Jeremy's Den: December 2022

The impossible is preferable to the improbable. It’s OK to have a broomstick, sing and dance,

but you shouldn’t turn on the radio and hear the news report you need to hear.

(Sam Seaborn, The West Wing: Process Stories, 2002)

If at first you don’t succeed, well, so much for skydiving.

(Victor O’Reilly)

Don't forget to click on the images for larger and easier to read pop-ups.

We really had an exciting 2022, The Year Of The Three Prime Ministers, just like the Roman Empire had Years Of The Four Emperors, The Five Emperors, The Six Emperors, and then fell apart. The current holder of the position is not doing himself any favours, with his multiple U-turns on multiple issues. Many, both within and outwith the Conservative Party, expected the Goldman Sachs Wunderkind to become The One who would breathe new life into the party's corpse. But he has done nothing of the sort. For one very simple reason. He may have the brain for the job, but he doesn't have the baws. His catastrophic U-turn on housebuilding targets is just one illustration of Sunak's major character flaw. He doesn't have the baws to stand up to his own rebellious MPs, and he doesn't have the baws to call their bluff and pass legislation with Labour's votes. In the meanwhile, his approval ratings are far below the stratospheric level they reached when he was the giving-it-all-away Chancellor, and even his best PR stunts have done little to help.

One absolutely flabbergasting thing about Wunderkind is his total inability to understand that he should stop cosplaying the People's Summat. Every time he tries, it turns into a shitty fuckup, and yet he keeps coming back for more. His Great Matter is, of course, that lots of people find his performance as First Minister of England quite underwhelming, not least Tory voters and Tory MPs. His ability to capitulate to polar-opposite factions of the Conservative Party might be a sure way to survive longer than Liz Truss, But it doesn't say much about his ability to actually win an election. Especially when the game is between a Leader Of Tho Opposition who will stand for anything that might gain votes, and a Prime Minister who looks unable to stand for anything at all. For the first time, I will reveal the evolution of Keir Starmer's approval ratings, regularly surveyed since he became leader of the Labour Party. He enjoyed quite a honeymoon at first, but has fallen into negative territory since April 2021, and he still hasn't conclusively reversed the trend ever since.

Starmer's ratings were naturally low when he was facing Boris Johnson in all his post-vaccination glory, in that hopeless pub-bore vs pub-clown confrontation. It's just surprising they haven't improved more significantly during the short Truss Interlude, or since Sunak's Accession. This is the same problem Keir Starmer has faced ever since he stopped cosplaying Corbyn-compatible and has turned the rudder hard to starboard, thusly losing support on the left without gaining much on the right. The conveniently spread rumours about former Labour biggies coming back centre stage don't help either, and those who spread them surely wish Sly Keir nothing good. And there's still the issue of personal style. Even facing a chemically pure Powerpoint-fed business school clone, Starmer still has a problem projecting a totally cheerful and confident image. For many, both within and outwith Labour, Sly Keir will forever be Beige Keith.

You know what? Sometimes I think that stick up your arse has got a stick up its arse.

(Owen Harper, Torchwood: Greeks Bearing Gifts, 2006)

It’s a funny old business. One day, you’re Prime Minister, arguably the most… well,

the second-most important person in the country, and the next you lose your job,

your car, and you’re evicted from your home. All before lunch.

(John Major, The Crown: Decommissioned, 2022)

YouGov have updated their survey of politicians' popularity ratings again this month. As usual, some new names appear, as they have been pushed into the spotlight recently. Which, for some of those on the government benches, looked more like rabbits being pushed into the headlights of an incoming car crash. There is some intriguing stuff in it, though. Rishi Sunak is more popular than the Conservative Party and Keir Starmer is less popular than the Labour Party. This surely explains a lot of things we see in other polls. Then we have Rachel Who? and Wes Who? massively failing to register on the people's sensors. Not for lack of trying, but they too definitely must up their game if they want to play a major part in the next election campaign.

As usual, the happiest bunnies in the Tory warren are those whom nobody knows, outwith their extended family and The Times's news desk. At least, invisibility spares them the massive net negatives they would otherwise get, because they fucking deserve it. If the public actually knew who they were, they would probably get the same kind of ratings as Jeremy Hunt, Dim Dom Raab and Sue-Ellen Braverman. A cursed trio who are obviously dragging the whole Conservative brand down. So it definitely makes sense for Rishi Sunak to keep them in the Cabinet, doesn't it? Then, the classic 'Preferred First Minister of England' polling remains quite perplexing. Neither Starmer nor Sunak have built a convincing case for themselves, and 'None Of The Above' is again the public's favourite. The next Prime Minister might thusly win by default, just because he's not as bad as the other one. Nothing to brag about here.

Even The Guardian now acknowledges that Labour have a Starmer Problem, and that he needs to up his game outwith the minefield of centrist liberal politics. The electorate have every reason to be perplexed by Labour's current talking points, and it shows in qualitative polls, even if it doesn't yet in voting intentions. Clearly the odd mix of woke extremism, Brexit denial, English nationalism and voodoo economics leaves a lot of people wondering, especially when they realise that a lot of it would have been happily endorsed by the One Nation Conservatives of fifty years ago. Labour's main problem, when an actual election campaign starts, will be that nobody can say what Labour's actual values are today, not even themselves. A semblance of managerial pragmatism, boosted by the reliance on focus groups, is not the panacea Starmer seems to think it is. Tony Blair relied on something similar, but he was also able to deliver uplifting messages of hope in a brighter future, and make it sound like he actually believed it. Sadly, Keir Starmer can't even do that.

The single most important thing about being a Prime Minister is the ability to make

decisions under pressure. Like, you know, now, now, now, now. And get most of them right.

(Alastair Campbell, Make Me Prime Minister, 2022)

Nobody ever said politics was fair. It’s tough.

(Alastair Campbell, Make Me Prime Minister, 2022)

The trend of voting intentions polls shows what everybody expected, a decrease of the Labour vote. Nobody, including themselves, expected them to stay at the world-beating level they had stratospherocketed to during the Truss Interlude. All good things, and all that... Interestingly, this does not really benefit the Conservatives, whose vote share is pretty much stagnating, after regaining some ground in the days after Sunak's Accession. Despite some ups and downs in individual polls, Labour still enjoy a sizeable lead going into the New Year. There is certainly no Rishinami in sight, which might be considered a good thing at first glance, though some of its side effects are not.

The Conservatives' new game plan now is to unleash some squirrel that will trigger heated debate on social media, or try and start a culture war against unions and strikes. But it's not really working according to plan. I'll come to that later in detail. They should be more worried by the continued rise of Reform UK's voting intentions. They are now outvoting the Liberal Democrats and Greens GB-wide, and this will definitely hurt the Conservatives much more than Labour, unlike 2019. This is at least what Nigel Farage wants, after throwing all his toys out of the pram over the Conservatives' lack of Brexit purity. This might sound ridiculous and innocuous, until it won't. The brutal murder of three Kurds in Paris, just hours before Christmas, is here to remind us that platforming racist hate-speech and anti-immigration propaganda only fuels violence against innocents. It has happened here already. It can happen here again. Reform UK hasn't got the vote share to get any MP elected so far, but neither did the French National Front in 2007. Now they have 89.

A good leader is someone who is honest, even when it’s difficult to be truthful.

(Jackie Weaver, Make Me Prime Minister, 2022)

The criticism you will face can be brutal. And if you can’t handle it, then get out.

This isn’t the game for you.

(Sayeeda Warsi, Make Me Prime Minister, 2022)

Pollsters must have been on strike too, or on an early trip to Lanzarote to avoid the border staff strikes, as there was precious little polling this week and the last. But we still had got a wee Winter Solstice batch to gnaw on before they all drowned in eggnog. Three polls from People Polling, Techne UK and Omnisis, fielded on the 21st and the 22nd of December, with a super-sample size of 3,967 and a theoretical margin of error of 1.56%. Which say the swingometer has barely moved in the three weeks since my last article, and Labour are still leading by almost 22%. Which is quite a Miracle On Victoria Street indeed, just like Sly Keir's strategy is actually working, cuddling appletini-sipping turquoise-haired hipsters and migrant-bashing Brexiters on alternate days. Or it is not, and it's just people hating the Tories so much they don't give a fucking shit what the opposition actually stand for, as long as they cosplay The Opposition convincingly enough at PMQs.

In the meanwhile, pressure is mounting on Keir Starmer from the usual suspects advocating proportional representation for the House of Commons. Just kidding. It's not, Sly Keir has already told them to fuck off, and quite rightly so. Why would he agree to an electoral law that would require Labour to bag 44% of the popular vote for a knife-edge majority, when David Cameron got one on 37% and Tony Blair on 35% with FPTP? Anyone with a brain knows that PR has nothing to do with a fair representation of the people's will, and everything to do with enabling political minorities to impose their whims on the majority, exerting far more power in a fragmented Parliament than the people were willing to give them in the ballot box. Then we can feel safe in the knowledge that Sir Keir KCB KC is not one to kowtow to vociferous fringe activists, or is he?

All you can do is try and not give them a headline. The clearer your message,

the less the mess-ups, the more likely you are going to get a half-reasonable headline.

(Sayeeda Warsi, Make Me Prime Minister, 2022)

If a man throws a glass of wine in your face, do not throw wine in his. Throw the decanter.

(Admiral John Fisher)

Of course the future can change, it's being written now. But starting with such a massive lead is as good as it plausibly gets for Labour. On the current boundaries, they would bag 445 seats. This would be the best result ever for Labour, and the second best for any party since 1832, surpassed only by the Conservatives' 470 seats in 1931. Factoring in Sinn Féin still on seven seats and not taking them, and the two SDLP MPs de facto taking the Labour whip, that would be a 251-seat working majority for Keir Starmer. As you can see in the other bar, fighting the election of the proposed boundaries of the 2023 Review would make it even better, as Labour would have a 271-seat working majority. Because we are still in The Zone, where gerrymandering turns into dummymandering, offering more opportunities for Labour gains than protecting Conservative seats.

The next Conservative leadership election after such a drubbing could be quite fun. On current numbers, Rishi Sunak would hold his seat, but it's hard to imagine that the party would keep him as leader. Liz Truss would also hold her seat, but there is certainly not even one alternate reality where anyone would ask her to come back. That would open the floodgates for the return of Boris Johnson, who.... SPOILER ALERT... would hold his seat in the current state of polls in London. The hardcore Boristas will undoubtedly be thrilled to know that bringing Boris back is just what Wee Wokowen Jones advises them to do. A pro-Corbyn influencer now self-identifying as a pro-Bozo influencer, who'd have thunk? Jeremy Hunt would be out of the game, having lost his seat to the Liberal Democrats. Several of the other candidates at previous leadership contests are predicted to hold their seats, but it's hard to imagine them standing against Johnson if he clearly signaled his will to come back. Tom Tugendhat would probably be the only remote possibility, if he was in for a kamikaze run against Bozo. And don't be mistaken, Johnson coming back would actually be good news for a Labour government. Just think of all the PR revolving around "they're stuck in the past while we're heading for a better future". Simples.

Next to small war, there is nothing quite like a general election to stiffen the sinews

and summon up the blood.

(Francis Urquhart, To Play The King, 1993)

In terms of evading criticism, being beneath contempt can sometimes work as well

as being above reproach, and is a state of grace a damned sight easier to access.

(David Mitchell, The Guardian, 11 December 2022)

After twelve years of Conservative governments, food banks and warm banks have become something of a permanent fixture everywhere in the UK. Amazingly, the Office of National Statistics does not have any data on their numbers and activities. Which says quite loudly that the UK government is in total denial about it. Probably because the Rees-Moggs of this world still hold the view, that was already outdated when Arthur Balfour was Prime Minister, that poverty is a judgment of God, due to lack of thrift and temperament. But the organisations who run or promote them, like the Trussell Trust and the Warm Welcome Campaign, have their own statistics, and they are quite alarming. This Christmas, there are about 2,600 food banks and 3,500 warm banks in operation all across the UK. The numbers are certainly underestimated, as those operating in schools, for example, tend to remain under the radar of the national networks. Statistics about their activity are scarce and incomplete too, but we know that the Trussell Trust alone distributed 61,468 food parcels in 2010-2011, the first full year under a Conservative government, and more than 2.2 million in 2021-2022 after a peak of 2.6 million in 2020-2021, amidst the fallout of the Covid pandemic and lockdown. In one of their recent polls, Omnisis added questions about food banks and warm banks, and here is what their panel thought about food banks, broken down by political affiliation.

The phrasing of the questions is a bit awkward, which is probably unavoidable if you want an unbiased view of a sensitive issue. And also explains some twists in the panel's replies, which make some level of interpretation necessary. The best way to sum it up is probably that people see food banks as something necessary out of necessity, not literally 'good'. The second part of the question is even more ambiguous, as there are many contradictory reasons why you might either support or oppose the idea that food banks shouldn't be necessary is the sixth largest economy on the planet. Which might be seventh by now, by the way, if the OECD predictions about the recessions are right. The possible array of interpretation is probably why there is more of a political divide here. The same can be said about the poll's findings about warm banks, which also hint that there is less public awareness of them than of food banks. While they provide a just as necessary help, especially now that the cost-of-energy crisis is hitting harder than ever, and more and more people can't afford the extravagant prices billed by their suppliers. For many, it's no longer 'eat or heat', it has become 'neither eat nor heat'. The single biggest scandal of twelve years of Tory rule.

The UK Government are definitely trying to avoid facing these issues, as it would inevitably reveal how much their own policies are to blame. A sign of this is that official statistics for England and Wales, a joint production of the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Office of National Statistics (ONS), are sketchy and late, the last available data being for 2019-2020. DWP obviously have a vested interest in not giving away too much about the impact of the roll-out of Universal Credit (UC) and the shaving off of benefits in the years that followed. But the Joseph Rowntree Foundation have their own statistics, based mostly on what little DWP sees fit to publish, and they are merciless. For example, 35% of benefit claimants under the old system lived in poverty in 2010-2011. The proportion has risen to 54% of UC claimants in 2019-2020, the last year for which data is available now. Statistics are even more sketchy, and often totally lacking, about homelessness. The official definition of 'statutory homelessness' doesn't even begin to assess the true scale of it, and probably underestimates it by as much as a factor of five according to Crisis UK's own data. This is truly the 'invisible' part of poverty in the UK, or more appropriately the one we don't want to see, though it's out there under our eyes all the time. Except when we remove 'them' from 'our' streets during the Olympics or the Jubilee.

Are we going to sit around crying in our lattes, or are we gonna do something about it?

(Owen Harper, Torchwood: End Of Days, 2006)

My friends, it is time. No more standing at the bottom looking up. It’s time to make

yourselves heard. We will continue until they open their ears, open their hearts.

(Arthur Scargill, The Crown: Imbroglio, 2019)

Tis this time of year when Rishi Sunak has chosen to go to war with the unions over strikes, which Hugh Grant would definitely not have done. The Agency Prime Minister uses the familiar right-wing rhetoric, pitting 'greedy' unions against the people, and letting his Temp Health Secretary lie about his handling of the most popular profession who are going on strike. He just forgets that the unions are the people, who have suffered the worst decline in wages in 45 years, and face even bleaker prospects with Brexit making the British economy as much of a lost cause as the Russian economy. Contrary to the English Government's claim that 'the people' oppose the strikes, conveniently peddled by the BBC, a YouGov poll from early December still showed strong support for the strikes in most sectors. Interestingly, YouGov felt they had to ask the question again, several days after the omnibus poll, for two professions specifically. Rail workers and postal workers, this time adding the wee detail of when the strikes would happen, just before or at Christmas. Which is definitely massaging the poll.

There is indeed even a funny side to the English Government's handling of the strikes. It looks like calling the Army to plug the holes is not the miracle cure they thought it was, and tried to sell to the public. Then a clearer picture emerges when you consider the net level of support for strikes in the sectors selected by YouGov. I won't repeat the formula again because, as Jeremy Paxman would say, you know the rules so let's get on with it. The most obvious result is the massive net support for nurses, which proves that Steve Barclay was definitely wrong to play mind games and approach talks in bad faith. It also makes the Scottish Government look extremely good by comparison, after they succeeded in convincing two major unions to call off strikes in NHS Scotland. Not unexpectedly, massaging the question also works, with net support for a postal workers' strike dropping by 4%, and support for a rail workers' strike by 5%, when the sly pollster stipulates that it would jeopardise your 56th replay of Love Actually. Quite ironically too, rails workers refusing overtime has a strong net support, while it would probably have the same sort of irritating fallout as a full-blown strike. Go figure.

Interestingly, doctors going on strike are far less popular than nurses or paramedics going on strike. And the collective public image of the profession is unlikely to improve after revelations about the extravagant amounts paid by some English NHS Trusts to agency doctors. Which is probably why Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting found it was the right moment to pick a fight with the British Medical Association, another war of the words over their alleged resistance to Labour's miracle cure for the NHS, which might be more of a curse actually. Keir Starmer is also playing an odd game here, unless it's his current variant of playing the long game, as he did to secure Labour's leadership in 2020. Accusing the English Government of a profound lack of leadership sounds right. But peddling the government's soundbite in the same breath, that the unions are asking for too much, just doesn't. Which begs the question again: why would voters send Keir Starmer to Number Ten if all they get is a younger Rishi Sunak? Dilemma Actually.

When one burns one's bridges, what a very nice fire it makes.

(Dylan Thomas)

What you’re seeing here today is the beginning. The beginning of the working classes saying enough.

(Arthur Scargill, The Crown: Imbroglio, 2019)

Savanta Comres conducted their own poll of the public's opinion of the strikes, two weeks after YouGov, and after massive media coverage about unions and strikers canceling your Brussels sprouts. Some part of this hostile environment actually worked, as Savanta found their panel split three ways about Mick Lynch: 28% with a favourable view of him, 30% neutral, 29% with an unfavourable view, and a surprising 14% having no opinion. But, when it came to the strikes themselves, there is quite a contrast with YouGov's findings. Savanta first established a baseline, asking their panel if they generally support or oppose strikes, as a matter of principle. And then asked about already happening strikes, or strikes in the making, for an array of professions, most of which were already tested by YouGov. Here's what the classic traffic-light encoding tells us.

Of course, the message is more potent, and the differences with YouGov more visible, when we transition to the net ratings graph. Beyond that, there are some hilarious results in there. Like people being more supportive of bin collectors going on strike than of Council staff or barristers. Surely there is a subtext here, that bin collectors are not just more likeable, but also more useful to society that the other two. More seriously, rail and airline staff still get net positives here, despite all the negative coverage and the obvious disruption caused by the strikes. And doctors are again less popular than nurses.

To be honest, neither YouGov nor Savanta Comres are among my favourite pollsters. Both have form offering a rather sloppy service in relation to the British Polling Council's rules about full timely disclosure of polling data. Quite amusingly, we have here the perfect example of which poll Cabinet Ministers would cherrypick to make their point, and which one RMT would choose. The thing about the Savanta poll is that they have found an extremely efficient way of leading their panel towards more union-friendly responses, and probably did not even realise it. And you probably didn't either, as it's hidden in planes' sight. It's the very first question of the poll, asking the panel what they think about strikes in the abstract, as a matter of principle, without mentioning any specific sector. That first answer then subliminally ripples into the batch of questions that follow, as people hate contradicting themselves, tweaking the answers towards a more favourable result, even in cases where the strikes are genuinely a nuisance. And it tells you something else, that was totally outwith the scope of the poll. How much people hate Council staff and barristers. No doubt with a reason. And civil servants almost as much, who are so notoriously sloppy with deporting people to Rwanda, or so says their boss.

The capitalist establishment is bent on crushing the working class movement.

So, from now on, we are men of action, and we will achieve our aims by any means necessary.

(Arthur Scargill, The Crown: Imbroglio, 2019)

It’s easier to fool a man than to convince him that he has been fooled.

(George Orwell)

Oddly, Savanta Comres surveyed the public's feelings about the strikes again just a few days later, on behalf of the Sunday Telegraph. But with a twist, as you might expect with a client openly embracing the Conservative narrative about industrial action. All that was needed was to compare the level of support for strikes in general and in principle, with the level of support for strikes happening over the Winter Solstice Recess. With quite predictable results, as shown by the differences in the now usual net level of support. That's a loss of 20% to 27%, depending on the profession, and quite predictably, nurses are the ones still holding a net positive. There are many reasons to not take this poll, and others like it, too seriously. Especially when twelve years of Conservative rule mean we will soon have no reason to complain about NHS strikes, because there will be no NHS staff left to go on strike. But overpriced American-owned health business will thrive. Don't say you weren't warned.

Of course people are bound to hate strikes occurring from Christmas Eve to New Year's Day. We don't need a particle physics graduate or an opportunistic poll to know that. It doesn't actually prove much, other than people don't want to see the festive rituals disturbed, no matter the reason. This kind of massaged polling is actually self-defeating, as it shows pollsters can squeeze a negative response out of their panels only by heavy-handedly stressing the most unpopular aspect of the strikes. This will not work if we have a general strike in February or March, or anything resembling it when the unions find the right loophole in the Trade Union and Labour Relations Act 1992 to call a general strike without actually calling it a general strike. Just choose the right period, and you have strikes achieving maximum disruption to the economy and minimum disruption to the people's personal lives. Guess we can trust Mick Lynch, Sharon Graham and Pat Cullen to come up with just that.

Don’t just teach your children to read. Teach them to question what they read.

Teach them to question everything.

(George Carlin)

The great advantage about telling the truth is that nobody ever believes it.

(Dorothy L. Sayers)

And finally, much to my amusement, YouGov also felt they had to ask the same questions again, three weeks after their first poll. They tested quite a wide array of sectors, including some I didn't even know were going on strike. Which, by the way, confirms the idea that we are indeed heading for a general strike, despite all the legal 'safeguards' against it. Some of the sectors ware already included in YouGov's initial poll, and some were new to this reboot. And it did not go the way it was expected to, or intended to, as we know all polls have some ulterior motive; usually dictated by who is paying for them. I will spare you the traffic light graph this time and cut to the chairs, to the proverbial net level of support for each of these professions going on strike.

The result is quite obvious, if you compare this to the similar graph for the first YouGov poll. Support for the strikes has actually increased, definitely not what the English Government or the friendly media are telling the public day after day. The change is not massive, just a 2 to 4 points shift towards support, which you could argue is not genuinely significant. Then I would counter-argue that even the same level of support is significant, after three weeks during which all government affiliates did their best to demonise and demean the unions and the strikers, and even the Labour Party was awkwardly on the fence. There is one spectacular change though, with the net rating skyrocketing from +10 for paramedics in the first poll, to +32 for ambulance staff in the second poll, which I think we can agree covers pretty much the same people. This despite some real fear-mongering from NHS bosses, government sources and the media, about this strike putting peoples' lives at risk. Part of the explanation is in a new question YouGov added to their second poll, about whom the public consider is responsible for the escalation of the conflict and the strikes going ahead.

Bear in mind that this is about the strikes in England and Wales. News that the crisis had been temporarily defused in Scotland, with the Scottish Government agreeing to new rounds of talks, obviously did not help Rishi Sunak here. That the talks failed, and NHS Scotland staff chose to go on strike anyway, almost doesn't matter here. What the public saw was a willingness to negotiate in good faith, enabling the English public to see through their government's true motives and not fall for it. The most striking example is the public massively blaming the government for the nurses' strike. Clearly, Steve Barclay has lost his war of attrition against the Royal College of Nursing. He knows it. They know it. Rishi Sunak may stubbornly stick to the original plan, but it has already failed and he has no alternative but opening serious negotiations and finding a way to save face. Hiding behind an independent pay review body, that can be overruled and has been in the past, can only last so long.

We live in a fantasy world, a world of illusion. The great task in life is to find reality.

(Iris Murdoch)

Burns is the perfect poet and Jaws is the perfect movie.

(Jimmy Perez, Shetland, 2021)

The Supreme Court ruling, that just confirmed what everybody in Scotland already knew, that self-determination is a reserved matter, triggered quite a flurry of polling about an hypothetical second Independence Referendum. The one about which the SNP will be conferring, as a matter of urgency, around the time of the next Spring Equinox. But with a twist, as they won't actually be conferring about IndyRef2, but about Nicola's concept of a 'plebiscite election'. Which doesn't look like such a brilliant idea after all, but we'll come to that later. We have had six polls so far, from YouGov, Redfield & Wilton, Ipsos, Find Out Now, YouGov again and Panelbase, predicting a Yes win. Followed by one from Savanta Comres predicting a No win. Despite this, the new batch of polls have quite conclusively swung the trend of IndyRef2 voting intentions towards Yes. But the weighted average of these seven polls has Yes now winning 52.3-47.7 with undecideds ignored, which is technically a 95% probability that the Yes vote would be between 49.4% and 55.2%. So not 100% bettertogetherproof yet.

Don't uncork the IrnBru just yet, though. We're just back where we were in June 2020, and No surged back in the lead less than a year later. The Ipsos poll also found that 35% of Scots want IndyRef2 next year, another 17% before the end of the current Holyrood term, and only 26% don't want it to happen at all. Asking two separate questions instead of one covering all the options, YouGov found 38% wanting it in 2023 and 51% within the next five years, with 38% rejecting it in that same time-span. This clearly debunks the Conservatives' repeated claim that there is no appetite for a second referendum. There is, and the only differences are about choosing the right moment to hold it. Another interesting result is that we have now a third of Labour voters supporting independence. This will certainly not sway Labour HQ in London, as their opposition is rooted in ideological English nationalism. But I don't rule out that it might convince Anas Sarwar to soften his stance, and at least stop ostracising Labour members who publicly support independence. Nothing wrong in diversity, or is there?

They fight without fear because they have nothing to lose. We do.

And that’s what makes us dangerous.

(Julius Caesar, Roman Empire: Master Of Rome, 2018)

When it gets down to having to use violence, then you are playing the system's game.

The establishment will irritate you, pull your beard, flick your face, to make you fight.

(John Lennon)

We have also had some Scottish Westminster polling, with the aforementioned Ipsos poll requiring some suspension of disbelief of faith. I'm not saying that the SNP cannot do better at the next election than in 2015. I'm just saying that the odds of that happening are in the same quadrant of the galaxy as Rishi Sunak holding a majority at that election. And I certainly do not underestimate Rishi. As a benchmark, we have the data from four other Full Scottish polls, conducted by YouGov (twice), Redfield & Wilton and Savanta Comres in November or December, and the rustic approach involving the aggregate of Scottish subsamples from all GB-wide polls conducted in December. And the Ipsos poll definitely stands out like Jacob Rees-Mogg at an Ewok Convention.

With all the usual caveats about the accuracy of polls, this looks like a clear warning to the SNP, to not use the next general election as the de facto independence referendum. Four Full Scottish polls out of five, and the general trend of voting intentions, clearly say that there wouldn't be a majority of the popular vote for the pro-Independence parties. Far from it, actually, as Labour are closing the gap with the SNP. The battleground is no longer the Unionist vote, but the centre-left vote that could go either to the SNP or to Labour. There is nothing new here, and you know I mentioned just that several times already, as this trend appeared months ago. Even if Labour factually don't need any Scottish seat for a majority, they can, and probably will, argue that they need them for a stronger majority. And, no matter how heretical and blasphemous it sounds to pro-Independence ears, the Brown-Starmer plan for 'radical federalism' might sound just as convincing and less risky than Independence for a fair share of voters. Ironically, Michael Gove's 'devolution deals' for various regions of England might very well help Labour make their case for going one step further to variants of DevoMax. Especially as the SNP haven't yet made a very strong case for Independence, covering all the issues associated with it. Time is of the essence, and they have wasted a lot of it.

Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you.

The only thing they don't know how to handle is non-violence and humour.

(John Lennon)

Nothing lasts forever. Even the most glittering reign must come to an end some day.

(Francis Urquhart, House Of Cards, 1990)

Finally, we also have three brand new voting intentions polls for the next Scottish Parliament election. All fielded after the Supreme Court ruling, by the usual suspects Ipsos, YouGov and Savanta Comres. This batch send quite a different message from the Westminster polls, and different factors at work. The first two, from Ipsos and YouGov, were quite a departure from earlier Holyrood polls, as they predicted a significant surge of the SNP vote on both the constituencies and the regional lists, coupled with slumps of both the Conservative and Labour votes. Both also had pro-Independence parties bagging over 50% on both votes, fueling the idea that a snap Holyrood election would be a better choice for the 'plebiscite election', as suggested by Angus MacNeil. A suggestion Nicola always considered 'not valid', as it did not come from her Ninth Circle or Stirling University. Then the Savanta Comres poll came as quite a shocker, with the predicted SNP vote falling below their 2021 result, and the aggregate pro-Independence vote way below 50%.

In case you're wondering what the discriminating factor was, you only need to look at the dates when the polls were in the field. The Savanta Comres poll gathered half its data during the protracted Scottish Parliament debate on the Gender Recognition Reform Bill. The odd part is that it did not negatively impact the Greens, as quite a lot of Labour voters would switch to them on the regional lists. The ones who live in the alternate reality where the Greens are actually green, and not the pitiful boy-blue-and-girl-pink stereotype publicly endorsed by Ross Greer and Maggie Chapman. Quite remarkably, the shrunken SNP vote shares don't have a genuinely devastating impact on the allocation of seats, as many SNP MSPs sit on massive majorities. The SNP would be just one seat down on the constituencies, and three seats down overall on the 2021 result. The constituency result would be the combination of three gains from the Conservatives (Dumfriesshire, Galloway and West Dumfries, Eastwood) and four losses to Labour (Glasgow Kelvin, Rutherglen, East Lothian, Clydebank and Milngavie). Glasgow Kelvin would be the zenith of karmatic irony, as the SNP would lose it to a weak Labour surge there, and only because of Patrick Harvie's perennial vanity candidacy.

Nevertheless, all three polls predict an increased pro-independence majority, even if only by a couple of seats. Ipsos and YouGov even have the SNP bagging an outright 10-seat majority all by themselves, according to my model. Ipsos, the most favourable, even has the Yellow-Green Axis just three seats short of a supermajority. Which once again affirms and validates the idea that the 'Both Votes SNP' strategy has to be repealed. Fewer and fewer people actually fall for it, and it demonstrably deprives the pro-independence camp of seats that would make the difference between just a majority and a supermajority. Of course the SNP will have none of that because smarter voting would probably deliver one seat for the Alba Party in every region, perhaps even two in a few cases. So perpetuating dumb voting is obviously a better option. Because, ye ken, we can't allow people who supported the horrifically censored screening of Adult Human Female at Edinburgh University to sit in our Parliament, can we?

If you were the captain of the Titanic, you wouldn’t be saying “Steady as she goes”?

(Francis Urquhart, House Of Cards, 1990)

Did you know that the X chromosome carries three times as much genetic material as the Y?

Do you think that’s why men are simpler?

(Abby Lockhart, ER: Quintessence Of Dust, 2006)

YouGov took the opportunity of their Full Scottish Poll to add some questions about the Gender Recognition Reform Bill (GRR), just in time to be the last one polling it before the final vote in Scottish Parliament. Perhaps not coincidentally, this poll came just days before the usually 'trans ally' Observer published a scathing editorial about the GRR, wrapping all the women's rights activists' arguments in one merciless take-down. Unsurprisingly, the YouGov poll shows again massive opposition to the bill, like all honest polls conducted before. YouGov did not waste time asking about ill-defined principles, but homed in directly on the three main controversial provisions of the bill. They found, on average, 62% opposition and 21% support, which translates to 75-25 opposing when undecideds are factored out. Here is what they found for the first provision, the removal of a medical diagnosis of gender dysphoria to get a Gender Recognition Certificate (GRC).

This first question shows patterns that will be repeated later, in pretty much the same way. As expected there is a political divide, with Conservative voters far more likely to oppose any part of the bill. But there is also a warning for the SNP, as their own voters are not different to the rest of Scotland. On average, 59% oppose the bill, translating to 72% opposing with undecideds removed. There is a pretty similar landscape for the second question, about the reduction of the required period of living in the 'acquired gender', from two years to six months. Or more precisely, as the bill actually says, three months followed by three months of 'reflection period'.

The crosstabs also help dispel a myth generously peddled by the proponents of the bill, that women are supporting it. They're not, and there isn't even a visible 'gender gap'. On average of the three items surveyed, men and women oppose the bill in the same proportions, with or without undecideds. This highlights that the Court of Session ruling about 'legal sex' might turn into a Pyrrhic victory for the Scottish Government, as it relies heavily on a one-sided vision of the discrepancies between the Gender Recognition Act 2004 and the Equality Act 2010. There might very well be a different outcome if the case, or any similar one focusing on the GRR Bill, is taken to the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom. Who might also have a more literal reading of the legal boundaries of devolution, and the definition of reserved matters. Moving now to YouGov's results on the third controversial item in the GRR Bill, lowering the age to apply for a GRC from 18 to 16.

On this, we have the highest level of opposition, on 66% direct or 76% without undecideds. Another trend, which is more visible here than with the first two questions, is the massive age divide, with only the TikTok Generation supporting the bill. There is an obvious caveat here. It's fairly easy to hold 'popular' or 'fashionable' opinions when you're stuck in the dual echo chambers of University buddies and social media followers, both of which massively increase the effects of peer pressure and confirmation bias. Things are usually quite different when you transition to the real adult world and have to face the consequences of ideology-based preconceptions. Been there, done that, mates, so trust me on this. Reality is a bitch and has no problem biting you in the arse. The Scottish Government and the Yellow-Green Axis's MSPs may have seen the poll but probably considered it 'not valid', and passed the bill anyway. Which is probably just the beginning, and not the end. So lawyers are certainly the happiest haggises on the bens right now, as we could face years of litigation, and there is an absolute fuckload of dosh to be made off that.

In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer.

And that makes me happy. For it says that no matter how hard the world pushes against me,

within me there is something stronger, something better, pushing right back.

(Albert Camus)

We should control events, not been blown about by them.

It’s time to stop fooling around and to start inflicting some serious damage.

(Elizabeth Urquhart, To Play The King, 1993)

Much to my surprise, Labour are now doing better in Wales than they did three weeks ago, and are matching the Blair landslide of 1997. They're not even helped here by Reform UK snatching bits off the Conservative vote, as their vote share is predicted to be lower than in 2019. The last published survey of politicians' approval ratings in Wales says that Mark Drakeford is more popular in Wales than Keir Starmer. So the Labour surge must be the fallout of a Drakeford Effect. This seems to date back to 2020, and the widely approved handling of the Covid pandemic by the Welsh Government. It certainly boosted Drakeford's ratings not just with Labour voters, but also with Plaid Cymru voters. Drakeford's 'soft' approach to Welsh Independence, in stark contrast to Anas Sarwar's brutal rejection of Scottish Independence, has surely helped too. The 2021 Senedd election already proved the existence of a Drakeford Effect, and it hasn't weakened since.

On current numbers, Plaid Cymru would only hold their four current seats. This time, the Labour surge is strong enough to turn the three-way marginal Ynys Môn Red, and deny Plaid Cymru their most plausible gain. The Liberal Democrats are predicted to take back Brecon and Radnorshire, so the Conservatives are left only with Montgomeryshire, held by Craig Williams, the Parliamentary Private Secretary to the Prime Minister. In lame man's terms, Rishi's bag carrier and backbench informant. Admittedly, Wales was never fertile ground for the Conservatives, unlike Scotland in the early 20th century. The Welsh Conservatives thrived only in time of great disarray for the Labour Party like 1983 and 2019, and to a lesser extent 1979 and 2015. It's no longer the case, and now in an even stronger way than could reasonably be expected earlier in the year.

All animals mean harm. They are but a meal away from barbarism.

(Edward Heath, The Crown: Imbroglio, 2019)

I’m for things. For my country, my culture and my language, most of all. I think the Crown imposes

a kind of uniformity that by default, yes, suppresses Welsh identity with a ubiquitous Britishness.

(Tedi Millward, The Crown: Tywysog Cymru, 2019)

YouGov also fielded a poll of the next Senedd election at the end of November. Not surprisingly, this poll delivered the best result for Welsh Labour since the 2021 election, falling support for the Conservatives and a somewhat disappointing result for Plaid Cymru. Here we see the full impact of the Drakeford Effect, with Labour bagging a majority on the constituencies only, something that has never happened at any election since 1999. The Conservatives would be relegated to third party, losing half their seats. On these numbers, it would also be quite an anti-climax for Plaid Cymru, who would gain only one list seat despite their better performance on the list vote. Notwithstanding, Mark Drakeford would probably find it more politically astute to not antagonise Plaid Cymru, and renew some sort of cooperation agreement with them. And there is no doubt Plaid Cymru would accept the deal, as they have based a lot of their recent narrative on the influence they gained and the successes they achieved thanks to the current agreement.

There are also proposals, on the Labour side, for a rather radical reform of the Senedd. It involves increasing the number of seats to 96, elected from 16 multi-member constituencies drawn by pairing the new 32 Welsh Commons constituencies of the 2023 Periodic Review. Each constituency will return six MSs on proportional representation (PR) using the proverbial D'Hondt method. The Welsh Government, quite rightly, dismissed a proposal to use Single Transferable Vote (STV). There are many examples proving that STV is the worst possible choice, being a fake proportional system combining the worst flaws of PR and the worst flaws of FPTP, including incentives for massive tactical voting on all rankings except the first preferences. I have made simulations of what this new Senedd would look like, based alternatively on the current state of the constituency vote, the list vote, and the average of both. And it actually does not really matter which scenario you choose, as the results are almost the same.

The reason for this is that having six seats in each constituency results in a high threshold for representation. Basic math says it's 14.3% of the popular vote. But, once you've weeded out the lesser parties, and shrunk the vote base eligible for representation, it's empirically around 12%. Which only three parties would clear in all constituencies and both votes. The Liberal Democrats would also clear the hurdle, on the constituency vote only, in the current Mid and West Wales region. Of course, these projections are only approximate, as we don't know yet the exact boundaries of the future constituencies, so I can only extrapolate from the current voting intentions in the existing regions. It's also risky to predict the future voting patterns on a vastly different electoral law. But an outright majority for Welsh Labour is perfectly plausible, and even likely. The D'Hondt method always favours the larger parties, and the impact is maximised when the opposition includes a significant number of minor parties, just what current polling shows on the list vote.

What people really want is self-determination. Not being spoken down to. Dominated. Governed

by those so remote they don’t even know you. Know who you are, or what you think or need.

(Tedi Millward, The Crown: Tywysog Cymru, 2019)

Quite a lot of sore botties on the Government benches. It’s not that they think

the opposition is so wonderful. More that they want to say “Yah boo sucks!” to the boss.

(Geoffrey Booza-Pitt, The Final Cut, 1995)

There have been two by-elections recently in the North of England, for the City of Chester and Stretford and Umston constituencies. Which did not prove much as these were Labour seats held by Labour with increased majorities. This was to be expected in the current political climate, and double-digit swings to Labour in both only validate the trends seen in polls, and prove that the Conservatives will have a fucking shitload of uphill battles to hold the Red Wall seats of their 2019 intake. Current voting intentions show that the surge of Reform UK, quite impressive here, is a major thorn in the arse for the local Conservatives. The best example is the North East, where the Labour surge is weaker than in the North West or Yorkshire. But the right-wing vote is split in such a way that the Conservatives and Reform UK nuke each other out of the game, and hand Labour an almost full slate on a silver platter, with only past rising star Anne-Marie Trevelyan surviving in Berwick-upon-Tweed.

Labour's Reconquista Del Norte seems to be on the right track now. Both the voting intentions and the seat projections are roughly the same as we had three weeks ago across all three regions. They're also remarkably similar to the Blair Landslide of 1997, always a bonus for Keir Starmer. But there are still potential weaknesses for Labour in the area. The historic Labour vote here is socially conservative working class, who support both the trade unions and Brexit. So there is as much in Labour's current policies that potentially appeals to them as might potentially repeal them. This is at the core of Labour's current dilemma: how to build a big tent coalition of contradictory interests, priorities and expectations, and make it last? Just until the next election, that is. What happens afterwards will be a different world, with a different narrative and different story-tellers.

Life does sometimes seem remarkably like crawling through a tunnel of excrement, don’t you find?

One trusts it’s all in a good cause. Then how could it be otherwise?

(Bryan Brynford-Jones, To Play The King, 1993)

The state has gone. She’s dismantled it, along with all the other things we thought

we could depend on growing up. A sense of community. A sense of, you know,

obligation to one another. A sense of kindness. It’s all disappearing.

(Michael Fagan, The Crown: Fagan, 2020)

What we have now in the Midlands goes quite against the usual trends in those regions. For a long time, Labour seemed to face some uphill battles there, to gain back seats lost long ago, mostly rural constituencies where Conservative MPs had had ten years or more to entrench themselves in deep burrows. But here we have Labour doing better now than three weeks ago, when they were already quite convincingly predicted to unseat dozens of Tory incumbents. In three weeks, the predicted number of Conservative losses has risen from 48 to 66. So, in best Paxo voice, it's goodbye from Ben Bradley, goodbye from Andrea Leadsom, and goodbye from Robert Jenrick. Plus three score and three other unlucky ones.

What polls now hint at is quite a reversal of fortunes, with Labour predicted to do better next time than under Attlee or Blair. This would even help the Liberal Democrats, enabling them to hold North Shropshire, unlike most of their earlier by-election gains that were of the transient variety. The most iconic part is Labour predicted to bag a full slate in Derbyshire for the first time in recorded history. My only regret is that we will not see Dennis Skinner coming back to male the State Openings of Parliament more fun. Or picking a fight with Little Shit McDonald, to take back control of his frontbench seat in the Awkward Squad Bench.

In the meantime, all the things that really make us feel good, the right to work,

the right to be ill, the right to be old, the right to be frail, be human, gone.

(Michael Fagan, The Crown: Fagan, 2020)

Give up the past. Turn to the future. What's done is done. Bitterness will not undo it.

(Hercule Poirot, Death On The Nile, 1937)

In their last survey of their select Red Wall panel, Redfield & Wilton chose to go a wee smitch more personal, and pitted Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer against each other. First with the classic 'Preferred Prime Minister' question, and then on an array of topics that could define their leadership or competence level, or lack thereof. If Labour Central scrutinised this poll, which they undoubtedly did, they must have realised that moving their official residence from the SW1E postcode to the NE1 postcode was not the magic wand they needed to fully reconnect with Their Friends In The North. Labour may be 25% or 30% ahead in Red Wall voting intentions, but Starmer is only 4% ahead of Sunak as the better choice for PM, and just breaks even on the average assessment of their abilities. Which, quite damningly for Starmer, is the same result as the assessment of his ability to offer hope for the future. Not the best place to be for an aspiring Prime Minister. It's like the panel think that Keir is not such a bad guy after all, but is not consensual, lacks strong will and charisma, and is just barely trustworthy. You have to wonder where they got these ideas from.

It's interesting to see that Keir Starmer doesn't do well on issues that would be in the pouch of the other Great Offices of State, Home Office, Foreign Office or Treasury. So I will go out on a limb here, and risk that it's not all about Sir Keir as an individual, but also about the Labour Party as a collective. What should probably worry Labour Central the most is that people have massive doubts about their ability to get things done, and their proximity to the common people. These are non-ideological items that could decide the vote of floating voters, and Labour would need massive approval on both to be really confident about winning the next election. It definitely sounds quite ominous that, even in Labour-friendly regions, they haven't made the case that they collectively, or Keir Starmer individually, convincingly display this kind of qualities.

The essential thing, of course, is to present a totally united and confident front.

While avoiding any impression of complacency.

The natural party of government but, at the same time, a listening government.

(Lord Theodore Billsborough, House Of Cards, 1990)

Let’s analyse the situation. First of all, have we really got a problem?

Yes, the polls are bloody terrifying and it’s right to take soundings.

Second, do we have to do something about it, or will it just go away?

(Patrick Woolton, House Of Cards, 1990)

With Labour doing unexpectedly well in the Midlands this time, they have to lose some ground somewhere to counterbalance, and it is of course in the South of England. Not losses compared to 2019 obviously, but to the quite implausibly high results they got down there three weeks ago. Even so, Labour are still predicted to bag some impossible, or not, gains across all three regions. They are now predicted to win the popular vote by 10-12% in the three Southern regions. Roughly half their lead GB-wide, but still quite a feat. A small surge would also take the Conservatives up from a projected 37 seats three weeks ago to 59 this time. Not really taking back control of historic heartlands, but at least it saves them the utter humiliation of seeing Labour bag more seats in the Leafy South than in the Smoky North, as was the case three weeks ago. Thanks Dog for small mercies.

There are still signs of panic among Southern Conservatives, even with better polling numbers. One interesting case is Theresa May, probably worried that Maidenhead is being overtaken by London hipsters. Which it probably isn't, as housing prices there are even more outrageous than in Inner Hipstershire. First, Treeza offered support to the Scottish GRR Bill, which gave the lads at Pink News the opportunity for long ranting asides. Then she denied having supported it, even though she wanted pretty much the same reform for England when she was PM. Labour certainly felt better knowing that Keir Starmer is not the only one suffering from cognitive dissonance when facing contradictory injunctions. More to the point, Treeza's volte-face happened, surely quite coincidentally, after a new poll revealed that 20% of Brits support extending the Scottish bill to the rest of the UK, 37% oppose it and 23% are neutral. The breakdown by region says the 19% of Southern Englanders support it, 40% oppose it and 22% are neutral, which was certainly more relevant for Treeza. Tell me where my flock is heading and I'll be their shepherd...

That is, can we ride out this bad patch and then swing the country round?

That’s very much up to the Prime Minister. Mind you, I don’t think he has what it takes,

and the voters don’t think he has. If he leads us into another general election, we’ll get stuffed.

(Patrick Woolton, House Of Cards, 1990)

Harrods is part of the national soul and the very fabric of what it is to be British.

Owning Harrods is like owning the Tower of London or Westminster Abbey.

(Sydney Johnson, The Crown: Mou Mou, 2022)

London is probably the only place in the UK where Labour could get a majority of seats without needing to flex their muscles or ruin a pair of brand new trainers canvassing. Which doesn't mean the Imperial Capital is without challenges for native son Keir Starmer. Actually, when your toughest challenge is whether or not you will get a majority of the popular vote, as Corbyn did and Blair didn't, very little should concern you. The interesting trait of the London vote is that the Tory-and-associates bloc on one side, and the non-Tory bloc on the other, have maintained pretty much the same aggregate shares of the vote over the years. So the changes in the number of seats depend more on fluctuations within each bloc than on real changes of the overall ideological make-up of the metropolitan electorate. With an in-built advantage for Labour, in times like now, when a massive number of their MPs sit on five-digit majorities. The current state of polls, with Labour one bat's whisper away from a majority of the popular vote, is not even the best they have done this year, and yet they would carry the City in a landslide.

Starmer is on record saying he doesn't believe in God, but he believes in faith. Which is probably the corny wokey way of saying he will cuddle any religious leader, regardless of what they preach, as long as it can gain votes. But he is certainly right in the local context, as voting Labour looks like an Article of Faith for many Londoners. Which of course doesn't not preclude unexpected twists in the public's mood. Like what we have here with Reform UK bagging a bigger share of vote than their GB-wide average, in a supposedly massively Europhile region. Luckily for the Conservatives, Reform UK are more likely to thrive in less affluent and more ethnically diverse boroughs like Lewisham or Barking and Dagenham, which will send Labour MPs to Commons anyway. Which makes Reform UK in London as meaningless as the eyelash of a gnat. On current numbers, only a small number of Hipstershire's Tory MPs get the sack. Iain Duncan Smith, Theresa Villiers, Matthew Offord and Felicity Buchan go. But Boris Johnson stays, ready for his first Berlusconi-like comeback.

You call that a palace? We have shithouses in Saint Petersburg that are bigger.

(Boris Yeltsin, The Crown: Ipatiev House, 2022)

How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child.

(William Shakespeare, King Lear, Act 1, Scene 4)

Redfield & Wilton's latest survey of Blue Wall voters included the same more personal assessment of Rishi Sunak and Keir Starmer as their Red Wall survey. And it's even worse. Labour is still leading by 11% in Southern voting intentions, yet Rishi Sunak wins the people's better PM contest by 9%. Labour Central will probably find some solace, and a faint glimmer of hope, in seeing Sunak and Starmer level in their average assessments on the issues. There's an intriguing mirror image of the Northern perspective here. Southerners quite like Rishi, but don't think he's really that good after all. Oddly though, Starmer does slightly better in the South than in the North on his perceived abilities to connect to people and bring them together. There is surely some kind of political message in that too, and probably not the one Labour Central were expecting or wishing to hear.

Labour's unique selling point for middle-class Southern audiences is that they can be as economically proficient as the Conservatives. And it doesn't work. Starmer does quite badly too on foreign policy. Which is a wee smitch ironic as nobody remembers Rishi Sunak being genuinely tested on any foreign policy issue. He is just duplicating Boris Johnson's policies and hasn't yet had to face a new unpredicted crisis. This might come soon in the new year though, and nobody has the fuckiest scoobie how Rishi will react under that kind of stress. Southerners thinking he is a stronger leader than Starmer is not conclusive evidence he will actually prove to be. Globally, the most interesting part is that the average assessment of the two men on the issues is roughly the same in the North and in the South, though not for the same reasons, and with different perceived strengths and weaknesses. Their ratings on their capability to be a beacon of shining hope for the future are also strikingly similar. So neither CCHQ nor Labour Central are any the wiser about future electoral strategy and talking points after dissecting these polls. And their respective focus groups are unlikely to be of more help. So don't expect too much of the next campaign, expect deliberate blandness.

We are, please God, a nation of very fierce bad rabbits.

(Beatrix Potter)

We have before us the opportunity to forge, for ourselves and for future generations, a new world

order. A world where the rule of law, not the law of the jungle, governs the conduct of nations.

(George H. W. Bush, 16 January 1991)

December in Ukraine started in a very weird way. Strikes coming out of nowhere on three Russian Air Force bases, hundreds of kilometres away from the nearest Ukrainian border. At first, it looked like Ukraine had plausible deniability, and it was even rumoured that the strikes were inside jobs, carried out by Russian anti-Putin partisans. Then the Ukrainians let the elephant in the room out of the bag, they had done it. Which was quite awkward for the United States, who had always maintained they would never offer Ukraine long range weapons that could reach deep into Russian territory. And had also been actively trying to talk Ukraine out of any planned attack on Russian soil. And now, Ukraine was doing just that, not with sophisticated state-of-the-art weapons, but with derelict drones of Soviet vintage, hastily refurbished and fitted with makeshift warheads. In case we had forgotten, Ukraine reminded us of their capabilities, with another strike on Boxing Day.

The Soviet Union had retired their TU-141s, crude reconnaissance drones first tried in 1974, as early as 1989, and probably forgotten they ever existed. They were deployed mostly on the Western Marches of the Soviet Empire, so it is likely Ukraine inherited the remaining stockpile, save a couple displayed in Russian museums, quite by chance and then also forgot about them. Until the brutal Russian invasion, when the Ukrainian military realised they must throw everything and the kitchen sink at the invading forces. And the TU-141s made very efficient kitchen sinks. And also something of Zelenskyy giving Biden the finger. "Look, old man, you won't give us 200km-range Super Himars, but we have 1,000km-range shoestring-and-duct-tape cruise missiles. How's that going for you?". The interesting part is that Moscow is within range of the killer drones, and actually closer to Ukraine than the Engels Air Force Base, where two long-range TU-95 bombers were seriously damaged in the very first strike.

This again raises the question of what we should do now. Telling the Putin-enabling conspiracy theorists to fuck off would be a good start. Confirming and expanding the UK's aid to Ukraine is then the obvious choice, and Keir Starmer will not get in the way, no matter how many of his MPs peddle Kremlin-influenced talking points. The international context matters too. The United States, in the usual convoluted way of Beltway speechwriters, have subliminally given Ukraine a nihil obstat to further strikes deep into Russian territory, something that was a red line just days ago. Besides, Putin sending the Kadyrovskis, his Chechen fundamentalist militias, and the Wagner Group, his Nazi mercenaries, to fight the battle for Bakhmut, in lieu of the regular Army, is a clear sign of weakness. Vlad The War Criminal knows he is on a losing streak, and Ukraine can win this war if we don't fail them and don't get complacent in our support. Especially now that we know that a massive majority of our former BFFs in Continental Europe approve of the EU's support for Ukraine. Those advocating for peace must face reality. The born-again Soviet Union is a constant threat, because they will never give up on their plan to enslave Ukraine by brute force. The only guarantee for peace and security is a massive Russian defeat leading to Putin's downfall.

If I’m going into a conference chamber to have big hugs with Russian bears,

I’d rather not leave my six-guns at the door, if it’s all the same with you.

(Patrick Woolton, House Of Cards, 1990)

In any negotiation, it’s worth remembering there are often two languages being spoken.

The language of the demands being made and what’s actually being said underneath.

I prefer to try and ignore the former, and speak the latter.

(John Major, The Crown: Couple 31, 2022)

In the meanwhile, we still hear the now familiar narrative about 'Ukraine fatigue' in the West. Those who peddle it never mention the rise of 'Ukraine fatigue' in Russia too. There is precious little independent polling in Russia, but what we have says support for the 'special military operation' has gone down from 75% to 57%, and that 25% of Russians want peace negotiations to be held quickly. This is clearly not an option for Ukraine right now, as it would allow Russia to secure some gains and save face at best, or at worst to buy time to regroup and replenish for a future offensive. YouGov polled their panel about the levels of aid to Ukraine, whether they believe the UK is spending too much, not enough or just about right. The first question is about direct aid to Ukraine, covering both military and humanitarian aid. Only a minority think the UK is spending too much, though the crosstabs show significant differences from one demographic to the next. The weakest link here is probably the quarter of people who are not sure about it, and could possibly be swayed into opposing further spending, by carefully crafted messaging from the Putinist nebula that is at work here.

The way I see it, there are two major groups opposing aid to Ukraine. First those who believe that America is the root of all evil, and that Putin is the victim here. This is genuinely a sincerely-held belief in some circles, even though it has long been proven to be fucking bullshit, both historically and politically. But this part of the opposition has some traction within the Labour Party, and also the Labour, Green and SNP electorates. The second layer, reinforcing the first into their distorted view of the situation, are Kremlin-bribed influencers, who have gained some traction both on social media and in the mainstream media. This is not a British-only thing, similar propaganda cells exist in many countries, including Russia itself. They're easy to identify, but more difficult to neutralise, as they know all the codes and rituals of manipulation, starting with the Goebbels Rulebook. YouGov then surveyed the public's attitude about support offered to Ukrainian refugees in the UK. The overall result is quite close to the first question, but the crosstabs reveal some subtle differences. Labour voters, for example, are more willing to support refugees than the war effort.

Both questions also show a clear class divide, with working class respondents less supportive than middle-class ones in both cases. This is most likely based on the belief that the money spent on Ukraine would be better spent dealing with the cost-of-living crisis at home. You can't dismiss it lightly, as it is a legitimate concern. The major problem I have with this is that we can't trust the current Conservative government to redirect the money from Ukraine to actual measures to tackle the crisis. Quite the opposite, in fact. But now is not the time to relent anyway, less than ever now that Volodymyr Zelenskyy's ten-point peace plan has been endorsed by the United States and France. Zelenskyy unveiled the plan at the G20 summit in November, and it was politely listened to and then put in a drawer. A month later, Emmanuel Macron and Joe Biden realised it has merits after all. Even Macron has realised that negotiating with Stalin 2.0 at this point, and on his own terms, is not an option. That would be like negotiating with Hitler in 1943, and allowing him to keep Austria and Poland. Macron probably reached this conclusion because the probability of a Russian military defeat had increased in the meantime. More military support now will shorten the war, not lengthen it, but only if Ukraine is given the means to secure more decisive successes. That or Vladimir Putin being offered his one-way ticket to Yekaterinburg by his own courtiers.

There are decades where nothing happens, and there are weeks where decades happen.

(Lenin)

Americans have the right to bear arms. But bears don't have arms.

(Philomena Cunk, Cunk On Earth: Rise Of The Machines, 2022)

This is part recap, part replay and part season finale for my series about the American midterm elections of 2022. As expected, incumbent Democrat Raphael Warnock won the runoff of the Georgia Senate election. The results are pretty much a rerun of the 2020 by-election, when Warnock gained the seat from the Republicans. This is an important victory because it gives Democrats their 51st seat in the Senate, a majority without Kamala Harris's tie-breaking vote. And also because defeated Republican Herschel Walker was one of the MAGA candidates propelled by Donald Trump. The only surprise is that Warnock did not win by a larger margin against an opponent who was so obviously unfit for office.

Now we have the full results of these elections, including the governorships and the state legislatures. For the latter, I include only the number of chambers controlled by each party, because this is what matters politically, not the number of seats. Note that there are only 99 chambers for 50 states, as Nebraska has an unicameral legislature, which is formally non-partisan, but actually held by Republicans. The coalition-led chamber is Alaska's House of Representatives, where independents and a few moderate Republicans have been in an alliance with Democrats since 2016, against the Sarah Palin wing of the local Republican Party. The full array of results shows that these midterms were actually quite an unexpected success for the Biden administration, despite losing their majority in the House of Representatives.

Democratic gains at state level, governorships and legislatures, are a message to the hardcore Republican base., who advocated passing anti-abortion and anti-woke legislation in their states. Remember that Republicans have a rather wide definition of 'anti-woke', their umbrella term covering anything from censorship of historic progressive literature to open homophobia. State-level results show that there is no massive popular support for these extremist agendas, even in Republican states. At federal level, losing control of the House of Representatives might not be as damaging for Joe Biden as it seems. It's not a massive victory for Republicans, and Democrats are only five seats short of a majority. Which means, more crucially, that they need only five Republican dissenters to pass their own legislation. This is unlikely to happen very often, but there is one key issue where it will matter and quite plausibly work: military aid to Ukraine. The Republican Party is ambiguous about this because they are split. A vocal faction want to end it, but they are the very ones who have been defeated at these elections. You can't rule out a sufficient number of Republican realists siding with Biden and voting for steady or even increased levels of aid. Which is what Ukraine needs, and Biden certainly expects. Volodymyr Zelenskyy's unannounced and carefully scripted trip to Washington is part of the plan, and Zelenskyy's triumph when addressing Congress is a clear sign it is working.

If you put together all the crop circles' designs, which are quite beautiful and quite amazing,

if you put them all together in the correct manner, you will create the Golden Mean,

the gateway to inter-dimensional reality. And that's as far as I've got.

(Jon Anderson, Tour Of the Universe, 2004)

RIP Terence Edward Hall

(19 March 1959 - 18 December 2022)

Jeremy's Den

31/12/2022

A Message To You, Rishi

We Must Be Dreaming