Jeremy's Den: Madman Across The Border

Working class men are likely to be drunk, criminal, aimless, feckless and hopeless

And perhaps claiming to suffer from low self-esteem brought on by unemployment

(Boris Johnson, The Spectator, 1995)

Original version with Mick Ronson on lead guitar

recorded during the Tumbleweed Connection sessions

He's a straightforward psychopathic personality type

Plenty of people are and have successful jobs in business or politics

(Doctor Sasha Blackburn, Silent Witness: Life Licence, 2016)

Over the last few years, the British electorate have solidified their status as people who don't really know what they actually want. It shows again in recent polls about who is the public's preferred First Lord of the Treasury. Which is, as you might recall, the actual "constitutional" designation of the office held by the person holding The Position Conventionally Known As Prime Minister. The one Carrie's husband fancies he could hold longer than Margaret Thatcher, and it's fair to assume he brought forward the Equinox Reshuffle just to show everybody who's got the biggest in the schoolyard, and avoid being deposed by a Very Tory Coup. Not that we're overwhelmed by the influx of new talent but, ye ken, that's just Boris being Boris. Then you have to wonder how many fucking nutjobs vote in England, when you consider the trends of the Boris-vs-Keir polling. Boris' rating took a plunge between mid-May and mid-August, though never a big enough one to propel Keir to the top spot. Then he bounced back up after the Afghanistan catastrophe, and right in the middle of the controversy about social care and its funding. Looks like Scottish voters have more common sense, who massively say that neither is fit for office, and Boris even less than Keir.

Seeing lots of people switching from Boris Johnson to undecided, rather than to Keir Starmer, and then back to Boris, will come as a surprise only to those who have been living in the Nottingham Caves for the last 18 months. That's just what's bound to happen when the Leader of the Opposition himself is undecided about which policies he should propose, and keeps kicking the revelations into the long grass of the next Manifesto. Which might not even be ready in time, as Johnson is still the Time Lord here, and can call a snap election at his convenience. Recently, Opinium have shed another light on the competition, testing the people's assessment of Johnson and Starmer on a number of items, that basically define if they're real PM material or not. The results are quite enlightening and worrying at the same time. So let's dissect Boris first. The most amazing thing, when you consider that this bloke is sitting on the top rung of the food chain, is that he gets a majority of negatives on half the items tested, and very close to it on a further two. People conclusively think he's not trustworthy, can't make big decisions, isn't in touch with ordinary people and doesn't represent what they think. Which is quite a lot for the man in charge, who ends up with average positives eight points below the Conservatives' voting intentions. The ultimate irony is that people don't even find him really likeable, when he thought his after-dinner jokes would make him the funny buddy everybody wants to have a pint with. Miss and miss.

Opinium asked the same questions about Keir Starmer, plus one. Whether or not he looks like a Prime Minister in waiting. Now, if I hesitated between these two, I would be more concerned about the substance than the looks, but never mind. Good news for Keir is that he doesn't have a majority of negatives on any item. Bad news is that a lot of people have no opinion of him, can't say if they agree or disagree with him being this or that or whatsnot. 29% on average are neutral about Keir, compared to only 20% about Boris. Which only confirms he comes out as bland, way too often for his own good, or for his political future. He doesn't really come out as a strong leader who can get things done, and I guess a lot of people will find evidence of that in Labour's current situation. His only consolation might be, just might, that his average positives are closer to his voting intentions than Johnson's. But still six points lower, which doesn't make him the people's darling. Probably because they're not really convinced he shares their own views and can represent them. Price to pay when you're a trademark icon of the metropolitan elite, and not really likely to go to the same pub as them, unless it's a dreich day on the campaign trail.

Now you can do a little math with all those these numbers, and figure out what the net assessment is. As in (% of favourables - % of unfavourables). Not rocket science, and again the results are flabbergasting. Quite hilariously, Boris Johnson gets a net negative on all items, his record being a mammoth -32 on "trustworthy". But he also gets abysmal results, reminiscent of Alan Davies on QI, on "in touch with ordinary people" and "has similar views to my own", both on -31. While Keir Starmer gets a +10 on "has the nation's best interests at heart" and ties on "sticks to his principles" and "competent". He also has more positive negatives, if you get my drift, than Johnson on the other items, except "able to get things done" and "stands up for Britain's interests abroad". Which are typically things you expect only the one in charge to do well, so Starmer has an oven-ready excuse here. Overall Johnson ends up with an average -20, and Starmer with an average -8 on the items where both are tested. So why the fuck do people nevertheless pick Johnson as their preferred First Minister of England? The answer is of course in the last and Starmer-only item. 31% of the respondents see him as a "Prime Minister in waiting", while 47% don't. So his net -16 here means that he will be actually waiting. For a long time.

He’s like fire. And ice. And rage.

He’s like the night and the storm and the heart of the sun.

He’s ancient and forever, he burns at the centre of time,

And he can see the turn of the universe. And he’s wonderful.

(Timothy Latimer, Doctor Who: The Family Of Blood, 2007)

Between the ages of 30 and 50, a person either makes a sharp turn

Or they run into a brick wall, does that strike a chord with you?

(Chris Caldwell, Silent Witness: A Good Body, 1999)

Labour have put their pre-Conference days to good use, starting with a pre-emptive strike from John McDonnell against the leadership's policies, or lack thereof. John has revamped Jeremy Corbyn's election soundbite, and is now going with "from the grassroots, not from the focus groups". Of course, the proverbial yellow brick road to Hell is paved with fucking good intentions, and John may have overplayed his hand a wee smitch. Because, ye ken, some of his proposals did sound like manifesto pledges waiting to be broken. Which would be a shame after he, quite rightly, chastised the Conservatives for breaking theirs. On top of that came advice from The Guardian, that Labour should try and out-Boris Boris on Borisism. Which, considering the source, is probably the polar opposite of what Labour should actually do. But Labour of course have more pressing priorities, like appeasing an attention-seeking extremist who deliberately directed hate speech at women standing up for their rights, or sacking their Shadow Equalities Secretary. The Guardian just doesn't tell you the whole story: Marsha de Cordova refused to attend a joint Labour-Stonewall event and Sir Keir chose to appease the mob. Of course, the recent trend of general election polls is better for Labour than it was two weeks ago. But it has gone better and then gone worse again in the past, so Sly Keir should take nothing for granted and focus on the day job: Leader of the Opposition.

Now Labour definitely need to think it through before uncorking rosé champagne after each poll that says the Conservatives' lead has gone down. If the mechanics involved look like Tories flatlining and Labour going up, then it's good because it means Labour are siphoning votes and life from the Liberal Democrats and Greens, and might even get a few drops from the SNP. But if it is Labour flatlining and the Tories going down, as most current polls say, it's a fucking nightmare because all these votes are definitely going somewhere and that's, you guessed it, to the LibDems. Not so long ago, they had painted themselves into the dark corner of deep irrelevance so often that fewer people expected a LibDem surge than expected the Spanish Inquisition. And now, half the polls have them back to a double-digitish vote share, with the mysterious ways of FPTP possibly taking them back to 20+ seats. With the added nuisance that it could actually help the Conservatives more than Labour in some marginal seats. Unless Sly Keir has a rabbit up his sleeve, which could be the perennial Loch Ness monster of English politics: the Progressive Alliance. In Wales, Labour and Plaid Cymru are already taking babyish steps towards a New Zealandish or Denmarkish "non-coalition coalition" in support of the devolved government. Could Keir also consider extending a friendly hand to the Liberal Democrats in England? Which could possibly work if it was combined with the offer of a dozen guaranteed seats, but would also be a damning admission that Labour don't trust themselves to single-handedly defeat the worst English Government since Suez. Especially with conclusive evidence now that the New Kids On The Block are no better than the Old Gang, as they're basically the same arses sitting on different chairs.

It's not like Labour lack angles of attack. Best recent example is the omnishambles about Covid passports. Within two weeks, the English Government first said they were a necessity and would be enforced, then ditched them simply because they were unpopular, then started preparing public opinion for a U-turn within a U-turn and enforcing them after all, probably only if the death toll reaches 200k. Another example is the reform of planning laws in England, which I mentioned often as one of factors behind predicted Tory losses in the Leafy Blue Wall South. Now it will probably be gone within days, after being on the developers' drawing board for more than ten years. Of course Labour have nothing to brag about in either case, as the government backpedalled under pressure from their own MPs, not the opposition, though Ed Davey might be tempted to claim some of the credit for the planning laws thing. Labour can't even credibly campaign on the Brexit consequentials, as they never had an actual plan to counter it. Same applies to the social care crisis, as they conspicuously don't have a plan of their own, and even procrasturbated for a few days before whipping their MPs to vote against the NICs rise. And now we have to see what they have to say about the English Government's oven-ready Covid plan for the autumn, winter and the run-up to the next election. Or rather the plans, as there are obviously several variants, which will be activated, or not, depending on which way the wind blows. Not the actual state of the pandemic, of course, but the mood of the Tory backbenchers. This is going to be the Big Thing for a long time, and Labour will probably miss all opportunities it offers to outfox the Conservatives, and gain a tactical advantage. Scotland going their own way, no matter what the "Four Englands Approach" says, might be a hint of the massive flaws in the English plan, but it will probably take Labour some time to distance themselves from it. Too bad they haven't yet fully grasped that you get no points for procrastination and lack of imagination.

Perhaps you'll just have to stay here

Secure and a little bit miserable until the day you drop

Better than trying and failing, uh?

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Lodger, 2010)

Burn Down The Mission © Elton John, Bernie Taupin, 1970

My Baby Left Me © Arthur Crudup, 1950

Get Back © Paul McCartney, 1969

Everybody's got dreams and very few are going to achieve them

So why pretend?

Perhaps, in the whole universe, a call centre is where you should be

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Lodger, 2010)

Boris Johnson probably thinks that declaring war on France and China simultaneously is a smart move. But I guess the real reason was actually to give him an oven-ready excuse to bring back Imperial units, as it is the only way Englandshire-built parts for the Australian subs will fit with the American-built parts, that still use the 18th century measurements. Boris probably sees all this as some sort of competitive advantage in the now officially announced snap general election of 2023, or will it be 2022 as my guts tell me? Whichever it is, expect loads of lipstick to be put on fat pigs before market day. My current Poll'O'Polls includes the last six, conducted between 9 and 16 September. Super-sample size is 13,893 with a theoretical margin of error of 0.83%, and it predicts the Conservatives ahead by a wee 3.33%. This is not the worst result for the Conservatives since Boris Johnson became First Minister of England. It was worse at the end of December 2020, when Labour were predicted to win the popular vote and come back as the first party. Then Bozo was boosted (pun intended) by the Covid vaccination programme which, by the way, is no longer world-beating as France has overtaken the UK mid-summer. Thanks to the proper use of carrots and sticks, while The Saj was alternatively serving cold porridge and warm ale. And Labour was conspicuously avoiding the issue altogether, probably feart that they would contradict themselves more often than the Tories. Anyway, Labour are undeniably doing better than two weeks ago. Until they do worse again, that is. YouGov is showing the way here, who had Labour leading by 2% last week, and now have the Tories leading by 4%.

This less than stellar polling for the Conservatives naturally translates into far fewer seats. Now we're back to a near-2017ish situation, only with Labour having some claws clipped in Scotland. Which, when you think of it, is not that bad for Keir Starmer. If recovery is actually a twelve-step thing, which I seriously doubt, then the first step surely has to be "doing as well as the fucking Marxist tofu-eater". Well, Keir is almost there now, but he has to tread carefully. You just can't organise a witch-hunt and then blame it on "administrative errors" when some of the targets fight back. You double down and go full DARVO on them, any well-groomed SNP MSP could teach you that. If Keir knows his history of the Labour Movement, something I'm not really sure of, then he knows where factionalism and splits can lead you. It would be a massive failure indeed if Keir ended up proving Owen Jones right, when the probability of that ever happening is pretty much the square root of fuck all. Now, of course, a slightly improved situation is all Keir's to fuck up. And, if the past 18 months offer any evidence, he's just as good at this as Nicola Sturgeon.

The Conservatives being 52 seats down obviously results in a longer list of celebrity fatalities. First in London, in Starmer's own backyard, with Iain Duncan Smith and Theresa Villiers out. Elsewhere in England, both survivors of the Equinox Cull and newly-promoted minor nobility and landed gentry would bite the dust. Amanda Solloway in Derby North, Alok Sharma in Reading West, Chloe Smith in Norwich North, Iain Stewart in Milton Keynes South, Stuart Andrew in Pudsey. Plus everyone's favourite perennial twats: Philip Davies in Shipley and Steve Baker in Wycombe. Nicola Richards, one of two vocal supporters of gender self-identification within the Conservative Party, would also lose her seat in West Bromwich East, Tom Watson's former seat. And finally, for the karmatic value, suspended Tory MP and alleged child molester Imran Ahmad Khan in Wakefield. Interestingly, the Liberal Democrats would not do too bad despite losing big chunks of their electorate. Apart from Scotland, where there's again a variant of the SNP steamroller at work, they would hold all their 2019 seats. But not their by-election gain in Chesham and Amersham, which would go back to the Tory column. Oddly, the anti-Tory feeling in swathes of the Leafy South now benefits Labour much more than the expectant LibDems. But we'll go back to that part of the story later.

Today, Britain stands at a fork in its crossroads and its people are asking questions

Now we've got our country back, but what actually is it? Who are we? And why?

(Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Britain: The Arse End Of History, 2018)

This version recorded live at Wembley Stadium, 21 June 1975

What was the difference between punk rock and just being angry, but without a guitar?

(Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Britain: The Arse End Of History, 2018)

We have reached a point where it would take very little to topple the Conservative government, as shown by the alternative scenarios factoring in the usual margin of error. There are still four dozenish seats that need only a wee nudge to go another way than predicted, the majority being Tory seats. The most Labour-friendly scenario, which is below on the far-left, unlike Labour themselves, would require an additional 2% swing from the Tories to Labour. We've seen this before, and it would have Labour 1% ahead in the popular vote, but would still return the Conservatives as the first party because of the already existing bias in the boundaries. But the usual Rainbow Min coalition (Labour, SDLP, Liberal Democrats, Plaid Cymru, Greens) would have a strong legitimacy with 52% of the popular vote, and also outnumber the Tories with 296 seats overall. This is without even factoring in some pre-election pact that could potentially swing two or three dozen more seats. I'm not saying such a pact could ever exist, as it definitely lacks any semblance of traditional Englishness, or even advising them to do it. But it is quite easy to find out how many seats it could have switched in 2019, hypothetically, and act accordingly. If any £1k-a-day spad ever thought there would come a time for "thinking outside the box", this might be it. Just avoid anything along the lines of Gordon Brown's wet dream of "Rashford's Army", which is just a variant of still thinking inside the box.

Part of today's update is brand new Full Scottish polling. We've had two versions of Scottish voting intentions for the incoming snap general election, one from Opinium and one from Panelbase. Opinium's looks definitely very optimistic for the SNP, crediting them with 51% of the popular vote. Panelbase's is distinctly less so, crediting them with "only" 47% on a much bigger sample. So I will follow the path of caution once again and rely on the weighted average of these two polls. Which shows the SNP still in a dominant position, and doing better than previous polling indicated. But most of it depends on the Liberal Democrats still struggling to repeat their 2019 performance, while the Conservatives still remain a force to be reckoned with in rural Scotland. Note that I deliberately disregarded the Scottish part of the mammoth Find Out Now poll for Electoral Calculus, the one that gave Stewart Hosie a 59-seat-worth hard-on. Not that I don't trust the poll's findings per se, which were close to Opinium's, just the methodology that translated them into a one-party slate.

Here the SNP are predicted to nick three seats off the LibDems (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross, Edinburgh West, North East Fife), but again just one from the Tories (and again poor Doogie Ross's Moray). The SNP would be with striking distance in a further two Tory seats (Dumfries and Galloway, West Aberdeenshire and Kincardine). But they are also clearly in the danger zone in four seats (Edinburgh West, North East Fife, Gordon, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath). And this doesn't even factor in the potentially lethal internecine feuds with the Alba Party. We also know from previous bad experience that Scottish polling is the psephological equivalent of pigs in blankets: a mystery shrouded in an enigma, and gift-wrapped in uncertainty. The SNP's electorate are also quite a challenge to behavioural science. They can be the most faithful of all, but also the most volatile when they smell a fucking rat dressed in porkies. Cue 2017 here.

We have ended up with this situation where our government

Is just like a steamed ham that's been hollowed out

And we've just stuffed it full of narcissistic twats

That seems to be what we voted for

(Fin Taylor, Have I Got News For You?, 2020)

This version recorded live at Wembley Stadium, 21 June 1975

The country is once again at a turning point, between a rock and a harder rock

Closing one door with a foot in the past and opening another with an eye to the future

An eye that’s looking at itself in the mirror and asking the question

“What sort of massive country am I?”

(Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Britain: The Arse End of History, 2018)

Now let's have our usual Tour de England, starting with the voting intentions. The Conservatives seem to have grasped at last that the proposed reform of planning laws was a vote-killer in the Deep South. Many see the demotion of Michael Gove to Housing and A Fuckload Of Other Stuff as a clear sign it will be repealed faster than the vestigial EU laws the Tories hate so much. All that we see here is not the basic Tory-to-Labour swing you might reduce it to at first glance, but a combination of several criss-crosses all across the board. Here we have, in various proportions, switches from Labour to the Greens, LibDems to Labour and the Greens, Conservatives to LibDems. And, on top of it all, the basic swing directly from the Conservatives to Labour, which might not even be the biggest factor. One of the interesting sideshows here is that polls now credit Reform UK with a higher share of the vote than the Brexit Party in 2019 or UKIP in 2017. And it works pretty much across all regions, even in cases where it's counter-intuitive. Especially in the North, where there is something like a reverse Hartlepool pattern, which is also one of the many keys to Labour's recovery.

Of course, Labour shouldn't read too much into current polling. Even if the overall seat projection looks 2017ish, they're not quite there yet in terms of votes. There is also a serendipity factor in many predicted Labour gains. The combined Conservative and Labour vote GB-wide is barely 76%, 2% lower than in 2019 and 8% lower than in 2017. The same pattern works in England with a combined vote share of 79%, compared to 81% in 2019 and 87% in 2017. Meanwhile, the Conservatives' lead over Labour in England has been cut by almost half, from 13% in 2019 to 7% in the last batch of polls There is definitely some weird appetite for parties the pollsters label as "Others", mostly smallish "local interest" parties who only very rarely manage to get one of their own elected as MP. The last time it happened in England was with the Health Concern candidate Richard Taylor in Wyre Forest, who gained the seat from Labour in 2001 and lost it to the Conservatives in 2010. Such candidates are definitely increasing their level of support GB-wide right now, and especially in remote corners of England. But that doesn't mean any of them could actually get elected. Unless maybe he's Marcus Rashford standing against Graham Brady, or Pen Farthing standing against Ben Wallace. Which is as likely to happen as Priti Patel apologising for being a stupid heartless bully, so don't get your knickers all bunched up just yet.

The breakdown of England's seats by region again shows why New New Labour are still struggling to do as well as Corbyn's New Old Labour did. They definitely have benefited from recent shifts in the electorate in the North and Midlands, but are still not back to their 2017 results in either region. Their best results, in a relative way, are still in the South, this time also including London, where they had some weak moments not so long ago. But Keir Starmer's spads should realise by now that doing well in the Imperial Capital and its extended Commuter Belt is not the surest way to get back to Number Ten any time soon. It's just another brick in the wall, or rather some bricks off the Blue Wall, but clearly not a substitute to rebuilding the Red Wall. Surely seeing Once-Sly Keir fumbling thrice about "looking across the board at a broad range of possible options" before whispering "wealth tax" at last, is not the surest way to win back the low-paid working class youngsters he needs, those who have been hit hardest by Tory policies on taxes and benefits, and haven't heard anything strong about it from Labour yet. But then you can't be seen culling the left to attract "soft Tories", and endorsing the left's positions at the same time, can you? Some day, all of this will come back to bite Keir in the arse, unless he realises that the voters he needs the most are the ones who give the weeest fuck about "inclusion and diversity" the way Young Labour define it, and are more concerned about decent living than hurt feelings.

Can the nation that withstood Romans, Vikings, plagues,

Great Fires, Rippers and Hitler survive itself?

Will it draw upon the spirit of King Arthur, Lord Nelson,

Queen Victoria, Charles Darwin and Andy Crane?

(Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Britain: The Arse End of History, 2018)

This version recorded live at Hammersmith Odeon, London, 24 December 1973

Who will the Britain of tomorrow look like? And why?

Britain didn’t get to have a long history by ceasing to exist or being born yesterday.

The one thing we can be sure of is that Britain is Britain.

And it will stay that way forever. Until it’s not.

(Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Britain: The Arse End of History, 2018)

Meanwhile, ad septentrionem Velli Hadriani, we have had some new Full Scottish polling. Just in time for the SNP Conference, who patted themselves on the back for overwhelmingly passing strongly-worded resolutions advocating urgent and decisive action on reserved matters. While the simultaneous Alba Party conference supported getting Trident out of Scotland and opting out of the English Monarchy on Day One of Independence. To which the SNP didn't respond, but if they had, I fully expected it to be: "You just can't, Alex". Though I fail to see the logic in allowing the English Navy three years to pack off Faslane and Coulport, as the SNP proposes, when they have already had nine years' advance warning to extend the facilities at Devonport. Unless the real plan, as I am convinced deep down, is to use the three years to negotiate a 99-year lease and extraterritoriality. Guess we will have to wait until the Council elections next year to know the exact impact of all this, and in the meanwhile just deal with what polls say. I have already mentioned the Westminster part of the last polls earlier, and included it in my updated Commons projections. We have also had three Holyrood polls that delivered quite unexpected results, as there is obviously not the slightest hint of buyer's remorse, compared to the May election. The two polls actually show the Yellow-Green Axis doing better, as "the other lot" have again proved they're fucking wankers. So here is what the weighted average of the three polls, factoring in regional breakdowns of voting intentions, would deliver: 74 pro-Government MSPs according to my model, or 73 on uniform national swing.

There would be some slight changes both in the constituencies and the lists. Here the SNP are projected to gain Shetland from the Liberal Democrats, Aberdeenshire West from the Conservatives and Dumbarton from Labour, but they would lose Perthshire South and Kinross-shire to the Conservatives. The SNP would also lose both their current list seats in Highlands & Islands and South Scotland, but quite unexpectedly gain one in Mid Scotland & Fife. Even if Council elections are definitely not a predictor of parliamentary elections, it will be extremely interesting to scrutinise the tiniest details of next May's results. The SNP have already fallen below 400 Councillors nationwide, their lowest since 2011, though sources differ on the exact number: 399 or 396? Whichever it is, the real point is whether or not the SNP can rebound above 400 or nosedive deeper, and here the performance of the Alba Party will be one of the major keys. So expect fuckloads of the usual shite-slinging at "bigoted transphobic right-wing evangelical fascists", and possibly some shitwanks also claiming that they need Council victories to strengthen the Tenth Mandate for independence, the David Tennant Mandate. Can we skip directly to the Peter Capaldi Mandate next, please? Or, just a random thought, actually work on the mandate and get some fucking thing done, beyond asking nicely for a Section 30 Order, also known as the Godot Order. Because, ye ken, the trend of IndyRef2 voting intentions ain't what it used to be.

The most recent polls have done little to improve the prospects, and the Scottish electorate appear split even on the principle of having the referendum. You have roughly one third who want it next week, one third who are in no hurry, and one third who don't want it at all. And those who are in a hurry are not all Yes voters. The No camp could find many reasons in the polls to hold it quickly, as the polls predict at best 49% Yes to 51% No right now. Clearly more muscle-flexing is needed here, and it would be a shame if the Alba Party alone was ready to make the effort. The last Panelbase poll, fielded between 6 and 10 September, sheds some light on the actual priorities of the electorate. Here's what it says, with the most relevant crosstabs (click on the image for a larger version). Political affiliation is on the basis of the 2019 general election, and excludes Green voters as there were so few of them then.

Unsurprisingly, the economy is the top priority across the board, though defining it as "economic growth" is already a debate within the debate, and might explain why it rates lower with the younger generations. Independence is only a distant priority for the public at large, but comes second for both the SNP voters and the Yes voters of 2014. More interestingly, GRA reform is the lowest priority overall and pretty much across the board. Only the 16-34s of both sexes rate it somewhat higher, though nowhere near the top. SNP and Yes voters fit the majority pattern, as both categories have it as their lowest priority. Of course Nicola Sturgeon will totally ignore it, but she will have to face the fact that there is no popular demand for it. Just as she will ignore the nascent movement of civil disobedience over the inane guidance for schools, about "supporting transgender pupils". Though she will have to acknowledge the impact of unpopular policies on next year's Council elections. A good start would be to start listening to her own voters. Who are more supportive than average of rent control, public ownership of Scotrail and conversion of the oil industry to green jobs, and also less supportive of increased capacity for cars. There is quite a pattern here as SNP voters support policies supported by the Greens, but not all by the SNP, or just reluctantly. The only major issue missing is land reform, though I have a hunch that SNP voters would also have been closer to the Greens than the SNP. But of course Nicola would dismiss the whole poll as "non valid", just as she does with any concern that doesn't fit her pre-programmed ideological trajectory. Until voters put her off-piste for good.

I'm thinking of going gay next year, for tax reasons

You think you'd write off lube against your tax, it's great

(Phill Jupitus, As Yet Untitled: No Smiling, No Laughing, 2016)

I’d rather have a dog’s brain

I’m sick of thinking about everything all the time

Or Jedward, I’d rather have Jedward’s brain

(Jon Richardson, Room 101, 2012)

I have not discussed Northern Ireland recently, simply because we don't have general election polls from there, and haven't had any for nearly two years. But there have been some for the next Northern Assembly election, which is scheduled for May 2022. Or possibly earlier if the DUP throw a tantrum about the English Government's inept handling of the Northern Ireland Brexit Protocol, and choose to blow up Stormont preemptively. Voting intentions for the Assembly, as published on Wikipedia, reveal some interesting trends. There is still competition between Sinn Féin and the SDLP for the Republican vote. We saw that in 2019 already, when a massive swing switched Foyle from Sinn Féin to the SDLP, and Sinn Féin only narrowly avoided losing South Down too. At the time I read that as growing discontent over Sinn Féin's abstentionism, with a lot of Republican voters resenting not being represented in Commons when Brexit was being discussed. I wouldn't be surprised if the same pattern was repeated in general election polls, as Brexit is obviously far from a done deal (pun fully intended) for Northern Ireland. Something just as interesting is also happening on the Unionist side, with potentially earthquakish implications. The arch-Unionist Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV), whose main raison d'être is opposition to the power-sharing mechanism enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement, have snatched half the hardline Unionist vote from the DUP and relegated them to joint fourth. This might very well convince TUV to contest the next general election in a majority of constituencies, if not all.

Of course, voting intentions for the Assembly say nothing about a future Westminster election, unless they actually do. Because they reflect trends, if not actual votes, that could very possibly be duplicated at a Commons election. A comparison between the vote shares at the 2019 election and the last Assembly voting intentions shows that a scenario, where the next Commons vote aligns with the Assembly vote, is not as far-fetched as it may look at first glance. Then we have two alternative scenarios. In one, TUV decide to sit out the election, as they did in 2019, and their potential voters switch to the DUP, taking them to 27%. The winner here would be a back-from-the-dead UUP, who would match their 2015 vote and gain back the exact same two seats they won back then. Fermanagh and South Tyrone from Sinn Féin, the perennial marginal that switched back and forth eight times between 1950 and 2019. South Antrim from the DUP, a UUP stronghold for fifty years until it became a Unionist-only battleground in 2000 and has changed hands four times since. We're definitely not in fantasy land here, as this was already a plausible outcome during the 2019 campaign. Then there is a more risqué scenario, where TUV decide to stand in all 18 constituencies. Which won't happen, as basic maths say they have fuck all chances of bagging even one seat. But, if it did, the split vote would spell doom and gloom for the DUP. Here, the UUP are projected to gain the same two seats as in the TUV-less scenario. But the DUP would lose three more seats, so half their current representation overall, in quite a spectacular fashion. The Alliance Party would gain back Belfast East, which they already held between 2010 and 2015. This would mean the Capital would not have any Unionist MP for the first time ever. The DUP would also lose Lagan Valley, also to the Alliance Party, and Upper Bann to Sinn Féin. Both of which would be massive upsets as they are decades-old Unionist strongholds.

This is of course a crude approach, as it is fair to assume the TUV-inclusive scenario won't happen. Even if it did, odds are the UUP would stand down in a number of constituencies, to avoid splitting the Unionist vote further and suffering humiliating upsets. This would be an especially obvious decision in Lagan Valley and Upper Bann, where only a three-way split of the Unionist vote could deliver the seats to the opposition. Actual Commons polls might also predict very different vote shares, though I have a hunch they won't, and similar trends will show up. What we need now is a pollster going for a leap of faith and including TUV in their prompts for a general election poll, despite them not standing anywhere in 2019. The real litmus test is of course to use two lists of prompts, one with TUV on it and the other without, and check if the potential TUV vote actually switches back to the DUP in TUV's absence. And purity of the poll also requires that it does not include any question about Assembly voting intentions, so possible cross-contamination is avoided. Guess we now need a Belfast-based millionaire to fund that, as no newspaper in their sane mind would do it. Or would they?

This is bad, at the moment I don’t know how bad, but certainly

We’re three buses, a long walk and eight quid in a taxi from good

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: The God Complex, 2011)

It’s amazing you’ve come up with a theory

Even more insane than what’s actually happening

(Rory Williams, Doctor Who: The God Complex, 2011)

I've seen some stuff recently on Twitter about "the Pasokification of the Labour Party" under Keir Starmer. From some illiterate spoilt brats who have no idea what Pasokification actually means. Which, in exact historical meaning, is: a once-dominant social-democratic party is driven into irrelevance and replaced by a radical left party. Which is exactly what election results in Greece show over the last twenty years. The now world-famous Syriza was founded in 2004 as an electoral coalition of the radical left, but their roots go back to 1991. When the anti-capitalist Synaspismos was founded to fight the 1993 general election. They were clearly a fringe party for many years, even after the creation of their electoral alliance. The turning point was the 2010 government-debt crisis and its associated scandals. PASOK then lost all credibility and two-thirds of their voters, which paved the way for Syriza becoming the first opposition party in 2012, and then the ruling party in 2015. Despite their own fuckups and misguided decisions, including a government coalition with a far-right Eurosceptic party, Syriza remained the main opposition party after losing power in 2019. While PASOK before 2010, even in defeat, still bagged similar vote shares to Blair-era Labour, Syriza in defeat still managed to get almost as many votes as Labour later the same year. All of which makes the case that a once-mighty social-democratic party was driven into near-extinction by the radical left.

So this actually happened in Greece, but is there actual evidence that social-democracy has lost the plot all over the world? I will present evidence from Europe only, as the definitions of social-democracy and radical left are pretty much consistent here, while they tend to be more fuzzy in other continents with wildly different histories and political traditions. The only non-European example I could quote is New Zealand, where the Labour Party bagged a majority of the popular vote and a majority of seats last year, as it would support my point, but there never was any organised radical left party there, so it's weak evidence. Election results in countries with a history of strong social-democracy mostly disprove the case for some sort of continent-wide Pasokification, the only noticeable case supporting it being the last general election in the Netherlands. Even in France, the demise of the Parti Socialiste, the local variant of Labour, had little to do with the emergence of a strong radical left party, and much more with their voters migrating en masse to the Macronist La République En Marche. Next door, the incoming German general election looks better than ever for the SPD, who are now predicted to emerge as the first party with significant gains in votes and seats. But the SPD's major competitors from the left are Die Grünen, not the more radical Die Linke, who still suffer from their roots within the Communist Party of East Germany, one-and-a-half generation ago. So even an unlikely massive Green surge would not be a genuine Pasokification there, especially as the German Greens have proved to be ideologically flexible, and not averse to coalition deals with the conservative CDU, which have happened in three Länder already. A similar deal was even considered at national level after the 2017 general election, but soon gave way to a renewed Grand Coalition between the CDU and the SPD.

There's no way to escape the obvious conclusion: Pasokification is pretty much a Greek thing that was not repeated in other European countries. The demise of the Dutch PvdA actually happened in 2017 after a toxic coalition with the right, and has in fact much more in common with the demise of the LibDems in 2015. Especially as the radical left remains quite weak in the Netherlands, where the two largest parties are now variants of social liberalism. Even the last election for the European Parliament, where "extreme" parties usually do quite well, showed the Greens doing better than the radical left continent-wide, and the social-democrats still one of the three major players all over. And the English Labour Party, even in defeat and with mediocre polling, remains one of the most successful social-democratic parties in Western Europe, and even in the whole democratic world. Though I can't rule out they're doing everything they can to lose that status. Expelling Ken Loach for supporting former members, who have recently been culled by the New New Labour zealots, certainly looks like another step in that direction. You have to wonder if Sly Keir isn't actually inviting a split from the Socialist Campaign Group and their 35 MPs, technically 33 Labour and two independents. Precedents like the SDP and Change UK say that mass defections generally fail. Remember that, contrary to the established myth, the SDP were a massive failure as they lost 25 of their 30 MPs in 1983, and I certainly don't need to retell the story of the massive fuckup that was Change UK. But massive defections could also cost New New Labour dearly, as there is clearly a risk of split votes handing seats to the Conservatives. And this could be, against all odds, the start of an actual Pasokification.

I'm making perfect sense, you're just not keeping up

(The Doctor, Doctor Who: The Hungry Earth, 2010)

Jeremy's Den

18/09/2021

Madman Across The Border

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