Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 7, 2024 22:26:12 GMT
In Pennies from Heaven, Arthur and his doppelgänger the Accordion Man first meet each other in Gloucester, which is also the location of the music shop that Arthur tries to flog sheet music for popular songs to.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 7, 2024 13:44:20 GMT
Often a big problem in even quite large provincial towns away from major postindustrial concentrations, let alone in the countryside.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 6, 2024 19:18:50 GMT
It and Pentlands were safe in a Kensington and Chelsea way until the Tories died and were replaced by non-Tories. I think reliably Tory is the term rather than safe Tory. Yes. It's a category of constituency that no longer really exists as voting habits have become more volatile, but you can't understand postwar elections (especially) without reference to it. Interestingly, of course, it was also an important category in the Late Victorian and Edwardian era, but (like now) very much gone by the 1920s and 30s with a few odd exceptions such as Merioneth.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 5, 2024 16:40:39 GMT
There were also some against-the-grain losses and tight calls in local elections, which got people jittery.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 3, 2024 20:00:22 GMT
there has never been a large Jewish community in Birmingham and there is not today. If you exclude Sutton Coldfield the community is smaller still. I know one prominent figure in the Birmingham Jewish community but he is an "immigrant" from Manchester. The main concentration historically was Edgbaston proper, and it still is (at least if you ignore the students at Selly Oak). Never a large community, as you say, and very heavily involved in medicine.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 1, 2024 13:29:29 GMT
I was surprised to learn Pendle and only had a dozen labour councillors. It's not a place I know well though Labour have underperformed there for at least a few years now, including still losing the popular vote last year. Local and national voting patterns there have been... er... somewhat decoupled there for a while now.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Apr 1, 2024 11:42:13 GMT
It's a small group and very geographically concentrated. I would assume they all know each other very well.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 29, 2024 11:37:47 GMT
I'll just notice that there are people on reddit and such asking how old Mrs Donaldson is. It seems to not be readily publicly available information. She was born in 1967 it seems.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 29, 2024 11:36:49 GMT
think someone just confused east and west, happens all the time It does, but the fact that this one has lasted over 40 years through a couple of reviews is strange. Nobody seems bothered enough by it being wrong to try to change it. Ah, but you see by this point it's traditional.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 28, 2024 13:36:31 GMT
Both of the grossly extended Mid Wales constituencies will be complete messes. The LibDems are a lot weaker than they used to be and don't really have a Personality to rally around (which is historically unusual in the region), but are still not dead, while there's really no reason for the various local Labour parties to not give it a go: it isn't as if there are, under present circumstances, many marginals likely to be found near Pontardawe.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 27, 2024 19:17:37 GMT
He has the wrong sort of profile. Even if we ignore what he says, I'm not sure if he's entirely aware which types of media are electorally beneficial to be on all the time and which are not.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 26, 2024 12:58:16 GMT
Not that Len Murray was exactly Mr Exciting either. He was, however, that rarest of things: a prominent figure in public life from Shropshire who managed not to disgrace himself in one way or another.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 24, 2024 14:14:12 GMT
I'm fairly sure that we've had this exact discussion before. Anyway, in a General Election most people vote to express their vote on who ought to be running the country, which is why the few instances of Independent Labour candidates actually winning have tended to involve either a) a candidate who the electorate can feel is still basically a proxy Labour vote even if they've fallen out with the Party, b) a candidate who has significant crossover appeal or c) both. We aren't talking of hard and fast rules here as there are none, but of a pretty strong and well-established pattern.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 24, 2024 0:11:34 GMT
There were boundary changes, there had been demographic changes, but mostly it was just a huge upset that Labour won the constituency in 1974 in the first place. Had the constituency existed in 1966, for instance, it would not have been won by Labour.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 19, 2024 17:17:39 GMT
A.P.Herbert was a law reformer, author & politician amongst other things. He was Independent MP for Oxford University until the abolition of university seats in 1950. His novel Holy Deadlock well illustrated the absurdity of the then divorce laws, and was a major factor in their reformation. A plaque to him can be seen on a house in a very beautiful (but rather noisy as it's very close to the A4) house at the Hammersmith riverside, close to the Black Lion pub. The Great Grandfather of Chesterfield MP Toby Perkins.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 9, 2024 19:07:27 GMT
Malvern very much not being a major centre of automotive manufacturing, for instance. Oh, I don't know ...I wrote 'major' for a reason!
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 9, 2024 18:59:31 GMT
It is sometimes hard to believe Leamington Spa and Great Malvern are Midlands towns when you visit them-both would not look out of place in the Cotswolds. Leamington and Malvern both grew as spa towns, which they share with Cheltenham and Bath. But they are nothing like the Cotswolds, which are well to the south in both cases. They are also not very like each other. Malvern very much not being a major centre of automotive manufacturing, for instance.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 4, 2024 17:06:35 GMT
Odd. One poll today shows a large Labour lead, another a much smaller and falling Labour lead. Can someone explain the difference. Different polling companies will often find different results while often being within the same general range, as is the case in this case. When a party has a very large lead (as is presently the case) this is especially so.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 3, 2024 15:09:13 GMT
I don't believe the poll as such, but that's mostly because the Labour vote is conveniently/suspicious high for the obvious SQUEEZE message (similar comments apply to some other recent Survation constituency polls). No reason to believe that he's not in trouble, though I would carefully advise the LibDems to avoid a particularly loud and noisy personality-driven campaign as we all know from experience that can backfire.
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Sibboleth
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 2, 2024 18:25:30 GMT
There's an obvious cynical calculation to remarks like that as well given the demographics of his vote, which is why Sunak would be well-advised not to give him an excuse to make them.*
*And shouldn't anyway. You do not give politics of his ilk free publicity!
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