best part of 100 miles away) that they are best placed to beat the Conservatives in a ward they couldn't find a candidate to stand in 18 months ago. Sadly I expect it to be successful and a policy and ideology free campaign will win based on celebrity endorsement and lies. C'est la vie. If the Lib Dems claim to be best placed to beat the Tories, and the result of the election is that the Lib Dems comfortably win and the Tory is second, with Green Party and Labour well behind, can you explain how that claim is a lie, as opposed to an entirely accurate statement borne out by subsequent events?
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Dec 1, 2023 1:44:12 GMT
NORTH YORKSHIRE Sowerby and Topcliffe I make that: SLADDEN, Dan (Liberal Democrat) 764 - 42% ELDERS, Dave (Conservative) 460 - 25% LAW, John Timothy (Green) 306 - 17% TOMLINSON, Helen Kathleen (Labour) 250 - 14% HALL, John Philip (Yorkshire Party) 35 - 2% EXOTIC, Stew (Official Monster Raving Loony Party) 20 - 1%
How many other Lib Dem gains from Green Party have there been?
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Nov 29, 2023 20:55:36 GMT
No but I follow a lot of Labour MP's on Facebook and there are lots of angry comments from people on the subject. One example was the new Hamilton & Rutherglen MP Michael Shanks who voted along with Starmer in favour of no ceasefire - he has been criticized by many of his followers (new constituents?) for doing so. OK, fair enough. But I'm dubious of any unevidenced claims that Scotland is more "progressive" than England - British Social Attitudes Survey consistently shows the opposite, but I suspect that Scots like to think otherwise to elevate themselves over the wicked Tory-voting English. I did wonder however if the SNP stance on the issue was having an effect, sort of shifting the Scottish Overton Window on this specific issue to the pro-ceasefire position.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Nov 29, 2023 20:32:05 GMT
Well, they take a poll result and use demographics to break it down by constituency, which is arguably the more important poll under FPTP. But neither the polling nor the demographics can account for tactical voting or the impact of different campaigns in different seats which is what meads to some of the odd results. This one is clearly nonsense That's precisely the problem. It's quite correct that the constituency results under FPTP are more important than the headline Voting Intention, especially for parties below the top two (where for the latter the rating vs each other and the trend gives you a decent idea of how they are going to do in their target seats.) But loads of "odd" (i.e. incredible) predictions in specific seats are likely to make the overall prediction rubbish. If they can actually crack it, MRP would be a really useful tool. But (as I spent some time failing to explain to someone the other day) it's not data, (as a constituency poll in e.g. Eastbourne would be, even a poor one) it's a prediction based on data.
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Nov 29, 2023 20:00:04 GMT
The Nats might have benefitted from Starmer stance on the ceasefire which is not popular at all in Scotland and why the Labour % has dropped.Intriguing. Any evidence for this being more so than in England, and for the reason?
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Nov 28, 2023 18:17:05 GMT
The problem that the Lib Dems will have in T & H (or predecessor seats) and N Shropshire is their stance on Europe. In a by-election, they're able to duck the issue (to some extent); not in a general election. Though their policies at present are vague, their desire for much closer ties with Europe are no secret. Come a general election, the respective MPs for these constituencies are going to face a very tough task convincing leave voters. Sarah Green - in C & A - will encounter this challenge far less, in a remain-leaning, affluent constituency, that has some parallels with nearby St Albans and Oxford W & A. I think one thing we can be fairly sure of is that next time round, the LibDems are not going to repeat their ridiculous and hubristic campaign of 2019 - not just in terms of targeting but message, ie "scrap Brexit" and the like. For most people, outside the diehard core who may be more likely to vote Reform than Tory the way things are going, vague "closer ties" with the EU are likely to be neither here or there compared to other issues. I think you understate your case. Polls show a consistent majority of around 60:40 for the proposition that Brexit was a mistake, and dissatisfaction with the Brexit we have even among those who support (or supported) the principle. A lot of that is due to overwhelming dislike for Brexit among those who came onto the electoral roll since 2016, as was predicted at the time (to which the main response was to scream "you want us all to die!" rather than actually engaging with the matter and trying to win younger voters over). Anecdotally, I find they regard this as (yet another) issue where their generation were screwed by older ones with no right of redress. I don't for a minute think this translates into a big majority for Rejoin Now! but no-one is going to argue for that. I think the prospect of masses of voters, even in constituencies which voted Leave, deciding that the Conservatives as presently constituted are preferable to the Lib Dems because we are in favour of improving links with Europe, is zero. There are however some, especially but not solely in seats like C & A, who will think the other way round, by which I mean that they will dislike the current mess and blame the government for it (rightly so.)
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Post by Adam in Stroud on Nov 25, 2023 0:11:20 GMT
When was St Kilburn canonised and what is he (she?) the patron saint of? Fake saints, forged paintings and crypto currencies. Good try, but I think all of those are a bit upmarket for Kilburn. I'd go for patron saint of cut-and-shut cars.
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