Jeremy's Den: January 2023

Ragnarök will happen like this. There will be three years of terrible winters and summers

of black sunlight. People will lose all hope and surrender to greed, incest and civil war.

Midgarsormen, the world’s serpent, will come lunging from the ocean, dragging the tides in

and flooding the world. The wolf, giant Fenrir, will break his invisible chains.

(The Seer, Vikings: Burial Of The Dead, 2013)

Recorded live at the Empire Pool, Wembley, 8 April 1972

The skies will open and Surt, the fire giant, will come flaming across the bridge to destroy the gods.

Odin will ride out of the gates of Valhalla to do battle for a last time against the wolf.

Thor will kill the serpent but die from its venom. Surt will spread fire across the Earth.

At last, Fenrir will swallow the sun.

(The Seer, Vikings: Burial Of The Dead, 2013)

Four-and-a-half years ago, I started this blog, which was a bit of a mess at first, but has improved since. Or so I hope. That followed about a year writing for a then-new Scottish blogging site, which has now vanished into the bins of cyberhell, as a paid columnist. No shit. I was offered £50 per article, which I never cashed in. I asked the lad who was running the site to donate it, to my recipients of choice. So half my fees went to the SNP and the other half to the SSPCA. Bear with me here, that was early 2017, Jamie did not have pronouns in his bio back then, and the SNP still had some credibility, in my eyes at least. And that's in itself a hint of how much things have changed in five years, and in what bizarre directions the whirlwinds of fate have taken us. And if you reuse 'whirlwinds of fate', you will owe me royalties. Or £50 to the SSPCA. My first series was about the Council elections of 2017, which I obviously got massively wrong, because the polls for these elections were a complete fuck up. Then came the surprise snap election of 2017, which was another massive fuck up. But not for me, for the SNP. I don't remember all the seats I surveyed individually, which was quite a risky game. But I distinctly remember predicting that Pete Wishart would hold his seat and Angus Robertson would lose his, when then-current wisdom said it would be the other way round. But that's enough nostalgia for now, let's go back to the more pressing issues of the day.

If you’re gonna go around flapping your arms about, saying “The country’s out of control!"

"Who governs?”, then people are gonna put two and two together and say “Well, not you, bonny lad”. Not anymore.

(Austin Donohue, Our Friends In The North: 1974, 1996)

Help On The Way © Jerry Garcia, Robert Hunter, 1975

Slipknot! © Jerry Garcia, Keith Godchaux, Bill Kreutzmann, Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, 1975

Franklin's Tower © Jerry Garcia, Bill Kreutzmann, Robert Hunter, 1975

Recorded live at Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy Stadium, Washington, DC, 14 June 1991

I believe that the only hope of regaining a strong moral character in this country is the voluntary acceptance of standards. Without those standards, it is easy to see how democracy is wide open to guerrilla movements which, in the past, have been held in check only by self-restraint.

(Claud Seabrook, Our Friends In The North: 1970, 1996)

As usual, click on the images for larger and better versions

Part of my long strange trip, so far, has been witnessing two unscheduled and unforeseen general elections, as well as four Prime Ministers in quick succession, with the plausible prospect of a fifth before the next election looming on the horizon. Rishi Sunak's problem is that he never had to really fight for anything in his life. He married wealth and inherited a constituency, and then became Prime Minister by default. As Keir Starmer pointedly pointed, he lost the one fight of his life to a woman who then lost to a lettuce. And he is now looking more and more like a liability for his own camp, just one more reverse ferret away from another apocalyptic government meltdown. Obviously, Rishi's popularity ratings have not improved this month. But it still remains pretty much a three-way marginal between those who love him, those who don't, and those who can't be arsed to give a fuck.

With all the news about the English Government's failures to achieve anything, even arousing their own MPs, you would think Keir Starmer's ratings would be in massively positive territory. But they're not. His positives are not that much higher than Sunak's, and his net rating has improved only because more people have migrated to the "can't be arsed" slot recently. Keir does not make anyone dream, never has and never will. It's also a sign that his brand of selective ambiguity does not work. People might agree philosophically that not everything is black and white, but they certainly expect their chosen politicians to paint the world that way. And Keir just can't do that, it's not in his DNA. Avoiding being confrontational surely makes a good chapter in a self-help book, but not quite so in politics.

So the most probable outcome now is that, whoever is the next First Minister of England in a year or so, he will start with a solid net negative and little prospect of improving it. I'm not going gender-neutral here as I can't see a 'she' in the starting blocks right now. And I say 'in year or so' because I can see the Conservatives gambling on a snap election as soon as the new boundaries are enforced, if only to end their own misery. Sunak's problem is that he has proved he reached his Peter Principle level before becoming Prime Minister, like Matt Smith before Doctor Who. Starmer's problem is that he is so risk-adverse he has made it a habit of cuddling opposite ends of the political spectrum, and sometimes forgets it is highly risky to shoehorn two conflicting views into one statement. His recent statement about the Scottish Gender Recognition Bill is kind of a textbook case. He tried so hard to hold some odd sort of a mythical 'middle ground' that he made everybody unhappy. That could be the never-ending curse of a Starmer Premiership.

Honourable compromise. These two words rarely go together, at least not in politics.

(Richard Bellamy, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Mistress And The Maids, 1971)

Recorded live at the Boston Music Hall, Boston, 30 November 1973

I put for a general inclination of all mankind, a perpetual and restless

desire of power after power, that ceaseth only in death.

(Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan, 1651)

As we get closer and closer to Decision Time, Rishi Sunak has painted himself into a corner with his Five Pledges, still proudly displayed on the Conservative Party website. For now. You have to wonder why Rishi chose to start with two pledges that will obviously be fulfilled, halve inflation and grow the economy. Because if they are not fulfilled, we really are in much deeper shit than we ever thought. But YouGov have surveyed their panel, and they don't even trust Rishi on these. It's like the worst episode of Taskmaster ever, with Greg Davies challenging Ed Gamble to pour a cup of tea without spilling half of it on the rug. Then I totally agree with the YouGov panel that Rishi will never ever reduce either the national debt or NHS waiting lists. It's not just that the Conservatives don't have a plan to do it, it's that they don't give a fucking shit about even trying. It's not in their DNA. Then the last item has some sort of comical value, when you set aside the human tragedies surrounding it for a moment. Rishi was cautious enough to not pledge he would actually drive the small boats back to Libya, just that he would have new laws passed to possibly make it easier to make it happen. And the public don't even trust him to get that through Parliament, despite the still massive Tory majority. Pathetic.

Now that we have established that the public have returned a verdict of impotence on Rishi Sunak, what next? Right now, 'None Of The Above' is still the people's Preferred Prime Minister in pretty much all polls. There is an odd similarity here to the two contenders' popularity ratings. Neither has really made his case with the public, yet they're all we have. Unless you're ready to gamble on the triumphant return of some earlier tenant of Number Ten. Spoiler: it wouldn't be a woman. Then even Boris would probably not have enough Magic Powder to restore the credibility of the Conservative brand. And he may well be sunk again by the rest of the dirty linen from the Partygate investigation. Which would be quite fitting for a man whose best career plan is to be Britain's Berlusconi.

Admittedly, the situation on the opposing side of the Chamber is hardly better. Starmer's supporters are obviously aware that public opinion still have doubts about him, as they try to rebrand him as a true left-winger, though most of their chosen examples owe more to the Labour collective than to Keir himself. It is also quite fun to see that The Guardian is now openly printing what I have been saying for months. That Labour must up their game if they want to win the next election. That the current Labour and Conservative pre-manifestos are for the most part the same. If that's the best Starmer's guts tell him to deliver, then we have little hope of being out of deep shit by the end of the next Parliamentary term. Even a perfect clone of Tony Blair would give people more hope. And would probably be more fun too.

Unless you're prepared to risk making a fool of yourself, you'll never get anything in life.

(Elizabeth Kirbridge, Upstairs, Downstairs: What God Hath Joined, 1972)

Recorded live at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, 31 December 1987

Against that positivism which stops before phenomena, saying "there are only facts",

I should say: no, it is precisely facts that do not exist, only interpretations.

(Friedrich Nietzsche, Notebooks, 1886-1887)

The trends of polls are more reassuring for Labour than they were three weeks ago. After the inevitable slump following the end of the Truss Interlude, they find themselves now roughly stable on or over the 45% mark. There is no sign, yet, that Rishi Sunak is saving the Conservative brand from a major drubbing. Wunderkind's supporters can brag all they want about having cut Labour's lead by a third or more, but does it really matter when the starting point was a peak 39% lead? First there was the delayed fallout of Partygate and the Truss Trainwreck, but Sunak has been in charge long enough now. He has to own his party's current disastrous ratings, but he is just as much in denial as his two predecessors. Which is, of course, good news for Labour, when a pledge to just restore legislation to what they were last year is a vote winner. If these trends continue until the next election, it will be a well-deserved downfall for the Conservatives and they can only blame themselves for it.

It is now safe to assume that the Conservatives have less than two years to recover, it's a fact of life. And of law, that says the current Parliament will automatically dissolve on 17 December 2024, if no snap election has been called earlier. But it might be just a year, who knows? Then there is still the option for Rishi Sunak to call it quits, because the situation is hopeless and he is fucked, no matter what he does. He might even want to take a hint from a recent YouGov poll, that says that the public consider investment banker to be an easier job than Prime Minister. Back to an old flame, then, Rishi? Would not be such a bad idea when Labour are smelling blood, and probably won't let themselves snatch defeat from the jaws of victory this time.

There’s a long campaign ahead. I’ve got nothing to offer you but hubble, bubble,

toils and trouble. And, at the end of the day, ultimate victory. So, pull your fingers out!

(Benny Barratt, Our Friends In The North: 1966, 1996)

Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall, New York City, 27 October 1980

If you lose it's miserable, and if you win it's miserable because you know you're about to lose again.

(Richard Osman)

As the trends show, we do have some continuity in the polls, and little change since the New Year. Now we know for sure that Reform UK will field candidates in every constituency outside Northern Ireland, unlike 2019, and that's when reality aligns with the polls, that were always based on the assumption that all parties would stand for all seats. And it's really bad news for the Conservatives, could even provide Labour with the tiny lead they need locally to toggle a fuckload of marginal seats. My current Poll'O'Polls again has Reform UK doing better than in 2019, and Labour leading by double digits. Here I have the seven most recent polls, fielded between the 10th and the 16th of January by YouGov, PeoplePolling, Omnisis, Techne UK, Opinium, Redfield & Wilton and Deltapoll. All seven pretty much converge on a significant Labour victory, somewhere between landslide and tsunami. Today's super-sample size is 10,709, with a theoretical margin of error of 0.95%.

The prospect of a Labour landslide has again triggered the Proportional Representation Brigade, who seem to have access to The Guardian's frontpage any time they want. Their problem is that they can only repeat the same arguments over and over again, so feel compelled to make up new stuff on the trot. So PR's last PR is that Labour should endorse it because it would help them bag a bigger victory though tactical voting under the current first-past-the-post (FPTP) system. What the fuck? Then the idea that Labour would 'forge an alliance' with unspecified forces after a landslide win is at best self-defeating, at worse fucking daft. Why would anyone shackle themselves with lesser parties when they already have a landslide majority? The key is in the reference to the Scottish Parliament in the same article. Couldn't say better than I already have that it's not about fairer representation of the people's will, but about granting political minorities a disproportionate influence over the political majority's decisions. Just like the Scottish Greenies have driven the SNP into the dead-end street of extremist intersectionalist identity politics. PR always does just that, grant exorbitant power to minor parties who were unable to earn a legitimacy in the ballot box, against the people's will. This is not better democracy, but the opposite of it.

The Labour Party has picked up its bags and moved twelve paces to the right, why?

So it can be in the middle ground! The middle of what?

(Nicky Hutchinson, Our Friends In The North: 1987, 1996)

There is no course open to us than to fight it out. There must be no retirement.

Every position must be held to the last man. With our backs to the wall,

and believing in the justice of our cause, each one of us must fight on to the end.

(Field Marshal Douglas Haig, Special Order Of The Day, 11 April 1918)

As of date of publication, 31 sitting MPs have announced they will not seek re-election at the next general election. One from Plaid Cymru, 12 from Labour and 18 Conservatives. Barely half of them will have reached state pension age at the likely time when the election is held, so that's not the main motivation. It's safe to say that some have chosen to jump before they're pushed, like Matt Hancock and Adam Afriyie. Alok Sharma and Alister Jack have been ermined already, but asked to linger on to avoid embarrassing by-elections the Conservatives would lose. Nadine Dorries has been ermined and asked to defer taking her seat too, but not for the same reason. Her Mid Bedfordshire seat would be a very convenient landing pad for Boris Johnson at the next general election, in case Uxbridge and South Ruislip becomes too hot to handle. Others, like ex-rising stars Dehenna Davison and William Wragg, have given up because they felt the heat, while Labour is feeling buoyant, albeit in a cautiously subdued way. And the current seat projection says they have every reason to be.

This seat projection again predicts a very solid Labour victory, in the same league as the Blairslide of 1997. And arguably even better when you factor in the situation in Scotland. But, as always, we'll burn that bridge when we come to it. Let's just say it's like Starmer's wildest dreams come true, with Labour more than doubling their seats, 286 seats ahead of the Conservatives, and a 203-seat working majority for the combined forces of Labour and the SDLP. A larger majority than Labour had seats after the 2019 election, the real sign of a major reversal of fortunes. So, what's not to love with the multiplying effect of First Past The Post? To go full circle with my earlier point on PR, I have simulated what the current voting intentions would deliver on PR, with or without a threshold for representation, and with alternate thresholds on 3% and 5%. As usual, this is based on separate national lists for Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales, and nine regional lists in England. Having a threshold or not does not make much of a difference on current numbers. But Labour would be weakened in all options, and would have to seek a coalition with The Liberal Democrats or the Greens, or both. You just have to wonder if this is what the people really want, outwith the metropolitan punditariat bubble.

There is one last point in the pro-PR narrative that deserves debunking. The argument that FPTP shifts the political discourse and the electorate to the right is also fucking bullshit, illustrated by three recent examples. The USA have FPTP, yet the Democratic Party moved to the left during the 2022 midterms campaign, and the Trump-funded far-right candidates mostly failed to get elected. France has a two-round majority system that is pretty much tweaked FPTP. At both their 2022 elections, voters switched to both the far right and the radical left in similar numbers, depriving the centrist Macronist coalition of their parliamentary majority. Denmark has full PR, yet their governing Social Democratic Party has adopted the most radical and regressive anti-immigration policy in their history. And of course we also have the 2019 European Parliament election in the UK, a massive win for the far-right at a PR election. It is obviously a self-serving fallacy to pretend that the electoral law dictates what the parties campaign on, and how the electorate vote. It simply does not.

If we’re going to be ruled by Tories, let’s be ruled by proper Tories, not Tories in drag.

(Nicky Hutchinson, Our Friends In The North: 1974, 1996)

Recorded live at the Fillmore East, New York City, 13 February 1970

This is yet another manifestation of the slackness in moral values that has been

spreading over this country like a malignant disease during this present reign.

(Angus Hudson, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Fruits Of Love, 1973)

YouGov conducted a poll about Brexit, on behalf of The Times, between the 12th and the 15th of December. But they withheld full disclosure of the detailed results until the 27th, presumably just for the fun of making Rishi Sunak's Holiday Recess even shittier than it already was. Though it is also quite a kick in the baws for Keir Starmer and his airy-fairy plan to Make Brexit Work. A hypothetical referendum on rejoining the European Union or staying out might see some 20% abstention, which would be conspicuously less than the 2016 referendum that sealed the fate of the UK as the laughing stock and sick man of Europe. And, based on people actually expressing an opinion, the result would be 58% choosing to rejoin against 42% ready to stay out in the cold rain and snow. Including a massive 72-28 in Scotland, despite Alister Jack's claim that there is no appetite for it here. But non-binding, of course, as British referenda always are. And you already know this is not my preferred option, as I still think we should try a referendum on EFTA membership first, and see where the result of that one leads us next.

This seems quite conclusive, though with strong nuances across the demographics and politics. Which are not surprising when you look back at the demographics and politics of the 2016 result. Then I have a hunch that there still are a lot of misunderstandings about what membership of the European Union actually means. One of the Remain campaign's key talking points was freedom of movement, and that one was both valid and invalid. EU regulations do provide for freedom of movement in principle, but the actual enforced rules are those of the Schengen Area, of which the UK was never part. Which means that British nationals were always subject to a border check at the external borders of the Schengen Area, and had to get a visa for a stay of more than 90 days, with exemptions for those able to claim permanent residency in Benidorm. Nevertheless, this latest poll is only one of a long series, conducted since 2020. And the trends of such polling show an increased willingness to rejoin the EU. Which is, of course, the British public's opinion, but the EU have never been asked and might be just a wee smitch less open to the idea.

This succession of polls, showing a willingness to rejoin the EU, has triggered some questions about the Euro. If the prospect of joining the Eurozone could be a deterrent from coming back into the EU, linked to the common wisdom that joining the Euro is mandatory for all EU member countries. In 2016, it was a fucking lie, like most of the stuff from the Leave campaign. Because countries who had joined before the Maastricht Treaty could request an opt-out of the Euro. The UK and Denmark were granted one, and Denmark still has it because it can't be rescinded. The situation is different now, as joining the Euro is an obligation for new member states, but is technically not really one because it's conditional. You can't join the Euro if you don't meet the Maastricht Convergence Criteria. And right now Serbia, of all countries aspiring to join the EU, is closer to meeting them than the UK. But, even with the Euro Threat dangled in front of their nose, the panels still choose to rejoin. By a smaller margin, like 4 to 6% down, but still rejoining. So the Euro might not be the bogeyman Brexiters think it is, and would be quite a distant prospect anyway if the UK were ever allowed to apply again.

You've got foreigners on the brain, and you always have had. I can remember

when you thought the whole German Army had landed and they was all working

on the South Coast as waiters and hairdressers.

(Rose Buck, Upstairs, Downstairs: Rose's Pigeon, 1973)

Recorded live at the Giants Stadium, East Rutherford, 17 June 1991

You said, "One day, they'd rise up and slaughter us in our beds".

Well, they haven't, have they? Still here, aren't we?

(Rose Buck, Upstairs, Downstairs: Rose's Pigeon, 1973)

Of course, there are many reasons why a majority of Brits endorse rejoining the EU. YouGov have been tracking the people's opinion of Brexit for quite a long time now, and we have strong majorities agreeing that it was the wrong choice, and on top of that badly handled. They sort of combined the two in their last poll, asking their panel if they think Brexit has been 'good or bad' for the UK. The verdict is again unequivocal and merciless, and it pretty much matches what YouGov have found in their trackers. I guess we can describe that as a consensus that it was a bad idea gone even worse, a view that factual and statistical data widely support.

There are clear political and generational divides here, pretty much where you expect them to be. The class and geographical divides are somewhat more surprising. You would expect the working class to be more aware of the evils of Brexit, as they are the ones hit hardest by the multifold crisis it triggered. The same applies to the Midlands and Wales, where all promises of leveling up failed to be delivered. Then YouGov tried to tweak the narrative a bit by changing the angle of attack. We're no longer talking 'bad vs good' here, but 'better or worse than you thought'. Whatever the ulterior motive was, it doesn't really change the dominant result. Especially when you have 40% of people agreeing that it went worse than they feared.

It's interesting to see that more than a quarter of Brits now claim they never had any illusion and always knew Brexit was a fuckup. Which might be partly 20/20 hindsight, but more probably a reminder that there was far less delusion on the Remain side than on the Leave side. Obviously there is a lot of buyer's remorse here, and also lots slapping themselves for having believed in the Brexiters' narrative about the Remainers' 'Project Fear'. Acknowledging now that they were right then won't make a fucking difference, especially with Keir Starmer still maintaining that Labour can Make Brexit Work. Which is in the same fantasy league as pledging to unsink the Titanic because, ye ken, the fucking iceberg didn't punch that big a hole after all.

I've been reading the newspapers closely during the last few weeks, and there's things

in the air I find very disquieting. Of a political nature, between this country and Germany.

(Angus Hudson, Upstairs, Downstairs: Rose's Pigeon, 1973)

Always remember to finish off you opponent, if you can. No man ever ran away

with his entrails hanging down to his knees, or his head cut off. That’s just a fact of life.

(Rollo Lothbrok, Vikings: Boneless, 2014)

Then came the time for YouGov to deliver the coup de grâce, asking their panel if Brexit was a success or a failure. There's a fun side here, when you look at the whole poll globally. Because it is basically YouGov asking the same question five times, with some tweaks and differences of perspective, and getting the same answer five times. Yes, it is a fucking mess. And the British public are consistent in that assessment, even when the questions attempt to lead them in another direction.

The next logical question is in which domains Brexit harmed the UK the most, and the answer is 'all'. The Brexit maniacs should have a look at this and explore the reasons why the two worst ratings go to the impact on the UK's economy and the ability to export goods. And they would find that shutting down easy access to the largest market in the neighbourhood and burdening business with massive amounts of red tape has taken its toll. But they find it easier for their peace of mind to blame Covid and Ukraine. Never mind that countries within shouting distance have faced the exact same fallout from both, and are doing better than the UK now. Even the alleged 'deregulation' is hugely treated as a negative, probably because neither people nor businesses have yet seen any of it, quite the opposite when you consider the amount of useless and obnoxious bureaucracy that has been unleashed on them.

Even the ability to control immigration gets a massively negative rating, in case anyone was still under the delusion that Brexit was some sort of Harry Potter Wand that could isolate the UK from the rest of the world. On average, Brexit gets a merciless -44 rating, even worse when you go into the details than when you ask people about their general impression. Which should alert Labour that the very concept of making Brexit work will never get significant popular support. It's broken, so bin it, just don't try to mend it. Now we know that even the Mayor of London Sadiq Khan considers Brexit to be a failure, and is one bat's whisper away from openly supporting UK taking part again in the Custom Union and Single Market. I guess his next meeting with Keir Starmer will be fun to watch.

Once you start twisting the people’s minds with propaganda,

even the English can behave like savage beasts.

(Hazel Bellamy, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Beastly Hun, 1974)

Recorded live at Théatre de l'Olympia, Paris, 3 May 1972

I can see that you have all drunk from the poisoned chalice! And the joke is on you!

(Floki, Vikings: Scarred, 2015)

Savanta Comres also tried their hand at the Brexit game, asking their panel if it has improved or worsened the UK's situation on a number of issues, quite similar to YouGov's list. And the prevailing opinion is again that nothing has improved and everything has worsened, though not always in the same proportions as the YouGov poll and not without contradictions. It's difficult to explain why the impact on the UK's interests in general, which is sort of the umbrella item encompassing all others, gets relatively high positives and low negatives, when all detailed items get far worse ratings. Or you have to admit that the UK's interests include some unspecified component that transcends the economy, the quality of foreign relations and the quality of life of the common people. Something like pride in British exceptionalism, possibly.

When you scroll down the items, the verdict is again merciless. The unity of the UK has suffered, though Tory policies in general may have been a factor in that too. The UK's influence on the world stage has declined, which is probably why Rishi Sunak so desperately wants to appear as the Best In Show in his support to Ukraine. Bureaucracy is thriving while shortages are looming and immigration is out of control. All of this is not necessarily factually right, even if we know that most is, but it's how the people feel. It doesn't look good for the Tory Brexiters. And should also sound another alarm for Labour. Nobody believes you can make that fucking thing work, the best you can do is damage control. And the best variant of damage control is to admit it was wrong from the start, and repeal it. Or just try, with the minimal measures that will have the Brexit maniacs howling at the moon anyway. Like what Sunak called a 'Swiss deal', a watered down version of the single market and customs union. Or just go one step further and apply for EFTA membership. There's really nothing to lose in that. There will be howling, huffing and puffing anyway, so choose the best option and fix what can still be fixed.

Democracy, they’ve made a mockery of it. They’ve only two uses for democracy.

One for collecting money, two for keeping people quiet. It’s called repressive tolerance.

(Nicky Hutchinson, Our Friends In The North: 1970, 1996)

Recorded live at John Fitzgerald Kennedy Stadium, Philadelphia, 7 July 1989

They see us as a threat to the bastions of privilege, to their absolute power. Over government,

over society. Something they have come to regard as theirs, absolutely, by some divine right.

(Julius Karekin, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Fruits Of Love, 1973)

Savanta Comres have conducted a weekly survey of the public's attitude to strikes since mid-December. There have been three deliveries so far, and what the last one reveals is quite interesting. As always, the true indicator is the net level of support for the strikes, and how it has evolved over time. What we have shows that Mick Lynch is right in his assessment that support for the strikes has been dented, but not in a cataclysmic way such as massive support switching to massive opposition. For the most part, the strikers still have a net support from the public, even in sectors where the strikes have impacted peoples' live more negatively. The highest level of support is still for the nurses, which is probably why Rishi Sunak signaled he was open to talks over a pay deal for the current year, something his Health Secretary Steve Barclay had always refused to consider. It was, however, quite predictable that it would lead nowhere, as even people who haven't done math until 18 can figure out that a lump sum is a poor substitute for an actual pay rise. And Steve Barclay's rabbit-out-of-hat idea of funding an acceptable pay rise by further cuts in other areas of the NHS never stood a chance either.

This gave more weight to Mick Lynch's main point, that the English government is on the losing end of the argument. But the British public are not exempt from contradictions, and these quickly surfaced when they were surveyed by YouGov about the English Government's latest miracle cure, the 'minimum service'. The public quite conclusively endorse the principle, which was defined by the question setters as a 'requirement to continue to provide a minimum level of service during strike action in specific sectors'. Which might not be the government's genuine intent, as leaks offered proof that the First Minister of England actually considered a legal ban on unionisation in those 'specific sectors'. But even the most demented weirdos in the Conservative Party understood that making strikes a criminal offence would not go down well with public opinion, and defeat their own objective of making strikes just a wee smitch more difficult and potentially less popular. And now we have one poll that seems to prove the 'softer' option kind of works.

There is a lot of ambiguity about what a 'minimum service' could actually look like. Even the United Nations' International Labour Office carefully tiptoes around the notion, relying instead on the more neutral-sounding concept of 'essential services'. The truth is that there no such thing as 'best international practice' here. Only half of our former BFFs in the European Union have legislation about some variant of a 'minimum service', and with major differences on which sectors are included in its perimeter. The others prefer to rely on the infinite wisdom of both unions and employers, in a supposed 'culture of consensus', to avoid legislating on a potentially divisive issue. Even those who do often have to water down their initial proposals. The best example, and the one probably most relevant to the situation in the UK, is the French law of 2007 about 'continuity of public service in regular terrestrial transports of passengers'. Which was mentioned as an example to follow by Rishi Sunak and Grant Shapps in Commons. The only problem is that it does not work, as the French train strikes around Christmas have proved, that were as disruptive as those in the UK. This is because of a provision in French law, that makes it illegal to run a train if there isn't at least one member of staff aboard, other than the driver. Which has certainly not escaped Rishi Sunak's attention, and explains why he is so keen on repealing a similar provision in English law. And why Mick Lynch is totally right in fighting it.

People are very poor these days. Except for the poor, they've never been so well off in their lives.

But for the rest of us, it is very difficult to get people to put their hands in their pockets.

(Lady Prudence Fairfax, Upstairs, Downstairs: The Hero's Farewell, 1974)

Recorded live at the Empire Pool, Wembley, 8 April 1972

Even in wartime, one rule for the rich, one for the poor. Good Old England!

(Gregory Wilmot, Upstairs, Downstairs: Home Fires, 1974)

But, once you've said you have some Master Plan to tame the unions, the obvious question is how you will manage to do it. Because, as always, the Devil wears Prada in the fucking details. One option, which is indeed part of Sunak's miracle cure, is sacking workers who would not work to provide a minimum level of service on strike days. This is where Rishi managed to find an even worse precedent than Margaret Thatcher, as this is straight from the Ronald Reagan playbook. This is how Reagan dealt with a strike of air-traffic controllers in August 1981, sacking 11,345 strikers who were also employees of the American federal government. Which highlights the first hurdle to clear before such a clause can be implemented in the UK. The government can sack only people he employs, civil servants. And I don't think there are many driving trains or delivering the mail. But YouGov nevertheless asked their panel how they would feel about that, and the oiks are definitely not happy bunnies with that one.

Even Conservative voters and Brexiters have a hard time with that one, and don't conclusively support it. There is also a clear and strong generational divide, and a hint of a national divide on top. Then lack of public support doesn't address the issues of practicability and feasibility. Unlike the American air-controllers, British train drivers and posties are not government employees, but employees of private companies which are government contractors. Even the NHS employs only a tiny number of civil servants, who could be sacked under such a provision. It's thusly safe to assume Rishi would have a hard time imposing a legal obligation to sack their staff on contractors, considering the fallout. Which is what happened in the USA in 1981. Airports and airlines had to call for help from private contractors and the Air Force to fill the huge gaps in their workforce. Because it takes an awful fuckload of time and money to properly train high-skilled staff like air-traffic controllers, operating room nurses or train drivers. Less for posties, admittedly. Then the alternative is what French public authorities do. Say nothing about sacking the staff, but fine the rail operators for failing to fulfill their public service obligations. Which would certainly be hugely popular with the contractors, wouldn't it? So you need to have a fallback option. You guessed it, prosecuting the trade unions who would stand in the way of a minimum level of service during strikes. Of course, YouGov asked about that one too, and it proved colossally more popular. Or summat.

As you might expect, Conservative voters are absolutely thrilled with that option. Oddly, LibDem voters would also quite conclusively support it. Again there is a strong generational divide, and a mild national divide here. Interestingly, there is very little of a class divide on either option. You only have slightly more undecideds in the working class subsample of the panel. And again, even this seemingly simpler option raises concerns about feasibility. Before starting to prosecute, you have to define exactly what kind of offence you are prosecuting, and what kind of penalties are incurred. Obviously, the English Government has not thought that far ahead. You can't really send Mick Lynch to Reading Gaol, can you? Even if Jacob Rees-Mogg would certainly love to. Then, fining the trade unions might sound like a popular idea when tested out of context, but it would probably not be as popular in real life. For example, in a situation like the one we have now, where another YouGov poll found that twice as many people hold the English Government responsible for the NHS strikes as the unions. So scapegoating the unions for situations of the government's own doing might not be such a good idea after all. Time to think, Rishi. Unless it's just all posturing for the benefit of loony Tory backbenchers, and nobody in the English Government gives a fucking shit that this regressive legislation would be unenforceable in the real world.

Power is always dangerous. It attracts the worst. And corrupts the best.

Power is only ever given to those who are prepared to lower themselves to pick it up.

(Ragnar Lothbrok, Vikings: Mercenary, 2015)

Recorded live at the Winterland, San Francisco, 18 October 1974

It may serve to remind us that we live in a transitory world and that,

in human affairs, nothing is certain.

(Angus Hudson, Upstairs, Downstairs: A House Divided, 1973)

Nicola Sturgeon's New Year's gift was yet another Full Scottish poll, this time conducted by Survation on behalf of the Conservative outlet Scotland In Union. As usual, I will not even mention what they found about IndyRef2 voting intentions, as they are sill using the manipulative phrasing they made up when they started commissioning polls. Other than this, their other findings are worth looking at, as they do not appear biased. Their voting intentions for the next Westminster election are quite similar to what we had in several earlier Full Scottish polls. Factoring in the regional crosstabs, this poll would deliver 46 SNP seats, 11 Labour seats and one each for the Conservatives and Liberal Democrats. Which is not a bad result, all things considered, even if it again illustrates the SNP's fragility in case of a Labour surge. But Survation conducted their poll over the last ten days of 2022, and what we see in the Scottish subsamples of GB-wide polls of 2023 sings a wholly different hymn.

Of course, subsamples of GB-wide polls are more volatile and less reliable than Full Scottish polls. But their aggregate over a whole month has a super-sample size more than equivalent to a Full Scottish. Besides, there is also some in-built auto-correct in greater numbers, which explains why aggregates of subsamples have been quite similar to Full Scottish over the last months of 2022. Individual polls might raise eyebrows, but the general trend looks credible. I have also already said that I do not rule out some sort of 2017ish trainwreck for the SNP at the next election. Some ingredients are already here. Lack of a credible path to Independence, fiasco of the 'plebiscite election' concept, weakness of the please-another-mandate-again narrative... Then there is the GRR Bill on top of that now. In another recent poll, Panelbase asked their Scottish panel if the passing of the GRR Bill made them more or less likely to vote SNP at the next election. And the results are certainly not what Karen Adam wants to hear.

To be honest, these results probably mean less than you would think at first glance. First they test past votes and not current voting intentions, which would be a better indicator. They also omit Green voters, but just because there are so fucking few of them outwith the Holyrood list vote. There's an upside for the SNP here, as people who self-identify as less likely to vote for them would mostly never have voted for them anyway. But there is also a less happy-ever-after side to it, with 19% of past SNP voters now less likely to vote for them again. If it actually materialises, that would put the SNP vote at 37% at the next Westminster election, and 40% at the next Holyrood election. Which validates and affirms the heretical idea that the next general election could be more 2017 than 2015, and also that a strong pro-Independence majority in the Scottish Parliament may have been gambled away in haste to deliver on a highly unpopular policy, that wasn't even fully and precisely defined in the 2016 and 2021 manifestos.

My quarrel is with the Hanoverian Succession. As a Scot, I would naturally prefer to see

a Stuart of the throne. Still, I suppose we'll just have to make do with what we've got.

(Angus Hudson, Upstairs, Downstairs: Guest Of Honour, 1972)

Recorded live at Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, 8 May 1977

If the mistress of the house knows what's what, everybody in the kitchen is kept on their toes.

(Kate Bridges, Upstairs, Downstairs: Wanted, A Good Home, 1975)

In the last delivery of their Scottish Trackers for The Scotsman, Savanta Comres surveyed the popularity ratings of some Scottish and English politicians, as seen by the Scottish public. This is a regular feature of their surveys, but this time they came up with a much expanded selection of SNP politicians, for whatever reason. Which might be to test the popularity of Nicola Sturgeon's plausible successors. Or not. To cut a long story short, I will not bore you with the whole traffic-lights charts, and again focus on the resulting net ratings, per the usual classic formula. Nicola Sturgeon and the Scottish Government are doing well, but not in a spectacularly stellar way. Remember that Boris Johnson, in his heyday in the first half of 2020, regularly scored +20 or more, and peaked at +45 GB-wide. Besides, the rest of the SNP grandees are definitely not popular. The fun part is that Joanna Cherry, despite all the smears from her own comrades, is less unpopular than most of them. With better ratings than the SNP's successive Westminster leaders. And pretty much in the same league as the Heir Apparent.

Then they have a selection of other politicians outwith the SNP, including a couple of prominent English ones. There is definitely an alarm for the SNP in there, as the Scottish people are neutral about the two Labour leaders, the local one and the remote one. I guess that painting Labour as the Tartan Tories does not carry much weight with the Scottish public, no matter how true it has been in certain circumstances. Then the Conservatives' ratings are quite puzzling. Do Sunak and Ross really deserve better ratings than Johnson and the English Government? They're all made of the same cloth, after all, and have disgraced themselves in pretty much the same way over the last few years. There's some fun in that batch too, with both Greenies getting a double-digit negative. I guess the public are not all fooled by them, and have got the point that they are just some virtue-signalling metropolitan entitled self-proclaimed moral elite, with little connection with real people's lives. I just hope the ever awful Maggie Chapman is included in the next survey, just to see how people feel about her rants about DNA tests and stuff.

Obviously, I'm quite disappointed to see that Alex Salmond is again getting jut as bad ratings as the English Government. Which is definitely awfully unfair. I guess it's what happens when your former bandmates find pleasure in every opportunity to demean you, and won't let go of the bone even though they have gnawed it dry years ago. Then the people should also know better than believe it. Personally, I still have the same respect for Big Eck I had ten years ago when I first realised how fascinating Scottish politics are, and what unique part he was playing in them. Few people would display the same kind of fortitude he does, after being backstabbed by those who owe him their careers, and whatever seat at the grownups' table they're in now, and don't really deserve.

Who needs a reason for betrayal? One must always think the worst, even of your own kin.

That way, you avoid too much disappointment in life.

(Floki, Vikings: Brother’s War, 2014)

Recorded live at Old Bridge Township Raceway Park, Englishtown, 3 September 1977

It is the way of prophecy.

Only to be understood when it has happened, and it is too late to change it.

(The Seer, Vikings: Mercenary, 2015)

The Scottish Parliament part of the Survation poll is also quite a setback for the SNP. They're almost 4% down from the 2021 result on the constituency vote, and 7% down on the list vote thanks to the final demise of Both Votes SNP and a massive transfer towards the Greens. On top of that, the combined votes for the pro-Independence parties remain well below 50%. On these numbers, my model says that the SNP would gain two constituencies from the Conservatives (Aberdeenshire West, Galloway and West Dumfries), but lose four to Labour (Glasgow Kelvin, Rutherglen, Carrick, Cumnock and Doon Valley, East Lothian). There is again a healthy dose of karmatic irony here, as the SNP would lose Glasgow Kelvin only thanks to Patrick Harvie's perennial vanity candidacy. Pish-poor performance on the list vote means that the SNP would also lose their two list seats.

This poll only confirms a continuous trend throughout 2022. The rebirth of Labour in Scotland, and the second demise of the Scottish Conservatives. On top of that, and contrary to the trends of Westminster polling, the Liberal Democrats are regaining lost ground, and would again be granted Big Boy status in the next Scottish Parliament, that they lost in 2021. A lot of what we see here obviously has a lot to do with the Scottish people's assessment of political parties, as surveyed slightly earlier by Savanta Comres. There are many reasons in there for the SNP to be concerned, as their ratings are quite systematically below their voting intentions. I fully expect their positives to fall even further down, after the very controversial deal with the English Government about freeports, which is denounced even by the Scottish Greens despite their teacher's pet status.

There are many odd results in that survey, including one in five Scots thinking that the SNP are the best Protectors Of The Union. Or that may just be some having a laff and taking the piss. It is more worrying, in terms of managerial credibility, to see the SNP scoring rather poor results on healthcare, education, the economy and standards of living. These issues will undoubtedly be at the core of the next Scottish Parliament campaign, and some could seriously harm the incumbent Scottish Government. Of course, we know that Labour and the Conservatives rarely act in complete good faith, and love to exaggerate symptoms and twist statistics to fit their talking points. But the Scottish media offer them a potent echo chamber, and all the SNP's huffing and puffing about media partiality won't make a fucking difference. Labour will have an even more powerful argument in 2026, if they win the next Westminster election. That it is better for the Scottish Government to work hand in hand with the English Government, rather than in frontal opposition. Just don't think for even one second that it wouldn't work.

You’re wasting your time trying to change things. Things are this way because

that’s the way things are. Why don’t you just float down the stream like everybody else?

(Geordie Peacock, Our Friends In The North: 1970, 1996)

Recorded live at Madison Square Garden, New York City, 14 October 1994

Instead of sitting here feeling sorry for the world, go out and change it, man.

(Austin Donohue, Our Friends In The North: 1974, 1996)

In the latest instalment of their Scottish Tracker for The Scotsman, Savanta Comres devoted a few question to DevoMax. That so far unidentified political object that might be one of a few things. A basic reboot of The Vow, that 2014 construct by Gordon Brown that was never intended to be a vow at all. Or maybe The Vow Plus upgrade that Gordzilla fathered a few months later, as his and Jim Murphy's plan for Scottish Home Rule. And we know that one worked wonders for Labour in Scotland at the 2015 general election, didn't it? Or it might be a subset of Keir Starmer's 'radical federalism', which might just be a little less radical and a little less federal when deployed North of Vallum Aelium. For all we know, it might just be some bauble you dangle under the natives' noses for the duration of a campaign, and then drop to the bottom of the nearest loch. Which does not mean it does not have a part to play in the next electoral panto, if only to keep the oiks' eyes away from more serious proposals. So, even if the public don't really know what they're being asked about, because the pollster can't really define it, they still have an opinion of it. And one that does not really unmuddy the waters.

So, we have roughly one third of Scots supporting The Thing, one third opposing it, and one third on the fence, probably they don't want to say they don't have the fuckiest scoobie what this is all about. There are so many alarms for the Yes Camp in there that I can't even start counting them. You have the younger generations, supposedly the strongest Yes votes, supporting DevoMax more than the average Scot. SNP voters and prospective Yes voters quite close to the national average. Labour and LibDem voters quite strongly endorsing The Thing. Then the poll's second question hammers it home even more conclusively. Again there is a three-way split between those who think The Thing would be a good compromise between opposing options, those who think it would be bad, and those who haven't quite figured it out yet. With again disturbing levels of support from SNP and Yes voters, strong backing from Labour and LibDem voters, and surprisingly high levels of acquiescence from the younger generations. Which is probably enough to build a winning coalition, if The Thing ever came to a popular vote.

That second question, despite its complete lack of subtlety, or rather because of it, is quite a hint about the rationale behind the questioning. Only fools and horses can miss the carefully laid trap, though the horses probably wouldn't. I have no doubt that Keir Starmer, as a dedicated lover of Third Way politics, will totally endorse that. Just imagine the next Labour government agreeing to a constitutional referendum in Scotland. But not between Independence and the Union, but between Independence, the status quo within the Union, and The Thing. Followed by a campaign during which Labour play bothsidesism, rebranding themselves as the reasonable, modern and progressive ones against two extremist minorities stuck in outdated views. If you believe the SNP could fight this and win, you're either terminally delusional, or totally ignorant of how the House of Commons works, or any random combination of both. With a triple-digit majority, and even if it was somehow reduced to double digits, Labour could pass any sort of Referendum Bill they want. And all the huffing and puffing in the world wouldn't make a fucking difference. The SNP would have to suck it up.

I have no idea. Don't ask me to look into the future. Things are far from settled.

(Richard Bellamy, Upstairs, Downstairs: On With The Dance, 1975)

Recorded live at the Hartford Civic Center, Hartford, 28 May 1977

Men are men, whether they wear a clean shirt once a day or once a week.

(Elizabeth Kirbridge, Upstairs, Downstairs: Married Love, 1972)

In the immediate aftermath of the Scottish Parliament passing the GRR Bill, People Polling asked their GB-wide panel if they would support or oppose its provisions being extended to the whole of the UK. The results were as unambiguous as when Scots were asked if they support or oppose the bill. There is definitely no appetite for it being imposed on England and Wales, though there are quite meaningful political and generational divides. In a way this could fuel the narrative that only old conservatives oppose 'diversity and inclusion', while the progressive youth embrace it, which is obviously over-simplification. The gender ideologues should pay more attention to what happens when businesses or organisation surreptitiously let self-identification in through the back door, while it is still unlawful. Things that 'can never happen' then happen on a daily basis, because businesses and organisations allow open violations of the Equality Act 2010 to happen on their watch. Supporters of self-identification can deny the potential for abuse of a law allowing it all they want, it does exist and is a clear and present threat.

Interestingly, there is far less of a social divide here, with all social grades opposing it almost as conclusively. Politicians should therefore be more cautious when they try and pit an enlightened middle-class against a supposedly backwards-thinking working class. The working class may appear more socially conservative, but not because they are reactionary bigots. This has more to do, in my opinion, with a keener sense of the real issues and priorities, and what the difference is between cosmetic progressivism and a genuine class consciousness that transcends the current fad for intersectional identity politics. There is surely something of this also in the geographical divide we see in this survey, with more support from hipster-heavy London than from the rest of England. Quite remarkably too, Scots are definitely unwilling to impose that bill, which they strongly oppose despite some SNP MPs' claims to the contrary, to the rest of the UK.

The Scottish Yellow-Green Axis are now up in arms against the decision of the English Government to use Section 35 of the Scotland Act to deny the GRR Bill Royal Assent. Even if Rishi Sunak tried and dodged the question when asked in Edinburgh, howling at the moon over it is definitely pissing down the wrong tree. Section 35 was devised by Labour for the exact purpose Alister Jack was earlier contemplating using it, safeguarding the exact perimeter of devolution. Then we already know that the SNP and the Scottish Greens don't care much for the very concept of safeguarding. But they should always see the bright side of life. Using Section 35 will save a fuckload of time and taxpayers' dosh, compared to the alternative route of taking it to the Supreme Court under Section 33. And for the exact same result, the GRR Bill struck down. Unless, of course, the Scottish Government try some futile virtue-signalling resistance, and take the English Government to the courts. Which would only delay the inevitable. Using Section 35 is not a denial of the democratic will of the Scottish Parliament, or an unprecedented attack on devolution. It's validating and affirming what devolution legally is. Just suck it up, mates, and reframe your trauma.

I think it's nice for a man to have a hobby. Especially as proper a one as handwriting.

(Kate Bridges, Upstairs, Downstairs: Whom God Hath Joined, 1972)

Recorded live at the Warfield Theatre, San Francisco, 10 October 1980

Why do we continue looking inwards? Why do we fight each other about this piece

or that piece of land? Why are we not looking outwards? We must stop this.

If we raided together, we would not need to fight amongst ourselves.

(Ragnar Lothbrok, Vikings: Brother’s War, 2014)

When Panelbase conducted their last Full Scottish for the Sunday Times, they piggybacked some questions on it on behalf of the Alba Party, and about the Alba Party. The first item was whether or not people would consider voting for the Alba Party on the regional lists, if that helped elect more pro-Independence MSPs. The results are worth their weight in coal, probably with a pinch of salt on top. If this ever materialised, which it probably won't, that would put the Alba Party on about 18% of the list votes. Depending on the exact configuration in each region, we're looking at 15 to 20 seats here, and the near certainty of a pro-independence super-majority. Which, as you surely remember, is 87 seats. There would be the additional bonus that the Alba Party would do better than the Greens, keeping them on their 2021 result or lower, which is good thing in my book. The stronger Alba vote would also not hurt the SNP, as current polling says they would not get any list seats anyway. Then the SNP would have to talk to Alba, and offer them some sort of deal. Probably not a variant of power-sharing, but surely a say on government policies and legislation.

There's a clear subtext to the question, that was carefully worded by the Alba Party themselves. That they would stand only on the regional lists, and not in the constituencies, true to their pledge to not split the vote and letting Unionist MSPs in. The polar opposite of the Greens, who would risk it with vanity candidacies only meant to cuddle their inflated egos. The odd part here is Conservative or LibDem voters saying they would vote for Alba. I have a hunch this is just them taking the piss, as in, "Oh, Nippy fucking hates that Salmond bloke, so let's pretend we would vote for him, just to piss her off". Then Panelbase asked their panel which party they think treats Independence as their highest priority. There's a hilarious side story here, as more people pick Labour or the Conservatives than the Greens. Clearly, the Scottish public have no delusions about what the Greenies really stand for, and that's not Independence. The Alba Party's rating here, though not impressive, is still quite satisfying if you consider the SNP's long history of being the party of Independence. This can only improve in the future, given the SNP's definitely lacklustre performance on the issue since the last Scottish Parliament election.

It would be interesting to have the same questions asked again a few months from now, like after the SNP's Special Conference next March. We would thusly know the exact impact of the SNP painting themselves into a corner over the 'de facto referendum plebiscite election', and pretty much admitting that they don't have any solid plan for Independence any more, other than begging for yet another mandate. Which probably does not matter anyway, as Rishi Sunak has ruled out any scenario that would see a second Independence Referendum happen. This is the reality the SNP don't want to face. It was there when Boris Johnson was First Minister of England, and hasn't changed with Rishi Sunak's accession. No matter how many Yes voters you find in polls, the only vote that matters is the one cast by Their Man At Number Ten.

I can see no sense on days like this. We’re back in the Dark Ages.

Anything’s possible… except the things we really want

(Nicky Hutchinson, Our Friends In The North: 1974, 1996)

Recorded live at Nassau Coliseum, Uniondale, 29 March 1990

with special guest Branford Marsalis on saxophone

A fully equipped duke costs as much to keep up as two Dreadnoughts.

They are just as great a terror and they last longer.

(David Lloyd George, 1909)

There's something almost tediously repetitive in the electoral prospects in Wales. Batch after batch of polls confirm that the Welsh Conservatives face being relegated to the fringes of the Welsh political landscape, with complete annihilation being a plausible outcome. Current polling says they would hold only Monmouth by a minute margin, and Montgomeryshire in a more convincing way because of an almost even split of the opposition vote between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. Both seats would definitely switch too if there was a reciprocal show of goodwill, with Labour sitting it out in Montgomeryshire and the Liberal Democrats in Monmouth. Which would take us back to an exact repeat of 1997.

Interestingly, Mark Drakeford is taking no shortcuts and no prisoners. He expects a snap general election much earlier than the legally scheduled date and Welsh Labour is getting ready for it. Most striking is his will to go on with his vision of bold policies for Wales, and promoting similar choices in a general election campaign. The contrast with English Labour's cautious test-the-water-first approach couldn't be stronger. Probably because Mark Drakeford does not have focus groups and follows his guts, with no interference from a Welsh version of Pete Mandelson or Wes Streeting. But his guts may also be proven wrong on occasion, like when he offers full support to the Scottish GRR Bill, and to the Scottish Government in their fight over the Section 35 Order. This is definitely not a vote winner in Wales, probably even less that in Scotland. There is every reason to believe there are the same patterns at work in Wales as everywhere else. Enthusiastic approval from the metropolitan middle-class youth, far less from the working class youth in deprived communities, and massive rejection from the older generations, even those who have supported Labour since they were kids. I guess Mark will know pretty soon.

That is so Welsh. I show you something fantastic, you find fault.

(Jack Harkness, Torchwood: Everything Changes, 2006)

Rehearsal at Marin Veterans Memorial Auditorium, December 1985, from So Far

Together we can build a bonfire for decay, dereliction and despair. I believe we will

shortly dispatch this government of Tory failures and has-beens from Westminster.

(Austin Donohue, Our Friends In The North: 1964, 1996)

To celebrate the New Year, or maybe not, Redfield & Wilton have updated their now trademark series of Red Wall polling and Blue Wall polling. I will not forensicate all the details of their findings, but just concentrate on one line of questioning that may well identify the main motivations behind the people's votes. Just one detail first. They polled voting intentions in their select list of Red Wall seats and found Labour on 51%, the Conservatives on 29% and Reform UK on 9%. This is quite similar to what generic polls find across the North and Midlands, so their other findings can safely be considered quite representative. The key question I selected here is the level of trust the Red Wall public would grant either of the two major parties on a number of issues that will be at the heart of any future election campaign. The results are quite a depressing sight for the Conservative intake of 2019.

The most striking part is that Redfield & Wilton's Red Wall panel has moved over time, and systematically towards Labour and against the Conservatives. When the series first started, they were ready to cut the Conservatives some minimal slack, mostly on issues that were traditionally seen as favouring right-wing policies. Now Labour wins on all, including crime, national security and foreign policy. Labour's lead is quite convincing on the economy, as the public obviously remember how Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng totally crashed it, with policies that were seen as total madness even by the strongest supporters of neo-liberal dogma.

On average of the 14 topics selected by Redfield & Wilton, 44% of their panel significantly or fairly trust Labour, and 30% don't trust them at all. In an almost perfect mirror image, only 30% trust the Conservatives and 46% don't. In both cases, a quarter on average choose the non-committal middle-ground option of 'slight' trust, whatever than means in practical terms. It looks only natural that the Conservatives get poor ratings in these Red Wall constituencies, though they probably did not expect that level of rejection. But they are under heavy fire, even from within their own ranks, for failing to deliver on Boris Johnson's 'levelling up' pledges, and diverting funds to areas that need them least. And all the Gove word salad in the world won't make a fucking difference.

What might have been is an abstraction, remaining a perpetual possibility only in the world of

speculation. What might have been and what has been point to one end, which is always present.

(King Egbert of Wessex, Vikings: Breaking Point, 2015)

Recorded live at Radio City Music Hall, New York City, 31 October 1980

Footsteps echo in the memory down the passage we did not take, towards the door we never opened.

(King Egbert of Wessex, Vikings: Breaking Point, 2015)

Redfield & Wilton also started their latest Blue Wall polling with voting intentions. They found Labour on 40%, the Conservatives on 30% and the Liberal Democrats on 21%. Current polling of the South suggests that they got Labour about right, but their selection of seats for this survey over-estimates the LibDems and under-estimates the Conservatives by a few points. This is probably not a sign of some deliberate bias, but just the consequence of selecting seats that appear competitive. And in that part of England, that would naturally tend to include more Con-Lib battlegrounds and tweak the parties' vote share a wee smitch accordingly. But this slight pro-LibDem bias probably doesn't matter much anyway, as only Labour and the Conservatives are pitted against each other to determine whom the Blue Wall electorate trust or distrust.

The results are not as one-sided as those from the Red Wall panel, but still not that good for the Conservatives in their historic heartlands. They clearly help understanding why a strong Labour vote Doon Sooth is here to stay, even if the Tories gain back a few votes each month. They also make it highly unlikely that the Conservatives will gain back their position of absolute dominance, that they enjoyed in 2017 and 2019, in time for the next election. Despite, or possibly because of, Rishi's magic, Labour and the Conservatives are neck and neck on the economy, and Labour even prevail on immigration. Rishi doesn't even convince the Riviera voters that he can actually Get The Small Boats Gone. Much ado about nothing...

Despite their more accommodating view of the Conservatives, Redfield & Wilton's Blue Wall panel nevertheless trust Labour more. On the average of the 14 items, 36% trust the Tories and a similar 36% definitely don't, while 42% trust Labour and 27% don't. Interestingly, the Conservatives get better ratings than from the Red Wall panel, which is not surprising from traditionally bluer regions, but Labour's ratings are pretty similar. Even on national security and foreign policy, the Conservatives' lead is not massive, and they fail to make their case on crime and policing. So I guess the next batch of polls will just see a very slow decline of Labour's lead in the Leafy South, as the current batch have, but nothing of the magnitude needed to avoid serious Conservative losses in the area.

Our day is at hand. The call will come. The doors to the granary of power will at last be flung open

to a modern Labour Party with new ideas. Now let us answer that call to walk with destiny.

(Austin Donohue, Our Friends In The North: 1964, 1996)

Recorded live at Oakland-Alameda County Coliseum Arena, Oakland, 11 December 1994

Oh, my God, Severn Bridge! I’m going into England! Farewell forever!

I have got currency, and I’ve had my injections. See ya!

(Gwen Cooper, Torchwood: Children Of Earth, 2009)

The predicted results in England outwith London are still rays of milk and sunshine for Labour, and for the Liberal Democrats too. There is quite a pattern emerging here, that the Starmerslide of 2024 would pretty much match the Blairslide of 1997. It works in Wales, the North of England and the Midlands. We will see at the next stop that it also works in London. There are two exceptions though. Labour is predicted to miss first party status in Scotland by quite a wide margin, despite a significant surge over the last year. But massive gains in the South of England, surpassing Blair's best result there by several orders of magnitude, would more than offset the failure to gain back the 'missing seats' in Scotland. Current polling projects Labour bagging 377 seats in England, this time including London, when they bagged 'only' 328 in 1997 and 323 in 2001. The Leafy South makes all the difference, despite the Conservatives surging back from 14 seats down there at the height of the Trussterfuck, to 37 in early December, 59 on New Year's Eve and 70 now. But the Conservatives remain several dozen seats away from what would be just a remotely satisfactory result, and even more from restoring their past supremacy in the area.

Now the Liberal Democrats are out in the wilderness in the South, barchartsplaining the merits of tactical voting. Which, oddly, seems to be working one-way only, from Labour to the LibDems. Can't wait for their lightbulb moment, when they find out in how many seats the Conservative margin was smaller than the LibDem vote, and their own logic prescribes that they stand down. The next step is probably Labour, the Greens and the Liberal Democrats agreeing to some variant of the People's Front of England, fielding unity candidates in a number of select seats. They might even reframe it as the British People's Front if they extended the invitation to Plaid Cymru, as was done in 2019 by the LibDems and Greens. There's nothing in any legislation or convention that forbids that and it has been done in the past, though never massively successfully. The Conservatives would definitely look like hypocrites pissing down the wrong tree if they howled at the Moon against such a deal, as they could easily be reminded they had absolutely no problem with the Brexit Part standing down and offering them their votes in all seats they held before the 2019 election.

Who do these bastards think they are? How much shit are you supposed to take?

(Geordie Peacock, Our Friends In The North: 1970, 1996)

Recorded live at Soldier Field, Chicago, 9 July 1995, the Grateful Dead's last concert

Jerry Garcia died in his sleep a month later to the day

To learn who rules over you, simply find out whom you are not allowed to criticise.

(Voltaire)

The full results for the census of England and Wales have now been published. Then one that's valid because it wasn't butchered by ideological rephrasing of basic questions. I won't bore you with all the grisly details, as every little bit of data is available from the Office of National Statistics here, or here if you like AI-crayoned maps. Anyway, I looked up just one dataset, the one relating to the new social construct of 'gender identity'. According to this census, the proportion of English and Welsh people who have a 'gender identity different from sex registered at birth', to use the census's exact wording, is 0.54%. That's 251,867 persons in England and 10,271 in Wales. And the record is set by the London Borough of Newham, with 1.51%. The maps have the data transcribed into six different shades. Greenish shades are local authorities with a below average result. Blueish shades are above average, and the darker the higher. As you can see, most of Greater London and some bits of nearby Council areas are above average, with some concentration of the darker blues in the Imperial Capital.

This wee smitch of demographics certainly explains why Keir Starmer has always been so keen on cuddling the London Hipstertariat. Which includes selecting Danny Beales as the Labour candidate against Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip. The same Danny Beales who, as Councillor in Camden, was the 'mastermind' behind the repainting of zebra crossings to boy-blue-and-girl-pink. A move widely condemned by organisations representing disabled people as it disoriented guide dogs, and also spooked police horses. Even the usually woko-friendly Mayor of London Sadiq Khan felt he had to try and stop it, but failed. Now, despite Sly Keir's awkward waffling and piffling and Ian Murray's nonsensical word salad about the now famous Section 35 Order, the predicted results in the Imperial Capital are more and more looking like a true 'plebiscite election' for Team Red.

Today's projection is even better for Labour than what we had on New Year's Eve. This time, two Conservative incumbents would lose their seats to the Liberal Democrats (Elliot Colburn in Carshalton and Wallington, Stephen Hammond in Wimbledon), and an unlucky seven to Labour (Iain Duncan Smith in Chingford and Woodford Green, Theresa Villiers in Chipping Barnet, Nicola Aitken in the Cities of London and Westminster, Bob Blackman in Harrow East, Matthew Offord in Hendon, Felicity Buchan in Kensington, Boris Johnson in Uxbridge and South Ruislip). This last one has to be celebrated, despite its unfortunate side effect of propelling a full-blown extremist gender ideologue to Commons. There is a massive problem ahead for Bozo on current polling, as his favourite fallback option, Nadine Dorries's 'safe' seat in Bedfordshire would... SPOILER ALERT... also be lost to Labour. And there is probably no fallback to the fallback, as the sitting MPs in the residually 'safest' Conservative seats haven't the slightest inclination to stand down. Even the recently-vacated Windsor and West Suffolk seats would be risky bets on current polling. So we will probably hear more of the Johnson Saga very soon, in his never-ending quest for a way to keep his MP salary as pocket money on top of his fees for post-dinner rants.

I have searched for the phrase “I shall walk the Earth and my hunger will know no bounds”,

but I keep getting redirected to Weight Watchers.

(Ianto Jones, Torchwood: Dead Man Walking, 2008)

Recorded live at Boston Garden, Boston, 25 September 1991

It means exactly as I have said. I do not lie about what I see.

Only sometimes I withhold things, for human beings cannot bear too much reality.

(The Seer, Vikings: The Usurper, 2015)

Since the beginning of the Russian war of aggression against Ukraine, one of the frequentliest asked questions is what Russian public opinion actually think of the war in Ukraine, and whether they anticipate victory. Russia being what it is, there are not many even remotely reliable sources to properly answer that. Those who were most likely to oppose it, basically the young educated metropolitan elite, have fled the country by the thousands to avoid being dragged into the army, and are now watching from the sidelines in neighbouring countries from Estonia to Turkey. Many of those courageous enough to stay and protest were arrested and press-ganged without training to the Ukrainian front, where the attrition rate is like 90% in the first week. One reportedly reliable source is the Levada Center in Moscow, who have been conducting surveys of Russian public opinion since 1988. Their polls are usually updated monthly, but they haven't released any so far in 2023. The last assessment we have from them, of the Russian public's level of support for 'the actions of Russian military forces in Ukraine' (their cautious wording), was published in December with the results of a November poll. Contrary to what you might have heard here and there, the sequence of their polls shows a constantly massive support for the 'special military operation'.

The picture is sadly quite clear, and not evolving. On these numbers, you shouldn't expect a popular revolt to oust Putin. Something of that sort is much more likely to happen in Iran. But it doesn't mean everybody fully believes the narrative about military success in Ukraine, that everything is happening according to plan, even if the plan looks extremely event-fluid. The Lavada Center has also surveyed the people's assessment of the success of 'special military operation' four times since the invasion. Early progress inside Ukraine naturally led to a massive belief that it was successful, even though the original Blitzkrieg plan had actually totally failed. But this was hidden from the Russian people, and the Putin-funded propagandists in our countries even denied it had ever been contemplated. More recent events, like the omnishambolic retreats from the Kyiv region, Kharkiv and Kherson, have quite visibly altered the public's mood. Putin's Ninth Circle are obviously aware of that, which is why they blow every minor success out of proportion. The media battle between the regular army and the Wagner Group to appropriate the fall of Soledar is proof of this. It is more symbolically significant than strategically, but both need it to make themselves look good in the public's eyes. What remains to be seen is whether or not this overblown success will again shift the Russian public towards a 'positive' assessment of their country's achievements in the war that can't be called a war.

This quite significant loss of faith, despite the unrelenting nationalist and militarist propaganda, probably explains some of the power struggle many analysts think is happening now in Moscow. Though what we are allowed to hear might just be mind games played on us by the Putinist establishment, at the crossroads between smoke-and-mirrors and seven-dimensional Vulcan chess. Yevgeny Prigozhin, the boss of the Wagner Group, is using his mercenaries' 'success' in Ukraine, compared to the sloppy performance of the regular army, as a very efficient self-promotion tool. There are persistent rumours that he will now launch a new ethnic supremacist ultra-nationalist party, pretty much the perfect incarnation of Russian neo-Nazism. What is open to conjecture is the exact part played by the FSB in the current 'competitive anarchy' in Russia, which is quite reminiscent of the last months before the downfall of Nazi Germany. Imagine Chief of the General Staff Valery Gerasimov as Field-Marshal Keitel, Wagner as the Waffen SS and the FSB as the Gestapo, and you get the picture. It is quite obvious that the FSB are behind the hyperbolic militaristic propaganda on Russian media, especially RT International. They are probably also remote-controlling Dmitry Medvedev's vodka-soaked rants. But what is their endgame? Is it a Putin-ordered counterfire to Prigozhin's ambitions? Or is it preparing the masses for an open alliance between Putin and Prigozhin? Dog only knows. So far.

We go to gain a little patch of ground that hath in it no profit but the name.

(William Shakespeare, Hamlet, Act IV, Scene IV)

Recorded live at Barton Hall, Cornell University, Ithaca, 8 May 1977

If she doesn’t reconfirm her subjugation to us, we will show her the iron fist.

We will invade and we will destroy her, and her limbs bring fastened to four horses,

her body will be torn apart. Or something of that sort.

(King Egbert of Wessex, Vikings: Paris, 2015)

The way I see it, Vladimir Putin's strategy of stationing Russian troops and weaponry in Belarus looks suspiciously like the way Adolf Hitler used the Kriegsmarine in Norwegian waters after 1942. As a 'fleet in being', a force too weak to inflict serious damage to the enemy without risking serious losses, but significant enough to fix sizeable enemy forces outside the real battleground areas, 'just in case'. Part of the rationale might be to draw away Ukrainian troops away from the Eastern Front, most notably the town of Bakhmut, where intense fighting has been occurring for months between the Ukrainian Army and Vladimir Putin's Nazi mercenaries of the Wagner Group. Whose boss Yevgeny Prigozhin is in fact attempting to plunder Ukraine's natural resources, just as his mercenaries have already done in the Central African Republic, Madagascar and Mali, to fund the war and obviously for massive personal profit too. Meanwhile, Russia continues its war of terror against the civilian population of Ukraine, like the missile strike that killed 46, including an 11-month-old baby, in a residential area of Dnipro. These are no longer war crimes, as they are not random but part of Putin's strategy. These are acts of genocide, as defined by the United Nations since 1948, in a convention of which the Soviet Union was a signatory, and Russia is a party.

What happened on New Year's Eve in the occupied town of Makiivka again showed the astounding level of unpreparedness and incompetence of the Russian military. Probably about 700 new recruits, on their first week on the front, were concentrated in one three-storey building while more secure underground facilities were available in the same town. Ammunition was stored underneath or close to the building. The recruits used their cellphones, which gave the Ukrainians all the information they needed to triangulate their location. The devastating death toll was then sadly unavoidable. To add insult to injury, in true Soviet fashion, high-ranking officers then tried to clean their arses by making up that the recruits themselves were to blame for their own deaths. This shows not just the complete breakdown of the Russian military, but the state of moral decay Russia is in now. Next, the Russian Defence Ministry claimed they had killed 600 Ukrainians in an attack on the town of Kramatorsk. Only problem is that Western media have plenty of people on the ground in that area, and were quick to debunk this claim as fake news. Even Russian 'influencers' called it out as what it was, fucking bullshit. More desperate stunts from the Kremlin's criminal gang.

Another major setback for Putin is his complete and repeated failure to convince his protégé Alexander Lukashenko, who loves his fake military ranks as much as the English Royals, to officially join the war. Of course, Belarus is already a co-perpetrator in Russia's criminal aggression, having been their forward base on the Northern border of Ukraine since the beginning. But sending the Belarus army to the front would be an unmitigated disaster, as they are notoriously ill-equipped, ill-trained and sloppy. That would be like sending Dad's Army to the Battle of the Bulge. Selective mobilisation, as in Russia, is probably not an option either. There is a running joke in Belarus that, if you gave weapons to men of mobilisation age, they wouldn't march to the Ukrainian front, but to Minsk to overthrow Lukashenko. They might not actually do it but, ye ken, ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd saye. Putin's desperate attempts to rally Belarus to his cause are a sign of weakness. This is why our best option is still to count on an Ukrainian military victory, help them get it, and reject Putin's offers of pointless negotiations that would only freeze the status quo and reward war crimes.

It would be as pointless as arguing with a pigeon.

You can tell it that you are right and it is wrong, but it’s still going to shit in your hair.

(Rebekah Vardy)

Recorded live at Fare Thee Well, Soldier Field, Chicago, 5 July 2015

The last ever performance of the last Grateful Dead reincarnation that featured all surviving members

There's an east wind coming all the same, such a wind as never blew on England yet.

It will be cold and bitter, and a good many of us may wither before its blast.

(Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow, 1917)

This time, I will leave British polls about our support to Ukraine for later, and tell you about a French one. France is an interesting case study because they have two major parties, the radical left La France Insoumise and the far-right Rassemblement National, who were openly Putin supporters until the 24th February 2022 at noon, and represent about 45% of the electorate combined. Basically, LFI supported Putin in the name of anti-Americanism, which is also the rationale behind their support for illiberal post-Marxist regimes in South America. The RN, on the other hand, are more of the 'defence of traditional Christian values' type, and have also received substantial financial support from the Russian state establishment. French pollster IFOP have tracked the people's feelings about Ukraine, and you can see the level of support has steadily gone down between March and December last year. This is easily explained by 'Ukraine fatigue' and the populist rhetoric about it from both ends of the political spectrum. Emmanuel Macron's frequent ambiguities about the official French position certainly haven't helped either. The reassuring part is that the damage done is far less extensive than I feared, and the country of my birth still offers strong support to Ukraine.

In this context, I can only commend Emmanuel Macron's decision to deliver AMX-10 RC armoured vehicles to Ukraine, that triggered similar announcements from the USA and Germany, pledging to transfer some of their own Bradley and Marder vehicles. Of course, Ukraine also needs heavier tanks that would match the Russian T-90, and is likely to ask again and again for some to be transferred, their preferred option being the Leopard 2 from Germany. A YouGov poll of the British public then showed massive popular support for the UK delivering tanks to Ukraine, and it is really a good thing that it has happened now. Another YouGov poll, conducted after the announcement about the delivery of Challenger 2 tanks, surveyed the British public's attitude over support to Ukraine generally. It shows overwhelming support for doing at least as much as we have already done, with a quarter saying we should do even more, and only a wee minority saying we should do less.

This result is extremely encouraging, especially as it wasn't a done deal in the current context of social unrest combined with the cost-of-living crisis. Could it embolden the English Government to announce more deliveries of Challengers, regardless of what other countries do? It is certainly feasible. According to the Department of Defence themselves, only 148 of the 227 currently operational Challenger 2s will be upgraded to Challenger 3, with 79 being retired and thusly available for any use the English Government sees fit. Like offering them for free to Ukraine, earlier than the scheduled retirement date. And I won't even mention the 159 that have already been mothballed over the last ten years, as they would probably need an expensive refurbishing that would make a transfer less attractive. Agreeing to more transfers will surely be painted as crossing a red line by the local Putin-bribed propagandists, as these tanks will provide Ukraine with truly offensive capability to repeal the criminal invasion. But it's becoming clearer by the day that the alleged 'red lines' were imposed by Ukraine's Western allies on themselves, and were not Putin's. Several have been crossed already, and have not triggered any reaction from Russia other than the criminal war on Ukraine's civilian population, which would have happened anyway as it was always part of Putin's strategy if his initial plan failed. More will inevitably and knowingly be crossed, sooner than the Putin criminal gang expect.

Silence in the face of evil is itself evil. God will not hold us guiltless.

Not to speak is to speak. Not to act is to act.

(Dieter Bonhoeffer)

Recorded live at Alexandra Palace, London, 10 September 1974

America rules! Our Beatles are way better than your precious Rolling Stones.

(Homer Simpson)

What happened in the United States House of Representatives on the very first day of the new Congress was fucking hilarious. No better evidence of the complete clownshow the Republican Party has become, with extremist MAGAs maniacs ready to throw their party's very narrow election victory to the dogs, just to make some deranged ideological point that has conclusively been rejected even by their own voters. It was just the start of a chaotic week, until Kevin McCarthy was finally elected on the 15th ballot, with 216 votes out of 222 Republican Representatives. It was the first time since 1923 a Speaker was not elected on the first ballot, and the first time since 1859 the election required more than ten ballots. The amount and nature of concessions made by McCarthy to get the votes also clearly show what happens when a vociferous extremist minority are in a position to blackmail the majority, which was only to be expected after the elections delivered such a close result.

This is an interesting situation as it does support my point about PR, even though the American elections are held under FPTP. Under PR, the 2022 elections would have delivered 224 Republican seats and 211 Democratic seats. Which is as close as you can get to the actual 222-213 result, which allowed a tiny group of 19 determined Trumpians to derail the system for four days and finally get their pound of flesh. Interestingly, the 2020 elections already showed a similar pattern. Back then, PR would have delivered 224 Democratic seats and 211 Republican seats, already almost the same as the 222-213 result under FPTP. The next two years will be interesting, if the Trumpian fundamentalists use their weight to block any attempt at bipartisanship, which is probably Biden's best strategy for now. Deflecting attention from his own problems with the woke fundamentalists on the loony left of the Democratic Party can only benefit him as we get closer to the 2024 presidential election. Right now, polls about this one are quite a mixed bag.

The Democrats' chances look better than they did some months ago, but different scenarios muddy the waters. On one side, Joe Biden does generally better than his Vice-President Kamala Harris. On the other side, Florida governor Ron DeSantis generally does better than Donald Trump. Both Harris and Trump quite clearly have some bogeyman qualities for the opposing side. Trump for all the obvious reasons. Harris because she has let herself embody something like the 'entitled West Coast liberal' persona the American right have always loved to hate and deride. DeSantis, in the meantime, is playing his cards close to his chest and maintaining some creative ambiguity about his real ambitions. The punditariat would love nothing more than a Biden-Trump rematch, as it would allow them to stay within their proverbial comfort zone, and recycle their clichéed one-liners from 2020. A Harris-DeSantis clash, on the other hand, would throw a lot of wildcards in the works, as both can be quite unpredictable at times. Then, to make everyone unhappy, the actual game might very well be Biden-DeSantis and then the race itself becomes pretty unpredictable.

You can win if you run a smart, disciplined campaign, if you studiously say nothing

that could cause you trouble, nothing that’s a gaffe, nothing that shows you might think

the wrong thing, nothing that shows you think. But it just isn’t worthy of us, is it?

(Josiah Bartlet, The West Wing: Manchester, 2001)

The Grateful Dead weren't in the music business,

they were in the transportation business. (Mickey Hart)

Jeremy's Den

20/01/2023

What A Long Strange Trip It's Been

We Must Be Dreaming