Jeremy's Den: The Magnificent Six Hundred And Fifty

Never expose yourself until you've confirmed

The relative positions of your arse and your elbow

(DCI Tom Barnaby, Midsomer Murders: The Axeman Cometh, 2007)

The future is bright. Unfortunately, that’s not where we’re headed.

(Hugh Laurie)

Several British pollsters regularly conduct trackers. These polls that you field on a regular basis, to see if your panel give the same answers to the same questions over and over again, which they obviously don't, or else what would be the point of the tracker? Then pollsters also like to add some off-the-muff questions every now and then, mostly depending on what has made headlines recently, or what they think might made them look clever. Recently, Savanta Comres asked their panel how they feel about the Labour Party. More precisely, how they think Keir Starmer's New New Labour compares with Jeremy Corbyn's New Old Labour on a number of items, possessing more or less of certain qualities. Unfortunately, Savanta Comres did not include any crosstabs, so we have only the general population's verdict here, not what Labour voters think. Interestingly, about one in five respondents think Starmer is 'less' than Corbyn on every issue, so we can only guess that the proportion is higher among Labour voters, or possibly it isn't. I guess it depends on how many Labour voters can still be arsed to read Owen Jones's columns in The Guardian, and agree with him that Keir Starmer must resign because it rained in Truro last Thursday.

Of course, the results are not as bad for New New Labour as you might think after a cursory glance. In these troubled times, when the English Left seem keen on scoring as many own goals as possible, being rated 'the same' as Corbyn's Labour is in itself a success. Starmer's only real weak point here appears to be patriotism. But, of course, this has nothing to do with actual patriotism, but with ethnic English nationalism, as peddled by the billionaire-owned fish-wrappers. We all know that, no matter how hard Sly Keir tries and outborises Boris on this, it will never be good enough for the white supremacist Empire-shagging wing of the Conservative Party. So why does he even bother with that fucking bullshit? Doesn't Keir Starmer know that triangulation doesn't work, and that Labour would get better ratings if they fought on a genuinely unifying progressive manifesto? Shortly after the Savanta Comres poll, Opinium conducted another one, on behalf of Progressive Britain, headlined as 'How Labour Wins'. Which is supposed to be predicted by which party the public think would deal best with a number of key issues, Labour or the Conservatives.

The list of issues is different from the one used by YouGov in an earlier tracker, but the results are strikingly similar. Here again we have an outright majority of doubters when you combine the "neither" and "don't know" answers. And Labour again does better than the Conservatives, but not in a massively convincing way. There is massive irony in the panel thinking that the Conservatives are better than Labour at managing the economy. They have obviously not read the various columns, many of them in the right-wing press, describing the terminal decline of the British economy. In 2022, the UK will be the only country in the civilised world doing worse than Russia. They have sanctions, we have Brexit benefits, look no further. And it can only get worse, even the Bank of England thinks so. The same Bank of England who predicted, six years ago, that Brexit would be economic carnage. But of course the unelected ideologues at Vote Leave couldn't be arsed to listen. Too late to whine now, mates. But these ratings don't mean the next general election is a shoe-in for Labour. First, they are only a lukewarm endorsement of Labour. Second, we already know how volatile British public opinion can be, don't we?

How arrogant are you to think that you deserve to go through life with no one

ever saying anything that you don’t agree with or like?

(Ricky Gervais)

You can’t predict what will be offensive in the future

You don’t know who the dominant mob will be

(Ricky Gervais)

In another of their recent trackers, YouGov surveyed their panel about an issue that has gone into the background for now, but will come back centre stage as soon as an election is called: immigration. The first item was pretty straightforward: do people think that the number of people allowed into the UK in recent years has been too low or too high? As you might expect, the answers don't disappoint. Or they disappoint but don't surprise. Even in proverbially kind, generous and progressive Scotland, a majority think there are too many fucking furriners out there. One of weirdest variants of this is some EngNats whining that 'too many furriners' is the only reason why the BBC's Naga Munchetty dared say that the Joobly was not everyone's cup of tea. Of course, this is not a purely British phenomenon, and people in continental Europe have also become more and more intolerant of immigration over the last ten or twenty years. What makes it worse is when some left-wing parties switch to a 'regulated immigration' talking point, which is as close as they can come to 'anti-immigration' without risking massive backlash from their own base, and yet means pretty much the same. It has become official policy for the Danish Social-Democrats, so don't be surprised when the Labour Party entertain some sort of their proverbial 'creative ambiguity' about it. The dubious art of saying they agree with Priti Patel while not saying it.

Quite appropriately, YouGov did not take no for an answer and asked a follow-up question that exposed the public's contradictions about immigration and any variant of immigration policy. This one looked into the future, instead of back into the past, and was just as straightforward. Do you think we should allow more or fewer people, or even none, into the UK over the next few years? But from a list of specific categories this time, not just in a general sense. And here the tune changes. So now we would even welcome low-skilled workers, wouldn't we almost? Though of course high-skilled professionals, especially those in the health sector, are even more welcome. Of course, there is a massive flaw here. Most people in these categories are not the proverbial 'economic migrants' used as bait by all shades of the right, but refugees. And, even without Priti Patel's nauseating Nationality and Borders Bill being enforced, they just can't work in the UK in their chosen profession without first overcoming a massive bureaucratic process wrapped in red tape. Which is of course in total contradiction with the logic of a point-based immigration system, but never mind. Priti know best, until she obviously does not.

Even a very clever Home Secretary would have a hard time making full sense of such polling, so you can imagine what a conundrum it is for Priti Patel. The British public have tied themselves in a sailor's knot of contradictions here, looking generally open-minded, but sill not so fond of low-skilled workers, though Boris Johnson might want some more cleaners at Number Ten. Very generous attitude, which certainly explains why doctors from Yemen and Syria end up here as cleaners. There must be some logic at work here, even if you and I fail to see it, unless you admit that people generally haven't the fuckiest scoobie how current immigration and asylum legislation works, then expect the next remix to be both tougher and more generous. Good luck with that. We also want more university students, as we haven't yet grasped they don't want to come here any more, because they can find much better opportunities somewhere in the EU. Another Brexit benefit, surely. Asylum seekers are welcome too, but we already know the subtext here. Open arms as long as they're not 'the wrong kind of refugees'. Interestingly, wealthy investors are not as popular as you might have expected. Do the oiks fear that would mean more Russians, ready to ship their dividends to Putin's military industry? Or do they oppose Saudi and Qatari investors taking over the Premier League? Because even Northerners can see an awful record on human rights when they see one, and signal that they do care.

Where I come from, Open Garden Day is when someone breaks into your shed

(DS Daniel Scott, Midsomer Murders: Bad Tidings, 2003)

I did once lose an arm-wrestle to Boris Johnson

I was arm-wrestling him over who had vomited most in an F-15 fighter jet

How manly is that?

(Jeremy Clarkson)

I still can't believe it happened the way it did. That the most important event of the decade, and possibly even of the week, whooshed past us as fast as a runaway train in the night, so we nearly missed it. I'm talking about Boris Johnson's non-relegation here, of course. And how it was all wrapped up in less time than a Downing Street party, because that's the way Big Dog planned it. But even the best PR can't hide that it was a really bad result for Johnson, who did worse than Theresa May in similar circumstances three-and-a-half years ago. It's also pretty much in the same zone as Margaret Thatcher's result at the first round of the 1990 leadership contest. Which Thatcher duly acknowledged as a defeat and withdrew two days later. But she had also lost support from her Cabinet, while Johnson still has it. For now, until the rebels have their way and get the party's rules changed to trigger another vote of no confidence before the end of this year. Interestingly, Johnson's approval-slash-popularity ratings are not as bad as they used to be, as if parts of public were now ready to cut him some slack. But that does not make him immune to some sort of parliamentary accident that would make it impossible to govern. Like a vote of no confidence in Commons, like Jeremy Corbyn managed to get against Theresa May, and the results of that one could be fun to watch. Would Tory backbenchers choose self-preservation and avoiding a snap election at all costs, or would they prefer to put an end to their own misery?

The rebels have already made it abundantly clear that the big question is still on the table: should he stay or should he go? And they won't relent until the whole Conservative Party chooses their answer to that. Surely a handful near the top rung of the food chain have an eye on the Big Dog spot, and would be livid if they had trained in vain for it. The Conservatives' problem is that they knew right from the start that choosing Johnson as Prime Minister was like putting the fox in charge of the shithouse, and now it's coming back to haunt them in the arse. The Metropolitan Police haven't exactly covered them with glory either, when they appeared all along to be thick as police and thieves with the Government. The British public are also slowly distancing themselves from Johnson, when it comes to naming their Preferred First Minister of England. Again, there is no massive endorsement of Keir Starmer here, as about a third of the electorate are still firmly sat on the fence. It seems that, contrary to Keir's deeply held belief, calculated dullness is not a massive vote winner. I even doubt there will be massive pro-Labour enthusiasm after the Conference Season, when we have a clearer view of their future manifesto, which is more likely to be forensically boring than spunkily uplifting.

We already know there will be more episodes and a sequel, which will make the whole shambles look like the seventh instalment of a cheap zombie movie franchise, when your instant reaction is "fuck, don't tell me they're back, AGAIN". The fact that Johnson doesn't have the police on his back any more doesn't mean his 'get out of jail free card' will remain valid from here to eternity. And his crafty plan to use the Joobly Bash as one massive dead cat has also backfired, as even reluctant wannabe rebels within the Conservative Parliamentary Party were under pressure from their constituents to choose a side. Any, as long as it was not Johnson's. Of course, Lee Mack and Stephen Fry taking the piss out of Bozo to his face didn't help. There is the sense of a widening rift here, between CCHQ, worried backbenchers, grassroots activists and their voters. You can't rule out a situation, very soon, where CCHQ will find themselves on one side of the rift, and everyone else on the other. Then they will have no choice but finally getting rid of Johnson by any means necessary, and finding the least worst successor, to avoid a 1997ish humiliation. Even something 2005ish would be an outstanding, and more likely, success for Labour now. Then a lot will depend on who takes over from Johnson around Christmas. YouGov polled their sub-panel of Conservative Party members about just that, and found that the top three contenders are Ben Wallace, Liz Truss and Jeremy Hunt in that order. Good luck with the election, then.

Like most of these crimes, there came a point where they should have just stopped

(Alan Davies)

My dad used to always say that his inspiration was Winston Churchill

Well, he did when he got arrested for fighting people on the beaches

(Lee Mack)

With all the recent events in mind, the trend of general election polls still looks like unfinished business. The Greens appear less likely to be spanners in the works, and could probably be easily talked out of vanity candidacies that would jeopardise Labour's chances in marginals. But the Liberal Democrats still doing well is not necessarily all good news for everyone on the 'progressive' side. Especially when Labour's lead over the Conservatives still mostly falls a few points shy of what they need for a conclusively decisive Blairish landslide. Obviously, the next step involves some division of labour (pun fully intended) between Labour and the LibDems. The LibDems came second in 79 English seats currently held by the Conservatives, so it would make sense for Labour to stand down, or seriously tone down their campaign, in all these. That's what happened in North Shropshire, where the LibDems had actually come third in 2019 but had better odds, and it worked beyond their expectations. I have no doubt Keir Starmer would find a way to make such a strategy acceptable to his base, with some charts-and-tables show, and even get it approved at a Conference. That's a case where forensics come in handy and would work better than histrionics.

Conservative MPs are reportedly worried by what they see in the polls, and that their party has now gone way beyond repair. Obviously, nothing that happened this week will alleviate their fears. There is also a growing feeling that a toxic climate has now settled, with the Sue Gray Report widely believed to have been but an exercise in whitewashing. And Boris Johnson' plan to neuter the Ministerial Code can only fuel further distrust and discontent, if it's allowed to proceed. Johnson's pyrrhic victory in the non-confidence vote is unlikely to untrigger the reboot of the Pork Pie Putsch, with some others of the same ilk likely to surface soon. The problem for scores of Conservative MPs is that they're now caught between rock and a hard rock, with no way out. They, mostly those of the 2019 Red Wall intake, have been groomed to believe they can't win without Johnson, and now they realise they can only lose with him. It took Conservatives one dark horse trial run and eleven months to get rid of Margaret Thatcher. This week's vote of no confidence fills pretty much the same slot in the timeline as Anthony Meyer in 1989, the opening salvo, and it's fairly obvious that the rebels now intend things to go a fucking hell of a lot faster than they did in the olden days. So just stay tuned for the next episodes.

They used to have a pose they did on page 3 where it got

The tits and the bum in the same shot. How did they do that?

(Victoria Coren-Mitchell)

Fish may not be the cleverest of God’s creatures

But I think to class them as vegetables is a little unkind

(Angela Goff, Midsomer Murders: A Talent For Life, 2003)

The cost-of-living crisis has become a regular feature in YouGov's Trackers. More precisely, how their panel describe their own situation on a scale from 'very comfortable' to 'often have to go without essentials'. When asked in mid-May, the panel's answers were pretty similar to the mid-April tracker I mentioned in my previous post, just a wee smitch worse. Which is certainly why YouGov added two follow-up questions, about how people evaluate their situation compared to a month ago, and where they expect it to go a year from now. And the verdict is brutal and merciless: it's worse and can only get worse. It's shared pretty much across all demographics and geographics, which would be a clear warning for the English government if they could be arsed to listen. And find better answers than 'let them eat deer'. Or slashing benefits again in the same spirit as the New Poor Law of 1834, which Jacob Rees-Mogg must remember fondly.

Just a few days before YouGov, Opinium also surveyed their panel about the cost-of-living crisis, finding an equally bleak picture. With a follow-up question that YouGov did not have, about how people deal with it. More precisely, which kind of expenses they have cut, so they still can make ends meet. The first item that struck me here is that a third of people cancelled subscriptions. Which might be Netflix, the English Government's new role model for their economic policies, but I have a hunch it's more about newspapers or such, sacrificing access to information and culture first, which is never a good thing. Then there are also several items related to food, and I am quite sure that the people who are forced to cut down on food do not move towards healthier eating. It has been established already that cheaper food is more likely to contain more fat, salt and sugar, so this is also a time-bomb in terms of public health. Nothing to be proud of in the allegedly sixth most powerful economy in the world. Which is in fact more like a Third World economy, with the gap between richest and poorest widening year after year, because it pretty much fits the government's ideology. Not sure though that a change of government would cure this because, whoever's in charge, it's always about, ye ken, 'tough choices'...

So the image of the commuter-cum-lunch-box, which you would expect in a 50s or 60s-themed TV series, is coming back as a 21st-century reality. And it's not the worst part of it. 70% of Brits have cut down on energy bills, and we're not talking Blackpool Illuminations in the kids' rooms here, we're talking bare necessities like heating. Which is why a freeze of the energy price cap at last year's level would have been a better choice than a hugely bureaucratic and inefficient windfall tax. But 24% have also cut down the number of meals they eat, because even the basics become unaffordable for many. So a fourth of Brits have gradually slid from 'heat or eat' to 'no heat and no eat'. And we're not back to imagined 1950s here, we're back to the Great Depression or Victorian times. Or Edwardian times, rather, when there was more frolicking at the top and just as much abject misery at the bottom. Right now, what these various polls say is that around a quarter of the British population live either in poverty or very close to it. That's some 17 million people and counting. Who are clearly not the English Government's main priority, and neither is their health. There will be a price to pay for this some day.

Life is a waste of time, and time is a waste of life

Get wasted all the time, and you’ll have the time of your life

(Billy Connolly)

Studying country law, that’s where that leaves us

Which dictates not only the behaviour of the animals, but also of the people

(DCI Tom Barnaby, Midsomer Murders: Vixen’s Run, 2006)

One of the oddities in Johnson's defeat in the no-confidence vote was Jacob Rees-Moog telling the world the UK needs Boris to get Brexit done and reap its benefits. When we all thought that Bozo had already Got Brexit Done, to the point it's totally overdone. And that Jake's part-time job in government was to list Brexit's countless benefits. Unless we got that mixed up with countless people on benefits. But Jake's problem is that nobody has seen a Brexit benefit yet, except Jake's buddies in Somerset Capital Management and Akshata Murty. Who, to be fair, also got some Russian benefits recently. Then the British people don't really fall for Jake's legerdemains. YouGov have been running EU Trackers since Boris Johnson became PM, which would be more appropriately called Brexit Trackers. And the people's verdict in unambiguous: Johnson and his lot have made a fucking pig's breakfast of Brexit.

Now it was obviously quite delusional to ever expect that Boris's Band of Losers could ever get something done right. Remember these are the lads who spaffed £13mil and change on Seaborne Ferries and bought Covid tests from Matt Hancock's publican. With this lot, what you see is pretty much what you get. And you never have to hope for the best while you prepare for the worst, because they have only worst and worster in store. YouGov's second question in all instalments of their EU Tracker is whether the public think Brexit was the right decision or the wrong one. And more Brits think that it was the wrong choice than think it was the right one, and this has been the consistent answer all along the last three years. Of course, the right-wing pontificatariat would tell you that a fair share of the public think that Brexit was the right thing to do, but just badly handled. Which does sound like a lame soundbite, when you factor in that the latest poll says that the very principle of Brexit bags a net negative of -14%.

This does mean that Brits would welcome rejoining the EU. According to another YouGov poll, only 41% would vote to rejoin, while 38% would vote to stay out, and an amazing 21% just can't be arsed to give a fucking fuck. Interestingly, the English media never mention the alternative option: membership of EFTA. The UK was a founding member in 1960 and left in 1972 to join the EEC, as the EU was then called. EFTA membership would actually fit Jeremy Hunt's once-sincerely-held belief, that the UK would be better off with access to the single market. Which is probably something Jez wouldn't repeat today, as he will also need some votes from the frothing-at-the-mouth Brexitmaniac wing of the Conservative Party, if he is serious about another leadership bid. Whether we like it or not, Brexit is certainly here to stay as a major issue in British politics. For its divisive value and its ability to spawn hyperbolic soundbites, if nothing else, in a context where Labour lack both the courage and the imagination to clearly state what they stand for here.

We do not regard Englishmen as foreigners

We look on them only as rather mad Norwegians

(Halvard Lange)

The Guns Of Brixton © Paul Simonon, 1979

Clampdown © Joe Strummer, Michael Jones, 1979

It is like a dog's walking on his hinder legs

It is not done well but you are surprised to find it done at all

(Samuel Johnson)

My current Poll'O'Polls includes the last three polls published by Redfield & Wilton between June 1st and June 9th. Super-sample size is a neat round 6,000 with a theoretical margin of error of 1.27%. Redfield & Wilton started publishing a weekly general election poll in February 2020, independently of any newspaper of TV channel. Which is obviously profitable, as the British public are suckers for polls, and Redfield & Wilton have switched to a bi-weekly publication since last month, included in an online newsletter called Magnified. We thusly have a full sequence of polls over 27 months, fielded by the same company with the same methodology, sample and sub-samples. Which is a way to monitor all changes quite reliably. And, if there's a bias, it's the same all along the period, so won't affect what you might deduce from the variations in voting intentions, rather that the numbers themselves. And what we have here, a 6.5% lead for Labour, is good enough for a victory but still below the threshold for an outright majority. Noting unusual here.

One of the reasons why this snapshot is not wholly satisfactory for Labour, is that the Liberal Democrats are surprisingly successful, doing better than in 2019. Which is, arguably, just as much of a problem for the Conservatives, as the LibDems are likely to attract 'soft' voters from both sides. The Conservative Party's spads must be aware of this, as it looks like they fear having to reshuffle their manifesto, and thusly choose between Workington Man and Waitrose Woman, when odds are they will lose both. Him to Labour. Her to the Liberal Democrats. Or, in more practical terms, the Conservatives will lose both incoming by-elections in Wakefield and Tiverton and Honiton. Which might be the last drop that breaks the camel's back, and signals the end of Boris Johnson's lame-duck Presidency... oops, sorry... Premiership. There are bound to be more bad news incoming for Johnson, as more and more of his schemes just don't work, or fail to meet expectations. This will most certainly be the case for the reboot of Thatcher's 'right to buy', and there will be a price to pay for inconsistency on taxation or the lack of any proper policy to tackle poverty. In the meanwhile, the Tory rebels are just biding their time and will certainly not miss another opportunity to take him down. Earlier than a year from now, mark my words.

We are the old families of England, we own most of the country's land and its wealth

And have done for generations, and we make up our own rules

(Randall Colquhoun, Midsomer Murders: Blood Wedding, 2008)

If I am ever asked to produce my ID card as evidence that I am who I say I am

I will take that card out of my wallet and physically eat it in the presence of

Whatever emanation of the state has demanded that I produce it

(Boris Johnson, back in 2004)

The current seat projection is obviously excellent for Labour, who would increase their representation by more than 50%. And also for the Liberal Democrats, who would more than double theirs. But for many, including the 'progressive' media and many Labour MPs, the real question is: does Keir Starmer really want to win the next election? And inherit the massive chaos and carnage that would be Boris Johnson's sole legacy. The first obvious stage would be clarifying what Starmer actually stands for, and it oddly seems to be the most difficult part of the process. While the Labour leadership deliver only waffling jargon when asked what a woman is, the general public would just give you a blank stare if you asked them what Starmerism is. While everybody knew what Corbynism was, for better or for worse.

This result is actually as close to the ideal outcome as Labour can get, if voters still don't want to grant them an outright majority. A Lab-Lib pact would secure a 43-seat majority, and there is no ideological obstacle to it, and quite probably no need for either side to make concessions to secure a deal. The added bonus for Labour is of course that such a result makes the SNP totally irrelevant, without the weeest shadow of influence in Westminster. Which would indeed be a worse situation for the SNP than what they have now under Conservative rule, and are still needed to boost the opposition's numbers in close votes, that might happen more often if the Tory rebels go full guerrilla on Boris Johnson and his clique.

Stick your ferret down the hole, see what comes running out

(DCI Tom Barnaby, Midsomer Murders: Vixen’s Run, 2006)

You may have intuition, but we have intelligence

(Jean Courtney, The Ipcress File, 2022)

The regional crosstabs of polls show Labour making progress almost all across the UK, though at a different pace from one region to the next. London polling exaggerates what we have seen there at the Council elections: barely good enough to be called successful, as it delivers one fewer seat than in 2019, Jon Cruddas's Dagenham and Rainham. Labour might even find themselves in an unexpected danger zone in seats that don't fit the classic Inner Hipstershire electorate, like in Tower Hamlets and Croydon. To add insult to injury, Boris Johnson is highly unlikely to lose his seat in Uxbridge and South Ruislip, despite The Guardian's carefully crafted 'evidence' to the contrary, and the barely-concealed hopes of many Conservatives. It would require a 7.5% swing from the Tories to Labour, which we do have UK-wide and is the erroneous foundation for the misleading claim that Bozo is toast. But we don't have that, and actually are far from it, in London where Labour are already massively dominant, and just as likely to lose votes as to gain any. And this batch of polls says that Labour would actually lose votes in London, where both the Greens and Liberal Democrats are predicted to overperform. Unseating Bozo will have to wait.

This batch of polls also predicts Labour to do counter-intuitively badly in Wales, losing Alyn and Deeside to the Conservatives. But Labour are also predicted to surge in Scotland, where the SNP are again facing a mediocre performance. The SNP would gain only Moray from the Conservatives, but lose Airdrie and Shotts, Kirkcaldy and Cowdenbeath to Labour. Labour would also rise back to their benchmark result of 2005 in the North of England, with 82% of the seats, up from a mediocre 74% in 2017 and an appalling 56% in 2019. Current polling also confirms that Labour are still struggling in the Midlands, where they bagged 62% of the seats in 2005. Despite a significant swing towards Labour, the Conservatives are still predicted to be the first party there, and hold a majority of seats. The roots of this situation predate the Corbyn Debacle of 2019, as Labour were dealt devastating blows there already in 2010, and have always struggled since. Many otherwise non-descript Conservatives of the 2010 intake have had more than a decade to entrench themselves in once historically Labour seats, especially in the rural parts. It would probably take a more charismatic leadership than Starmer's to turn back the tide.

Quite strikingly, Labour are now predicted to be immensely successful in the South of England, where they would do better than their previous records in 1997 and 2001, with 59 and 58 seats respectively. Which paints an impressively different picture to their decidedly mediocre results in more traditionally Labour-leaning London and Wales. Now we have Labour predicted to bag a third of the Leafy South's seats, with the Conservatives down from a mammoth 88% to a bleak 60%. This might be the sign of an incoming tectonic shift of the center of gravity of the English Left. Which could plausibly reconfigure itself around two poles, the Eurosceptic industrial wastelands of the North, and the hipster-heavy woke Suburbia of the South. I fully expect the ideological acrobatics behind that to be fun to watch.

There’s a Socratic acceptance of the limits of one’s own knowledge

And there’s ignorance

(Stephen Fry)

In this house, we obey the laws of thermodynamics

(Homer Simpson)

I'm no longer sure that the Conservatives will call a snap general election only after the final proposals of the 2023 Boundary Review have been approved and enforced. Boundary reviews are by nature a convoluted and lengthy process, and the current one can't be made into law before the autumn of 2023. And the one commodity the English Government might soon be lacking is time. If the Tory rebels are serious about going into a vote strike, it would take just above half of them to derail any bill tabled by the government, and there are plenties of very attractive targets. Their problem is that they are ideologically divided, and would probably find it hard to build a unified front against any specific bill. But they still can provide the narrative for an atmosphere of chaos, similar to the last months of Theresa May's premiership. The main incentive for waiting after the gerrymandering is that it could possibly switch enough seats from Labour to the Conservatives in a close election, to actually toggle first-party position back to the Conservatives. But current projections say it definitely wouldn't, and that it wouldn't make things even a wee smitch more difficult for Labour.

There is definitely a point in every gerrymandering where it turns into dummymandering, and it looks like we have reached that point now. Both Labour and the Conservatives would bag more seats under the new boundaries, while PLaid Cymru and the Liberal Democrats would get fewer. All it takes is Labour doing better than expected in the South of England, where most of the new seats were created. There is sort of a double whammy down there for the Conservatives, with a strong LibDem vote also acting as a lever to switch some marginals to Labour. Of course, there have been some subtle hints we might reach that point some day, like Canterbury being held by Labour with an increased majority in 2019, or the Chesham and Amersham by-election last year. Add to it that any increase in the number of London seats can only benefit Labour, no matter how artfully you recarve them, and voilà. If the predicted voting patterns nullify the intended effects of the gerrymandering, what the fuck? Here we have possibly the best reason why the Conservatives are probably ready to gamble on a snap election earlier than anyone expects.

Bees are quite a model community

For they respect their queen and kill their unemployed

(Robert Baden-Powell, Scouting For Boys, 1908)

Look at you all, like a battery farm of gutless chickens

Heaven forbid that anyone should stand out from the flock

(Jasper Tempest, Professor T: Anatomy Of A Memory, 2021)

We've had a new Full Scottish poll at the end of May, this time from YouGov. It has been released to coincide with the day Nicola Sturgeon became the longest-serving First Minister of Scotland. It deals with the usual topics, referendum and elections, with also some insight into what the public think of Nicola's achievements. And all is not a massive endorsement. 32% of the panel think Scotland has become a worse place to live since Nicola took over from Alex Salmond, 28% think it has become a better place, and 31% that it has remained the same. It only becomes worse when the panel has to name Nicola's greatest achievement. Her handling of the Covid pandemic comes first by a wide margin. But, if you discard it as a one-off, and focus on recurring items, the top answer is that she has achieved jack shit. Which quite fits with only 4% thinking that her greatest achievement was furthering the cause of independence. It has indeed been all quiet on the Indy front for quite a while, and the updated trend of IndyRef2 polling still predicts a No victory, which is the verdict of the last eight polls that were conducted since the invasion of Ukraine. Then it was pretty much the same trend before it, with 25 polls conducted since the last Scottish Parliament election, and only three showing Yes ahead.

There's this oddly widespread feeling in Scotland, that Nicky can't fail. Or, when she does, it's always someone else's fault. Alex Salmond, Margaret Ferrier, Derek Mackay, Joanna Cherry, Boris Johnson.... There's always an oven-ready scapegoat for every opportunity and the public buy that, even when Nicola is out in New York for job interviews, in plain sight. You have to wonder if that could last until her Platinum Jubilee, when she has collected a dozen more mandates for independence. There's a veneer of superficial brilliance in Nicola, and I'm not surprised people fall for it. I did too. But when you go to the bottom of things, there is a shallow power-hungry side to her, which will become more difficult to hide as time passes. The sequence of YouGov's Scottish polls since the last Scottish Parliament election provides quite an interesting perspective on the consequences of that. I have selected only the few polls fielded by YouGov, for a semblance of consistency. If there is any bias, or house effect, it's the same in all polls, so they are directly comparable.

Support for independence has gone down, and support for the principle of holding a referendum also has, which might be even more damaging in the long run. Only a third of Scots expressing an opinion support holding IndyRef2 in 2023, which is allegedly the SNP's plan. But we already know it's just another episode of the dog-and-pony show between the Scottish Government and the English Government, and that it won't happen. We are already past the deadline for tabling a referendum bill in Holyrood with any chance of success, with Scottish Parliament actually sitting for barely half the remaining days of 2022, and the Yellow-Green Axis having already chosen more pressing priorities. Then the Scottish Government are appallingly unprepared for the legal challenges that will inevitably follow the passage of a referendum bill. Next thing we know, the SNP will be telling us we need to wait until after the next general election, to secure one more mandate on top of those collecting dust in the basement at Bute House. Then they will tell us it's safer to wait until after the next Scottish Parliament election, which they will lose. And the never ending story will end there and then. Don't say you haven't been warned.

There are no mistakes in life, some people say

It is true sometimes you can see it that way

But people don’t live or die, people just float

(Bob Dylan, Man In The Long Black Coat)

They float, they all float, and when you're down here with me, fat boy, you'll float too

(Stephen King, It)

It has become quite fashionable, in the metropolitan 'progressive' cyber-bubble, to dismiss YouGov's polling because one of their founders is now a Conservative Minister. Or because they have just been caught read-handed 'suppressing' one poll... five years ago. Which is hardly news or a smoking gun. After all, all pollsters do tweak the results of their surveys, which is the easiest thing to do, just by fine-tuning the demographic and geographic sub-samples while remaining within the British Polling Council's guidelines. The most visible recent example of that was when Opinium tweaked their whole methodology some months ago, and freely admitted it brought down Labour's lead over the Conservatives from 10% to 3%. Yet nobody objected, least of all The Guardian, who have been employing Opinium as their in-house rent-a-pollster for years. Then I guess SNP HQ won't dismiss YouGov's last Scottish Parliament poll, as it is a wee smitch better for them than previous ones from Panelbase and Savanta Comres. But it generally confirms trends we have already seen for many weeks. Mediocre performances for the SNP and the Conservatives, coupled with surges for Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Unlike other earlier polls though, this one doesn't show a massive swing towards the Greens on the list vote. So the overall projected results for the current government coalition are pretty much the continuity of the 2021 election.

This poll's regional crosstabs again show Labour regaining some of the lost ground in the Auld Strathclyde area and Lothian. With only limited results thus far, as they would gain only East Lothian and Clydebank and Milngavie from the SNP. Labour are also predicted to do surprisingly well in the North East, though they are too far down for it to translate into any gains. The Liberal Democrats are also confirmed to still be a major player in Highlands and Islands, and would snatch Caithness, Sutherland and Ross from the SNP. A few days after this poll was published, the Equalities, Human Rights and Civil Justice Committee of the Scottish Parliament released the results of their final consultation about the Gender Recognition Reform (Scotland) Bill, aka GRA reform. Which is actually the first and only one that was held with some degree of openness, while previous ones had been kept away from the public eye as much as possible. And it shows a majority of contributors opposing both the overall purpose of the reform and its key provisions.

This is quite enlightening, as a previous and obviously rigged consultation, with 50% of responses coming from outwith Scotland, allegedly showed 60% support for the reform. This one, with only 30% of responses coming from abroad, has the result reversed. Which makes you want to know what the results would be if only responses from within Scotland were counted. Which we will never know, as only 814 responses out of 10,800 have been fully published. Unless the Conservatives, as the only ones opposing the bill, issue an FOI request for full disclosure of Scotland-only responses. But, of course, even the results of their own unstuffed consultation mean nothing for the Yellow-Green Axis temporarily in charge of Scotland. The first caveat on ScotParl's website, again meant to dismiss the results and concerns as 'non valid', is that this is not a representative sample of the population. Despite several polls in succession going in the exact same direction. The gender cult lobby has taken complete control, and it's like a Glaswegian reboot of The Body Snatchers, when you feel right from the start that something is definitely off, but the possessed deny that anything untoward has happened. The only hope now is that the bill, once it is enforced, will be buried deep in legal challenges that can't be all summarily dismissed as bigoted and frivolous, and that will be a massive popcorn moment.

Out of innocent ignorance, childish wisdom spills out

(Stephen Fry)

O, ye seekers after perpetual motion

How many vain chimeras have you pursued?

Go and take your place with the alchemists

(Leonardo da Vinci)

Now let's go back a wee smitch in time, to the point where all Scottish Councils had elected their Leaders and Provosts, and chosen which administration will be in charge. There definitely was a feeling of déjà-vu-all-over-again about it, coupled with a clear sense that it was mostly much ado about nothing, and a lot of dog-and-pony show. Below is the final state of affairs, compared to 2017. It says that the SNP clearly have no reason to whine as petulantly as they did all along the two weeks of grubby backroom deals. They finally got the Council Leader's seat, with the extra pay and the goodies, in 71% of the councils where they came out as the first party. Compared to just 50% five years ago. Which totally puts to rest the idiotic narrative about some 'anti-SNP conspiracy'. And of course the SNP kept quiet about their own backroom deals, with the Liberal Democrats in Aberdeen, with Labour in Dumfries and Galloway, with right-wing independents in Highland. Unionists are not all that bad after all, when they can help you secure a cosy position with multiple perks.

The funniest situation is of course Edinburgh, where the SNP first felt it was brave and progressive to bribe the Liberal Democrats with the Lord Provost position and brag about it. And then went ballistic when the LibDems accepted better bribes from Labour. There is obviously a hilarious side to all this but, sadly, what it reveals is the arrogant sense of entitlement of Nicola Sturgeon's New SNP. Which is the same process that brought down New Labour in Scotland not so long ago. I'm quite sure we have reached the point now, where very little would be enough to bring down the SNP in a similar fashion. Which is why I won't wage even a penny on the SNP winning a fifth term in 2026. You read it here first.

The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn't exist

(Charles Baudelaire)

Please don't speak with your mouth full, especially if your brain is empty

(Jasper Tempest, Professor T: Sophie Knows, 2021)

The first round of the French legislative election is happening today, the third act of their lengthy election cycle in four acts of 2022. It has turned out to be quite different from the previous series in 2017, and also from what the French punditariat expected in the immediate aftermath of the presidential election. The unlikely coalition of the whole Left into NUPES, which had failed to materialise over the last five years, and then happened in five days, has undoubtedly boosted their morale, their combativity and their prospects. While the wholly predictable and predicted Macronist coalition Ensemble doesn't live up to its supporters' expectations, and certainly not to Macron's. Even the convoluted formation of a new government under Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne felt like a non-event, as they were instantly gagged by the French variant of purdah, that started just a couple of days after they took office. This shows in voting intention polls, which are far less triumphant for the Macronists that they were for Macron himself in the run-up to the presidential election. For continuity, the 2017 results are the sum of votes received by all individual parties who are now part of a formal coalition or electoral alliance. The French are not suckers for election polls the way Brits are, so there are fewer here, but already enough to see a trend. That a number of left-wing voters, who were once seduced by Macron, are now moving back home. And that the right has again lost a huge mass of votes to the far-right. The trend of polls is quite clear, that the combination of all these changes can't bring any good news for Macron, with the radical left and the centrist bloc taking turns breathing down each other's necks.

The number of seats delivered by a two-round election is more difficult to model and predict that our beloved FPTP, so I didn't even bother. But the French punditariat and pollstertariat are used to it and do deliver seat predictions, as ranges of seats for each party or coalition. I've simplified it by using the mid-point of such ranges, as deducted from recent polls, with just tiny evenly distributed final adjustments to reach a total of 577 seats every time. With the majority being 289, these projections do show that this election is not as safe for the Macronist alliance as the 2017 election was. As with votes, I have added seats bagged by individual parties then to fit the boundaries of current coalitions, for a direct comparison. And the results show why some influential Macronists wanted a quick snap legislative election just a couple of weeks after the presidential election, instead of the legally scheduled two-months gap. Because the usual sideration effect, which has delivered coterminous presidential and parliamentary majorities four times in a row since 2002, tends to wear off when a longer campaign gives people time to think twice. Which is especially true if a significant part of the opposition is not dumb-struck by the presidential result, but uses it to regenerate and rebound, as NUPES have done this year.

This time, the Macronist game for the second round will not be to strike deals with parties who have been eliminated, as all meaningful coalitions have been formed in advance already. It will be a trickier one: convince one opposition's voters to help them defeat the other wing of the opposition. That implies quite a chaotic second round campaign, depending on whom they have to pander to locally, and certainly some dissonant messaging on both flanks of the official party line. NUPES's official campaign goal is to make their leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon the next Prime Minister, and I don't think it will happen. But a secondary target could be met: denying Emmanuel Macron a parliamentary majority, thusly forcing him into some political acrobatics and grubby backroom deals, to attract some newly-elected opposition deputies from both sides to his side. He has already done it in the past, including ministerial positions to seal the deals, but it might prove more difficult now, with a more polarised and more united opposition on his left. So, instead of piecemeal defections, Macron might try a full-blown coalition offer to the right-wing Republicans. Which might backfire and turn into a lose-lose situation very easily, but I have no doubt he has it on his list of options. We'll have a pretty good idea of what to expect a week from now, after all is said and done in the second round. And it might very well look more like farce than tragedy.

Champagne is just like cider with a French accent, innit?

(Rob Beckett, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2017)

There is something deeply hypocritical about praying for a problem you are unwilling to resolve

(Miroslav Volf)

On 8 November, the United States of America will have an almost-full slate of various elections, the proverbial midterms where everything is at stake, except the Presidency. In the meanwhile, all I can say for certain is that politicians will surely send thoughts and prayers to the grieving parents of victims of another batch of school shootings. That's the great thing about America: they have more guns than humans, but fortunately they also have more thoughts and prayers than guns. Gubernatorial elections will be held in 36 states and 3 overseas territories, and legislative elections in 46 states. But of course, the talk of the town is all about the elections for Congress, with all 435 seats of the House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats up. Though legislative elections will definitely come back to the forefront if the Supreme Court overturns Roe v. Wade, as seems sadly and predictably likely, and it will then be up to the State Legislatures to decide individually whether abortion remains an unalienable part of women's rights, or is rebranded as a criminal offence. But let's stay with the federal level and the House of Representatives for now, and what the trend of voting intentions' polling shows, which is Democrats heading for an epic drubbing.

By the way, I didn't remind you but you surely remember it from two years ago. This is America, the country where GPs are MDs, a boot is a trunk, the colours are colors and are reversed: Democrats are blue, Republicans are red. Since the last election in 2020, there has been a round of redistricting, which is American for a Boundary Review, and required by federal law to be held every ten years after the national census. 15 states have either an independent commission or bipartisan control by the State Legislature, 30 have partisan control by the majority party in the State Legislature, 5 have no redistricting as they have been apportioned just one seat. Even where the process is under partisan control, there is still the risk of legal action, so the days of massive wildcat gerrymandering are pretty much over. The notional results of the 2020 election show a net gain of eight seats for the Republicans. Which is a teeny weeny number, and actually fewer, in proportion to the overall number of seats, than would switch as a result of the 2023 Boundary Review in the UK. Ironically, this would have nevertheless switched the House of Representatives from a teeny weeny Democratic majority to a teeny weeny Republican majority. It was that tight.

Based on current polls, the result would be much more clear-cut than in 2020, with a predicted 57-seat majority for the Republicans. Which is quite massive by American standards, as it has been surpassed only thrice in the last thirty years, and could very well lead to some hard-line regressive legislation, of the kind English Tories would welcome. Because the Republicans are simply much more disciplined than the Democrats and far less likely to dissent and rebel. And there is also a much higher likelihood of terminal dissent and defection within the Democratic Party. There are still a significant number of Representatives aligned with the Blue Dog Coalition, the conservative wing of the Democratic Party, who are definitely not on board with the party's general shift towards the woke left. Even some on the party's left, especially older members of the Black Caucus, are closer to European social-democrats than to the 'progressive' California-New-England historic coalition of 'liberals' in their own party. Such a dismal result would nevertheless not alter the Democrats' unquestioning commitment to woke extremism. The West Coast and North East seats, which are the most likely to remain in Democrats' hands, are also those representing, and represented by, the most devout zealots of the new religion. So don't hold your breath for a return to sanity of the American Left.

I once fired an AK-47 and somebody had put it onto automatic

And quite literally stood me in front of a barn door and I missed it

As we all would, because it just flies around like a mad thing

(Jeremy Clarkson)

It just does that and then rushes about in your hands, terribly dangerous

It never breaks down and it never hits anything

Nobody could possibly get shot with an AK, not unless you weren’t aiming at them

(Jeremy Clarkson)

35 Senate seats are up this year, the 34 Class 3 seats that were last up in 2016, and one special election (that's American for by-election, as you surely remember) in Oklahoma, triggered by the resignation of 87yr-old Republican five-termer Jim Inhofe. Technically, there is actually a second special election in California, due to an oddity in California's electoral law. Democratic incumbent Alex Padilla was appointed to the seat by the Governor of California when Kamala Harris was elected Vice-President. Now he has to stand in a special election to fill the remainder of Harris's term, and simultaneously in the scheduled election for the same seat, to get a term of his own. So there will be two elections for the same seat on the same day, and on the same ballot papers. This is American Oddity at its best and everybody, from pollsters to pundits, totally ignores the technicalities and counts the two Californian elections as one. Polls don't point to a tsunami either way, as happened in 1994, or in two stages in 2006 and 2008. What maters here is state-by-state polling, as these elections are highly personalised, with Senators sometimes serving for 30 years or more, and using their position to deliver shitloads of pork to their states. So here's what polls currently say, with states in bold and colour denoting seats predicted to change hands. Two in each direction from Democrats to Republicans, and from Republicans to Democrats.

The one apparent anomaly here is Maryland, which has a reputation as a reliably Blue State, and has had two Democratic Senators continuously since 1987, and a Democratic State Legislature since 1920. But they also elected Republicans as Governor and Lieutenant Governor in 2014, and re-elected both in 2018. So, you never know... The Georgia seat is less of a surprise as it was gained 51-49 by the Democrats at a special election in 2020, after 16 years in Republican hands. The Republicans there have learned from their mistakes, as their 2020 candidate was a typical non-descript white Trumpian. Their candidate this time is a black former footballer and NFL star. Which does matter in a former Confederate state where race is still an issue, and popularity in sports has an impact too. This one could also easily turn into a test of the power of the wealthy African-American establishment in Atlanta, who pretty much run the Democratic Party in Georgia, and have enough cash-in-hand to fund massive GOTV drives. It was such a test two years ago, and they won. Could be a little trickier this time. The situation is different in Ohio and Pennsylvania. There we have two Republicans who have both served only two terms, are not Trumpian extremist nutjobs, and have decided to call it quits because Washington, DC is too toxic for them. Both states are also swing states at presidential elections. In 2020, there was a teeny weeny swing from Trump to Biden in Ohio, though Trump still carried it. But Pennsylvania did switch from Trump to Biden on a 2% swing, which is also sort of teeny weeny, but a similar swing would be enough to switch the Senate seat too, as the Republicans held it 49-47 in 2016. So Democrats definitely have high hopes for that one, and probably slightly lower ones for the Ohio seat.

What’s wrong with you people? What is wrong with this country?

Why don’t you do what normal people do?

Get a gun! Shoot things! Like a civilised person!

(Jack Robertson, Doctor Who: Arachnids In The UK, 2018)

Jeremy's Den

12/06/2022

The Magnificent Six Hundred And Fifty

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