Some psephologifying and random assorted thoughts on what future elections might have in store.
House of Commons, Scottish Parliament, Scottish Independence.
Make your pick and enjoy. Comment is free.
The people do not judge in the same way as courts of law. They do not hand down sentences,
they throw thunderbolts. they do not condemn kings, they drop them back into the void.
(Maximilien Robespierre)
Don't forget to click on the images, to pop up larger and easier-to-read ones.
Before my Scottish friends object, 'polling station' is the appropriate term here, as this month's local elections happened only in England, where there is no such place as a polling place. And I wanted a David Bowie soundtrack anyway. So there. Now, before looking at the big picture and what it says about the incoming snap general, or not, I will turn the spotlight to a few Councils that The Hipstershire Gazette selected as summat iconic of these elections. First, Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, a few miles down the M4 from Theresa May's constituency in Maidenhead, where a 'rogue progressive alliance' of local Labour, Liberal Democrats and Greens was disowned by the national parties. Plymouth, where Labour didn't want to make it all about the trees while making it summat about the trees, hoping to dislodge a Conservative minority administration and pave the way to unseating Conservatives MPs Johnny Mercer and Gary Streeter. High Peak in Derbyshire, a Labour minority administration considered a bellwether and coterminous with a bellwether Commons seat that Labour absolutely need to take back to have a credible shot at winning the incoming snap general. And finally North Somerset, a test for the Liberal Democrats wanting to prove they're the best-placed to defeat the Conservatives all over the South.
I have also mapped the number of wards held by each party. As the electoral system here is first-past-the-post (FPTP) in multi-member wards, a split between two parties can happen, though not as a common occurrence. It happens more often in Plymouth, which has three-member wards up for election by thirds, three years out of four, with staggered four-years terms. Quite a quintessentially English way of making things totally incomprehensible for outsiders, but also opening the door to three-way splits as voters' mood swings from one election to the next. Bracknell Forest, High Peak and North Somerset do it in a more straightforward way, with the whole Council up for election every four years. The people's verdict is quite conclusive in all four. It is also quite entertaining to compare how the five Commons constituencies covered by these Councils voted in 2019, and how their constituent wards voted this time.
The Rogue Progressive Alliance worked in Bracknell Forest, probably beyond its members' wildest expectations, so I fully expect Starmer and Davey to reown it now. Of course they won't promote it nationwide, but they will keep shtum if some local parties here and there go down the same road. So long as they gain seats, anyway. Which is indeed a possibility in the Bracknell constituency. Then Labour conclusively took back control of Plymouth and High Peak, which is really bad news for their Conservative MPs Johnny Mercer, Gary Streeter and Robert Laglan. Though Streeter could possibly weather a challenge from the Liberal Democrats in South West Devon, if the opposition vote remains split. And finally, North Somerset was a massive miss for the Liberal Democrats, who will now have to reframe their trauma and their strategy, as Labour have overtaken them in the Council. But they came ahead of Labour in the popular vote, albeit by a hare, so might have an opening to get first shot at Liam Fox. I wouldn't hold my breath though.
Milk in first suggests you’re of the dusty masses. Would have thought that might appeal to you.
Art thou some god, some angel or some devil that mak'st my blood cold and my hair to stare?
(William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, Act Iv, Scene III, 1599)
Now there are more interesting case studies to be made from the results of these English local elections. Which involve comparing how some constituencies voted at the 2019 general election, and how the wards making up these constituencies voted at their local election this month. The caveat and disclaimer here is that local elections have absolutely no predictive value for the next general election, except when they have. Which never happens, until it does. So let's start with Midsomer... oops... sorry... Berkshire where, as you all know, Midsomer Murders has been filmed for many a year. Which might have been an inspiration for voters, as there were many casualties at this year's elections, especially in the rural parts of the county. Berkshire is covered by six Councils, all with unitary authority status, since the historic Berkshire County Council was abolished in 1998. Here's how their membership changed this year, in geographical order from West to East.
Had to repeat Bracknell Forest here, as it is in Berkshire, and also the textbook case of why we don't need proportional representation, because it's so easy to game the existing first-past-the-post electoral law and grant representation to all the stakeholders of a progressive alliance. Elsewhere in the county, the Liberal Democrat steamroller perfectly served its purpose and snatched two councils from the Conservatives without the intermediate phase of No Overall Control (NOC). In both cases, it was quite brutal, with the Conservatives losing half their seats in West Berkshire, and two thirds in Windsor and Maidenhead. Wokingham is still technically NOC, but the Lib-Lab-Ind coalition there has increased their majority from two seats to ten. Slough is the odd one out, the only Council lost by Labour to the Conservatives. Technically it's NOC too, but the Conservatives have exactly half the seats, so will be the next administration. Which has probably little to do with an actual change of political beliefs, but a lot with the former Labour administration falling into Government administration after financial mismanagement and bankruptcy. Berkshire is also home to ten Commons constituencies, only eight are of interest here as they elected Conservative MPs in 2019 and mostly long before that. The three Western ones first, and how they voted in 2019 and 2023.
Even if local elections voting patterns are unlikely to be repeated at a general election, they can nevertheless support or contradict what general election polling says. Here we have confirmation in two case, Reading West and Wokingham, both with a higher vote share for the LibDems than polls predict. There is also an interesting subplot in Reading West, where Conservative incumbent Alok Sharma has been earmarked for transfer to the House of Lords by Boris Johnson, Or was it Liz Truss? It's not done yet though, as Rishi Sunak has put both Honours Lists in his bottom drawer. Newbury, which covers roughly the same area as the West Berkshire Council, is the odd one out as current polling has it as a Conservative hold with a sharply reduced majority. Then there is nothing here a Rogue Progressive Alliance couldn't solve, so long as Labour agree to concede the seat to the Liberal Democrats. Now down to the Eastern seats, where there are quite a few shockers and alternate plausibilities for the snap general. I see no path to victory for either Labour or the LibDems in Windsor, despite Conservative MP Adam Afriyie standing down in disgrace after two reprimands from the Commons Standards Committee. The main minor local party there is called 'The Borough First', which subliminally says a lot about their actual political persuasion, so I have no doubt their votes will go to the Conservatives at the general.
The ward-by-ward results in the Maidenhead half of the Borough Council are much more flabbergasting, and clearly show it was a massive and deliberate cull of incumbent Conservative Councillors, and it was certainly more personal than political. In many wards, the Liberal Democrats bagged three or four times as many votes as the Conservative incumbents, woodchipping them on a more massive swing than when Scotland ousted Labour in 2015. It is highly unlikely that the same pattern would be repeated against Theresa May at the snap general, as even political opponents acknowledge she is an efficient constituency MP, so the personal factor would work for her and not against. Bracknell is a more ambiguous case. The now famous Rogue Progressive Alliance was based on splitting the wards to the most likely winner, which fully worked, but thusly had the probably unexpected consequence of splitting the opposition vote when you do the full maths. The final count is actually, and ironically too, quite close to what the projection from general election polling predicts. Which should be an incentive for a deal between Labour and the LibDems. I give you Newbury and you give me Bracknell. Just don't rule it out just yet. But even this might become a mute point if Berkshire voters are in the same mood as those in neighboring Surrey. Then Conservatives will learn the hard way that this goes way beyond a one-off protest vote, and it can wreak havoc in their ranks any time Rishi Sunak chooses to call the snap general.
I look both ways before crossing a one-way street. That’s how much faith I have left in humanity.
Sometimes you have to decide between a bad choice and no choice at all.
(Cornelius Moss, Designated Survivor: Commander In Chief, 2017)
There were also some interesting results in the middle of the Midlands, in Derbyshire, once home to active mining communities that were destroyed by Thatcher. The county has just one unitary authority, Derby City Council, that was up for election on May The Fourth, in full because of boundary changes while the usual cycle is by thirds. The rest of the county has a two-tier local government, including the Derbyshire County Council as its upper tier, that was up for election in 2021 and will be in 2025. Eight District or Borough Councils make up the lower tier, all of which were up this year. Eight of them followed the national trend with strong Labour gains, while one favoured the Liberal Democrats. Compared to the previous elections' results and discounting later by-elections, four Councils switched from the Conservatives to Labour, one from NOC to Labour, one from NOC with Conservatives first to NOC with Liberal Democrats first. one from NOC with Conservatives first to NOC with Labour first, and finally two were held by Labour majorities. Which is just the kind of results Labour expected and needed in the run-up to the incoming snap general. Nothing compares to Council gains when you need to boost the morale ahead of a hard fought Commons campaign.
In Commons, Derbyshire is home to eleven constituencies. It leaned strongly towards Labour until 1979, and again from 1997 to 2010. Otherwise, it mostly had all the traits of a battleground that could also serve as a bellwether. Labour suffered heavy losses there in 2010, like in most of the Midlands, and have never really recovered and held a majority of seats since. Labour never bagged a full slate in Derbyshire, though they fell just one seat short in 1945, 1966 and 1997. 2019, with just two seats in Chesterfield and Derby South, was their second worst result since 1910. Only 1918 and 1931 were worse, tied on just one Labour seat. If we compare the results of the 2019 general election to this year's Council elections, the county's overall count shows that Labour are back to first place in the popular vote, and the Liberal Democrats have done unexpectedly well. But most of the LibDem vote is concentrated in Chesterfield, where they already did well in 2019, and Derbyshire Dales, where Labour haven't put up much of a fight. Could it be an unwritten quid pro quo? Like giving the LibDems a free rein at snatching the Council from the Conservatives, while Labour is guaranteed first shot for the Commons seat. Weirder things have happened before.
As a point of reference, seat projections from current polls predict Conservatives holding Amber Valley, Derbyshire Dales and South Derbyshire. While Labour would gain back Bolsover, Derby North, Erewash, High Peak, Mid Derbyshire and North East Derbyshire, and easily hold Chesterfield and Derby South. In the above batch of seats, I am quite convinced that Bolsover and Derby North will turn red again. Independents in Bolsover don't really fit the Nimby Resident profile that would switch to the Conservatives at a general, so Labour should gain it back. After all the current seat, and its predecessor Clay Cross, had been in Labour's hands continuously since 1922 before Dennis Skinner unexpectedly lost it at what was probably one election too many for him. Derby North looks just as ready to toggle back, now that Chris Williamson is ancient history. I have less faith in the value of local elections results in Amber Valley. The Brexit Party never competed there, as it was a Tory-held seat, and UKIP always did poorly except in 2015. I don't expect much of the Reform UK vote to remain at the general, as the spirit of tactical voting definitely dictates they help the Conservatives hold the seat.
In the other constituencies, the Council elections results don't always fit what general election polls predict. My tenner is on Labour in Erewash, High Peak and North East Derbyshire, where polling trends and votes at the Council election converge. The two approaches definitely point in different directions in the other three constituencies, most conspicuously in South Derbyshire. The Council election result here is quite intriguing as the current constituency, and its predecessors South East Derbyshire and Belper, have a long history of swinging back and forth between Labour and the Conservatives. An interesting part of its electoral history is that the voting patterns at the Council election and at the Commons election were similar in 2015 and 2019 when they heavily favoured the Conservatives. So why wouldn't it work too now, when they favour Labour? Meanwhile, North East Derbyshire and Mid Derbyshire might prove tougher nuts to crack for Labour than general election polls imply, especially the latter where the non-Conservative vote is quite split. Labour can nevertheless entertain high hopes in Derbyshire, as all seemingly contradictory scenarios point to significant gains, probably not as good as the Blair years, but still better than what they achieved just before or since.
You kick the system, don’t be surprised when it comes around and bites you.
Let's move now further up the Red Wall to a county that does not exist. Does not exist any more, that is. As it was actually a thing for a quarter of a century in the last millennium. Cleveland, also transiently known as Teesside. Famous because it houses Hartlepool, home to Andy Capp and Jeremy Spencer, but not Peter Mandelson. And also that unique Northern oddity, the one and only Council in the UK split between two counties. Stockton-on-Tees which, as the name implies, has wards on both sides of the River Tees. North of the river is in County Durham, and South of it is in the North Riding of Yorkshire. Which actually does not exist anymore either, as it has been fused with other bits of God's Own County fifty-odd years ago to become today's North Yorkshire, the largest ceremonial county in England. OK, I will not confuse you again with ghosts of counties past, so let's get down to business. The area is split between four unitary authorities, Hartlepool Borough Council, Middlesbrough Borough Council, Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council and the aforementioned Stockton-on-Tees Borough Council. All of which were conveniently up for election on May The Fourth, as here's how they looked like before and after.
Hartlepool is technically of the NOC variety, which can happen when you are tempting fate with an even number of seats. But Labour should have no problem taking back control of it, potentially with support from some Independents. Middlesbrough is also one of the NOCs, but it matters probably less as executive power is vested in a directly elected Mayor, Labour's Chris Cooke since May The Fourth. Redcar and Cleveland is another NOC, both before and after the election. Odds are the LibDem-led minority administration will now have to give way to a Labour-led administration that could very plausibly form a majority coalition. Stockton-on-Tees also went from NOC to NOC, meaning the incumbent Labour-led administration will probably go on, even if the Conservatives have become the first party. In Westminster, the area formerly known as Cleveland is split between six Commons constituencies of interest. Especially Peter Mandelson's old seat in Hartlepool, which was also the seat of many a first. The first by-election of the current Parliament, the first by-election on Keir Starmer's watch, the first Labour seat lost on Keir Starmer's watch, the first by-election won by the governing party in almost 40 years, and I think that's about all. I have dug deeper only for the four of them who are held by the Conservatives today, and have been Labour for most of their existence. Here is how they voted in 2019, and also 2021 for Hartlepool, and how their constituent wards voted this month.
What we have here is even less conclusive than in Berkshire or Derbyshire because of the massive presence of independent candidates of various shades. Nevertheless, I will venture that these independents will mostly shift to Conservative candidates at a general election. So I think Labour has a very slim chance of taking back Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, the one that was least often in Labour's hands, and was lost already in 2017 before the Johnsonami of 2019 overran the Red Wall. I think Labour have far better odds in Hartlepool, and could plausibly take it back with an outright majority of the popular vote. Redcar is an interesting case as the town's vote at the Council election in May 2019 was massively different from their vote at the Johnson general in December. There is the same pattern here, with Liberal Democrats and independents biting massive chunks off the Conservative vote, and you see the results of that in their number of Council seats. But this month's Council vote is quite encouraging for Labour, as all they have bagged the same share as in 2019. All they have to do now is to snatch tactical voting from the LibDems, which sounds like a viable strategy all across the North and Midlands. Though there may be some spanners in the cogs in the South. Finally Stockton South looks like quite an uphill battle for Labour. It already escaped them in 2010, 2015 and 2019, and was a surprise gain in the Corbyn Surge of 2017. Pending further investigation, the Council results support the hypothesis that it could be one of the few Conservative holds in Red Wall territory next year.
A steam train! Because we're in the North, and they haven't got their Leveling Up money yet.
Well, we all seek absolution in our own way. You sure you don’t want a dumpling?
(Anita Van Buren, Law & Order: Aftershock, 1996)
There is quite a massive consensus that these local elections turned out to be as bad for the Conservatives as the worst predictions hinted, and then some notches worse. It says a lot that Conservative Party Chairman Greg Hands thought it smart to use a 'could lose up to 1,000 seats' random prediction as a way to scare the Blue Base to the polling stations, and they ended up losing 1,063 per the BBC's calculations. When these elections were part of a cycle that saw the Conservatives already lose 1.330 seats in pretty much the same councils four years ago. There's no way Rishi Sunak can lipstick that pig into anything else than a fucking disaster of asteroid magnitude, and a well deserved one. But now he seems to have locked himself in an echo chamber of cognitive dissonance rooted in confirmation bias, which you might argue Keir Starmer had done too. But let's look at the big picture, instead of the faraway Marches Of The Realm. Let's see first how many votes everyone got, and how it compares with the polls.
The BBC and Sky News couldn't be arsed to wait until all wards had declared and do the exact maths, so they have published their proverbial 'projected national vote shares'. Which are obviously approximate, and actually transpose the results of the locals into an hypothetical general election held on the same day and in the whole of the UK. With these caveats, their calculations confirm my first impression, that the Focaldata poll was fucking bollocks and wildly off-piste. But, quite uniquely for local election polls and much to my surprise, Survation and Omnisis were not far off the mark. So maybe we should believe them when they poll future local elections. The breakdown of seats and councils, before and after the election, testifies to the amount of drubbing the Conservatives have taken, and how Labour have now become the first party in English local government. There isn't much change in the Metropolitan Boroughs, where Labour were already dominant. Contrary to the punditariat's prophecies, the independent candidates and minor local parties have held their ground. Evidence that they were not just the least bad fallback option in 2019, for voters dissatisfied with both Labour and the Conservatives, but a real force of their own. The most significant part is the results in the District Councils, which are predominant in the Midlands and the South, covering the most likely battleground seats at the next general. Significant Conservative losses across the board can only boost the oppositions' morale.
Once again, the proponents of proportional representation (PR) are at it, claiming that these elections validate their belief that we absolutely need PR. When they were fought under the usual FPTP, and some of the massive upsets they quote would never have happened under PR. The best example is Bracknell Forest, where the Conservatives suffered a major debacle only because Labour, the LibDems and the Greens gamed FPTP and didn't stand in each other's way in 12 wards out of 15. That's the way to go, and not endorsing the illusion that PR is more democratic, when there is massive and conclusive evidence that it enables backroom deals and empowers minority parties to force fringe policies down the throat of the majority because they are kingmakers. If the opposition parties are serious about ousting the Tories, all they have to do is a 543-seat strategy across England, duplicating Bracknell Forest all over the place. Let the Tories howl at the moon over that, as neither law nor convention forbids it. The only issue would be which party is the standard bearer in each constituency, which would lead to some performative frictions between Labour and the Liberal Democrats in the Home Counties. Now, if you want constitutional change, think about replacing FPTP with a two-round majority system. Can make it Instant Runoff, if you want all seats to be filled on the same day, or two rounds held a reasonably short time apart as in France and some US states. If it's good enough for them, to avoid the brutal nature of FPTP, then it's good enough for us.
It’s a middle finger aimed squarely at your base. This will have a knock-on effect.
I don’t like to traffic in overstatement, but if this sticks, it’s political Armageddon.
When I was chanting just now, I was thinking about how you can only live in your full
knowing if you stand in your full knowing. Can you live and stand in your full knowing?
(Megan, The Windsors: Coronation Special, 2023)
The breakdown of seats by region and meta-region shows quite significant changes in England's electoral geography, which might be the prelude to similar changes at the next general election. Or not. Labour have secured only minimal gains in the North, where they already were massively dominant in the Councils that were up this year. In some cases, they just increased their vote shares in already Deep Red territory, which would achieve fuck all at a general election, as it would only turn safe seats into sinkholes. But huge swathes of the North did not vote this time, so we lack any hints of the public's mood in Cumbria, Northumberland, and most of County Durham and North Yorkshire. Labour have secured gains in Lancashire, but they are spread quite evenly across ten District Councils, so are not conclusive hints of plausible Commons gains.
The possible implications of the Council elections in the Midlands are more ambiguous. The Conservatives lost seats, but it is not a massive Red Wave that could make Labour anticipate significant gains at a general election. The Conservative network of Councillors has been weakened in the Midlands, but remains as strong as Labour's. Obviously, Labour would be wrong to underestimate this network's influence, especially in small rural communities. The swingometer may have moved in Labour's direction, but the Midlands remains as much of a battleground now as before the elections. Finally, the changes in the South plausibly overestimate the Liberal Democrats' potential to gain Commons seats. They already bagged excellent results in the South at the May 2019 Council elections, and then totally failed to translate these success into Commons seats in December at the general election. The Liberal Democrats can only wish it will be different next time, and in the meanwhile use their gains as bargaining chips in local deals with Labour. The downside is that their most spectacular gains are within constituencies that Labour may have already secretly decided to concede anyway, as their own bargaining chips against LibDems playing possum in Lab-Con marginals. There are surely some fun moments ahead.
We’ve come back with a healing message to help us all find harmony.
Like the notes in a song by Beyonce, who incidentally just texted me.
One fact, two sharp edges. You’re gonna need an extra large box of Band-Aids.
(Adam Schiff, Law & Order: Working Mom, 1997)
It looks like nobody could be arsed to do the fucking maths, and tell us how many people actually voted for each party at the English locals. Rishi Sunak is certainly not amused, though he might be relieved that all we have are competing 'estimated projected vote shares' from the BBC and Sky News. Sky News even tried a narrative around these approximate results, with lots of very precise demonstrations based on very imprecise numbers, to the effect that similar voting patterns at a general election would deliver a hung Parliament. Which Alyn Smith, the SNP MP for the Stirling University Students Union, used to support a claim that the SNP would force Labour to undo Brexit. As if. The only problem here is that seat projections absolutely do not point to a hung Parliament. Bear in mind that the proverbial common wisdom that Labour need a 10% lead over the Conservatives rests on two pillars. That the Scottish seats would go roughly the same way as in 2019, with the SNP bagging a mammoth majority. That the Liberal Democrats would stay on roughly 10% of the popular vote, and not be a threat to the Conservatives anywhere. Remove one pillar and cracks start to appear. Remove both and the whole construct tumbles down. And that's exactly what happens here.
I have first extrapolated individual vote shares for the 'Others' (19% total for the BBC, 17% for Sky News), based on what the current real voting intentions polls tell us. And then fed this to my model, Electoral Calculus and Flavible. All say that Labour would bag an outright majority, either on a 9% lead or a 7% lead. Even Flavible's modest 324 seats are a majority, if you bear in mind that Sinn Féin still not taking their seats lowers the bar to 322. The flaws in the 'hung Parliament' are obvious when you look at Sky's figures that credit 'others' with 75 seats. Which only works if you credit the SNP with 50ish seats. Which won't happen under current polling, which Sky is obviously aware of. I won't even bother to discuss their projection for the Liberal Democrats, as the earlier point alone proves their approach is deeply unprofessional. As in knowingly peddling fucking bollocks to serve a pre-scripted biased narrative. Which works only because the general population are blissfully unfamiliar with the mysteries and oddities of psephology, and will thusly take any self-anointed or punditariat-validated expert at his word. All that we have here proves an actually simple fact. That there is not just one determining variable at work here, but several, sometimes totally uncorrelated and sometimes deeply intertwined. So there is no definitive answer to the question 'who will win the next election?', just an array of plausibilities.
Sometimes we’re so intent on a grain of sand, we lose sight of the beach.
Then the lights go out and it's just the three of us, you me and all that stuff we're so scared of.
(Bruce Springsteen, Tunnel Of Love, 1987)
An unexpected post-elections PR stunt was The Prince Of Darkness coming out of his burrow, begging Labour and the Liberal Democrats to reframe their stance on Brexit. Forget Get Brexit Done and Make Brexit Work, now's the time to Get Brexit Fixed; Or not. Or maybe. Forget all you preconceptions about Alastair, he may have a genuine point here. Brexit ain't what it used to be, and the British public are seeing clearly now the amount of damage it has inflicted. Alastair is right that the English Government's narrative that none of the present disasters have anything to do with Brexit, and everything to do with Covid and Ukraine, is absolute fucking bollocks. Rishi Sunak knows it, the British public knows it, and buyer's remorse is growing by the day. YouGov have been tracking the public's feelings for literally years now, and we currently have half thinking Brexit was the wrong choice, and just a third saying it was the right choice.
The split has been pretty steady for some months now, and it is quite plausible it will remain so for the foreseeable future, like the French and German trenches between 1914 and 1918. The British public also massively think that Brexit was badly handled by successive governments, making it a double whammy of frogs and locusts. The English Government are obviously aware of that as they gave up on the 'sunset clause' that would have seen 4,000 items of European legislation removed from UK law on New Year's Eve. And caused 40,000 additional problems. Of course, the rabid Brexiteers led by Penfold Francois are not happy bunnies over that, and Kemi Badenoch did not make herself more popular by openly taking the piss out of Lindsay Hoyle. Which everybody does, to be honest, just not to his face. Jacob Rees-Mogg had previously let it be known that he was extremely displeased with the cancellation of the Bonfire Of Laws. Which actually worked in Sunak's and Badenoch's favour. Whatever decision pisses off the MP for the 17th century has to be the right decision, innit? And Somerset Jake is pissing down the wrong tree here, as he usually does, as a substantial majority of Brits would now choose to rejoin the European Union. That's what they tell pollsters, that is, without risk as nobody will call their bluff and actually call a referendum.
Pollsters tell us that the British public would choose to rejoining the EU roughly 3-to-2. Even the prospect of being forced to join the Euro, which Omnisis tests every time they ask the hypothetical referendum question, is not a deterrent. Rejoin still wins, albeit with a lesser margin. The basic flaw in this approach is, and has always been, the inability of anyone to see this issue as anything other than in binary terms. When it's one of a few instances where reality is non-binary. It's not a fucking U2 song, it's not with or without EU. There are multiple layers of a Schrödinger's EU out there. The 'Swiss Deal' that Rishi Sunak allegedly tried to negotiate some months ago, is just one option among others. It's more like a Swiss knife of possibilities. The most obvious path is to study the details of European Economic Area agreement that links the EU with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein. Going the Full Monty, and signing up to the full agreement, was even floated as an option dubbed 'Norway Deal' in the protohistoric times when Theresa May was Prime Minister. Which was of course anathema for the Brexit maniacs, because it would have required the UK joining the European FreeTrade Association first, and isolationists can't have any of that. But a reality-based approach involves giving up on the Brexit dogma. Keir Starmer should acknowledge that if Rishi Sunak doesn't.
It is the hubris of rationalism to always attack the prophet, the mystic, the god. It is our blasphemy
which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us.
It takes a team of mad geniuses to hoist one man to the top of the greasy pole.
And once you’re in office, it’s best to sack them before they burn the place down.
(Nicol Trowbridge, The Diplomat, 2023)
There is a narrative taking shape and gathering momentum in the 'progressive' metropolitan punditariat, that Labour must now get ready for a hung Parliament. The only foundation for this is the Sky News feature about the 'general election equivalent' of the English locals. Which I have already debunked as fucking bollocks and is absolutely not supported by the current trend of voting intentions polls. If you look closely at the tail ends of the trendlines, you see a slight improvement for Labour, a slight decrease for the Conservatives and a continued rise for the Liberal Democrats. Another key argument of theirs is that Labour would need 123 gains for a majority, and there is no way this can happen. Only it has, and more, six times in the past 125 years. 1906, 1924, 1929, 1931, 1945 and 1997. January 1910, 1918 and 1935 came very close too, with more than 100 seats switching to the opposition. I'm not indulging in confirmation bias here, as there is also evidence that FPTP can indeed spawn a hung Parliament, and has done so seven times in 125 years (January 1910, October 1910, 1923, 1929, February 1974, 2010, 2017). Of course polls did not predict a hung Parliament in 2017, but they did in 2010, so there is no solid case for disregarding current polls, that predict a sizeable Labour majority.
Under current voting patterns, that include strong Labour gains in Scotland, Wales and London, Labour's lead could even shrink by 10% in the rest of England and they would still win the election with a slim majority. I'm not going to give you the Grand Tour today, I will wait until we have some more post-elections polls in store. So far we have seven, conducted over the last ten days, which is a mammoth super-sample of 11,929. Their weighted average predicts Labour leading by 17.2%, so pretty much the same as we had on Election Eve. Or, in more direct terms, absolutely jack shit that would indicate that the electorate is swinging towards hung Parliament territory. Projection, both on the current and on the incoming new boundaries, show Labour closer to a 1997ish landslide than to February 1974, the last time an election delivered a minority Labour government. And, before you ask, only Electoral Calculus offer a 'new boundaries' option available for the general public to play with. It's in the 'Seat boundaries to use' drop-down list.
So you have to wonder, cui bono? Who stands to benefit from peddling a misleading narrative that is not supported by any hard facts? Not even by what actually happened at the English local elections. There are numerous cases where the voters turned on incumbent Conservative Councillors for no other reason than they were Conservatives. So why is it so unbelievable that they would turn on incumbent Conservative MPs for no other reason than they are Conservatives? The stunt is actually hidden in plain sight, as the prophecies of doom and gloom are part of another propaganda piece in favour of proportional representation. Which has, as usual, holes big enough in it to sail John Jellicoe's Grand Fleet through them. How can anyone argue with a straight face that FPTP implies Conservative rule until Hell freezes over, when two of the last four general elections delivered a hung Parliament? That alone shows that the whole argument is fucking bollocks, and that its proponents think the average voter just fell of the turnip cart. The electoral law does not produce or prevent a majority all by itself. There are many other factors at work here. The Scottish vote, the amount of wasted votes in sinkholes, biased boundaries, the geography of the Liberal Democrat vote, to name just a few. And not all favour the Conservatives every time. There is still no solid case for proportional representation, and peddling it every other week with trademark metropolitan punditariat arrogance will surely not make one.
They have so thoroughly colonised the moral high ground, I couldn’t set foot there if I wanted to.
Being British is all about remembering who we are and being proud of it. Not in a fascist way,
but in a little, local, quiet, polite, knitting, how-are-you-over-the-garden-fence tea kind of way.
(Victoria Coren-Mitchell, Room 101, 2012)
Don't forget, clicking on the images gets you larger and easier to read pop-ups.
Thursday, the 4th of May, 2023. Today is Election Day in England, for a shitload of borough councils, district councils, unitary authorities and whatnot. One year out, the 4th of May 2024. Which will also be a Thursday as 2024 is a leap year. And possibly Election Day too. At least, it would have been if Boris Johnson had not single-handedly repealed the Fixed-Term Parliaments Act 2011. But it may still be Election Day anyway, as Rishi Sunak can call a snap election for pretty much any day of the year. Legally, it doesn't even have to be a Thursday. The law just says it has to be 'the 19th day after the last day for delivery of nomination papers', which in turn is 'not later than the sixth day after the date of the dissolution of Parliament'. Or, as the law says in simpler English, 'as soon as practicable after the dissolution of Parliament'. Thursdays are just a convention, though one I would love to see respected this time, just for the fun of the Star Wars-inspired slogans for an election held on Star Wars Day. Anyway, I will do a special on these local elections later. For now let's just see where we start from. In Scottish terms, Metropolitan Boroughs and Unitary Authorities are first-tier local government similar to our Councils, which are actually defined by law as unitary authorities. District Councils are second-tier local government, that existed in Scotland in protohistoric times and have been abolished by the Local Government Act 1994.
This is a massive thing, with 8,063 seats and 230 Councils of all denominations at stake. Plus four mayoral elections in Bedford, Leicester, Mansfield and Middlesbrough. The 11,302 seats in my chart are the total for every Council that holds an election today. But many have only part of their seats up, which explains the difference. Whatever happens at these elections will be dissected through all dimensions by pundits and politicians alike. We can even hope that there will be enough stunning upsets that it will clog the airwaves for many a news cycle, and bury the panto at Westminster Abbey deep down the frontpages. At least, that's what would happen in a real democracy. In true English fashion, these local elections are not part of an actual 'election cycle'. Some Councils are elected in full every four years and some in part every year or every two years. The common feature, though, is that all were also up for election in 2019. Except the few that did not exist back then, or have disappeared since, as the council geography in England is also quite fluid. Anyway the 2019 election will be the media's point of reference for gains, losses and all they might imply for England's electoral cartography in the run-up to the incoming snap general election. Which is why the whole of the Metropolitan Bubble will have microscopes pointed at the results by region, where the representation after the last elections looked like that.
The big difference between Scotland and England is that Council elections in England still use First Past The Post, either in single-member wards or in multi-member wards. Like we did North Of The Wall before the Scottish Parliament switched it to Single Transferable Vote, a bastardised variant of proportional representation that brought chaos and backroom deals to Scottish Councils. What FPTP allows in England is a much clearer identification of each party's power base, ward by ward. This is what the parties will look at and map to assess their potential at a general election, constituency by constituency. This is where all the fun begins, as the new Council maps will certainly collide head-on with the 2019 Commons results in more constituencies than one. I expect a lot of that happening in the South, and probably mostly in the South West. And the most likely scenario is, as I said often earlier, Liberal Democrats bagging a majority of wards in constituencies where Labour came second to the Conservatives in 2019. I guess the council to watch this year will be North Somerset, where the Liberal Democrats and Labour will both want to prove they're the best placed to dislodge Liam Fox at the snap general. Unless an unexpected turn of events shifts national attention to Bracknell Forest in Berkshire, where a 'rogue progressive alliance' may prove its merits. Or not.
Don’t tell me about it, do something about it. That’s exactly what’s wrong with this goddamn country.
Everyone wants to give you their analysis of what’s wrong and why nothing ever goddamn works.
Nobody wants to get of their butt and make the goddamn thing work.
Is there any one so wise as to learn by the experience of others?
(Voltaire)
Now I would be just as derelict of duty as Rishi Sunak if I didn't mention there have been a few voting intentions polls for these locals. And also explain to you why this kind of polling is generally just fucking bullshit and shouldn't be believed. Let's draw some blood first, and go back in time to polls conducted about Council elections in Scotland, in 2012-2017 and 2017-2022, and how they compared with the actual results. There is just a handful of such polls, so you can instantly see they were all massively off. There is a common trait here. Either they failed to ask specifically about independent or localist candidates, or they did and fatally underestimated them. At both elections, this translated into grossly overinflating the SNP's vote share. This led to massive disappointment among SNP supporters both times, not because their candidates did not do better than at the previous elections, but because their expectations had been shaped by massively wrong polls. The same could very well happen to English Labour supporters this year.
I guess the Scottish example is quite convincing, as textbook cases of pollsters treating local elections the same way they would handle a general election, and not factoring in the specifics of local elections. Now we have had three voting intentions polls for today's English Locals, which I will compare to the 2019 votes, as this is the commonly admitted point of reference here. There's one I instantly discard, for reasons you will discover below the chart. The two most recent ones, from Survation and Omnisis, certainly offer a better insight into what we will discover tonight after the dog's last walkies of Election Day, at 23:40 on BBC One. The predicted vote shares, and the swing from the Conservatives to Labour, do not look totally extravagant in the current context. Likewise the weights of the Liberal Democrats and Independents do look credible, mostly because they don't look like what we find in general election polls. But we will know for sure only on Friday, after all wards have declared and the exact results have been compiled, as the BBC have the uncanny habit of reporting 'general election equivalent' votes, which is definitely not what we need here.
Of these three polls, I think Focaldata's can be discarded right away as an example of very poor professionalism. First, they included the SNP and Plaid Cymru in their list of prompts, when everybody with more than one functioning brain cell knows there are no local elections in Scotland or Wales this year. This is reflected in the unusually high vote share for 'Others'. Then they also failed to include an option for local parties and independent candidates, who are a constant feature in local elections. The reason they handled this so poorly is obvious when you read the whole poll from which this is taken. They also polled voting intentions for a general election, and used the same list of prompts for both. On the other hand, both Survation and Omnisis offered options for other parties and independent candidates. They may not have gotten it right, but at least they tried. As all self-respecting pollsters should when polling local elections. And maybe, just maybe, they got it right. The Conservative probably fear just that, as they have definitely switched to panic mode now.
Apparently, I’m better at predicting the future than at remembering the past.
(Hari Seldon, Foundation: Preparing To Live, 2021)
Courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen.
(Winston Churchill)
You remember when the English Government heaved a sigh of relief because they got it done and all these naughty strikes led by Marxist insurrectionists would be ending soon? Wahey! Only they didn't and they haven't. Quite the opposite in fact. Nurses and junior doctors, who had suspended strikes as a show of goodwill during pay talks, are at it again because the pay offers were fucking jokes. And now senior civil servants are putting some pressure on their Whitehall masters too. Everybody who thought it was a good idea to give RMT the pay rise they asked for, even when their strike had become unpopular, surely should have known better than to mishandle popular strikes such as those in the NHS. Which are only the tip of the iceberg and the revelators of much deeper structural problems that even Wes Streeting won't solve by dumping the overload on the private sector. So now the strategy seems to be to make the doctors and nurses unpopular. By unleashing the NHS Trusts' managers in the media, pushing the message that the strikes put patients in harm's way, and then asking YouGov to check the results. First the part of the poll about the junior doctors, and whether or not their strike is a risk to patients' safety.
It's a bit odd to seek opinions from Wales and Scotland, when the strikes are happening in England only. And also quite a paradox in the polling itself, as it compounds all variants of possible NHS appointments and procedure in one umbrella question, while the reality and nature of potential risk is obviously different from one to the other. But whatever floats your boots, mates, so long as it looks like supporting the English Government's claims. Junior doctors of course disagree with the English Government's fearmongering, and stress that a long strike is something of a last resort, hoping their bosses will at last see some sense after a decade of real-terms pay cuts and unpaid overtime. YouGov then asked their panel how they assess the level of potential risk created by the nurses' strikes and, quite predictably, the results are not significantly different.
There is a real risk now that the strikes in NHS England will last longer than anyone, doctors and nurses first, really want. The Royal College of Nursing (RCN) are even ready for months of strike, from one Winter Of Discontent to the next. A third-party mediation could probably help progress towards an acceptable solution for all parties involved, though it will take more than that to actually solve the underlying problems. Obviously, one of the short-term prerequisites is that Health Secretary Steve Barclay stops stonewalling the NHS staff and their unions, and admits they have a legitimate claim to be listened to. Because, despite giving in to the government's negative messaging, the public knows who's to blame for that. When asked, a significant majority disapprove of the way the English Government is handling the pay negotiations in the public sector.
There is certainly no easy obvious way to end such massive industrial action as has been announced, spreading from April into May and then some. I think the English Government would be wrong to base their whole strategy on an hypothetical 'dispute fatigue' on the NHS staff's side, despite The Guardian making their case for them. Not when the major unions keep repeating that unity in action pays, and have the outcome of other pay disputes to prove it. There is still some hope though which, as always with Conservatives, doesn't come from a sense of duty to the public, but from instinct for self-preservation. If we had got just a few polls proving that the English Government's attitude towards NHS England's staff would hurt them at the local elections, then the RCN would have got the deal their members want, and the junior doctors could hope being at least and at last heard. You know what to do, England. Just don't be discouraged by the last minute Election Eve deal, that will probably defuse only part of the conflict.
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
In any moment of decision, the best thing you can do is the right thing,
the next best thing is the wrong thing and the worst thing you can do is nothing.
(Theodore Roosevelt)
Of course YouGov, always eager to please and own both sides of the road, swiftly conducted another poll that was much more to the taste of the strikers and their unions, piggybacking it on one of their generic voting intentions polls. It was in fact the new episode of YouGov's Strike Tracker, through which they kept us appraised of the public's mood about strikes, disturbances and whatnot. Contrary to Rishi Sunak's expectations, the negative messaging doesn't really work. The public are still massively supportive of NHS staff and teachers going on strike. Airport and university staff fail the test though, but they were never a real success in earlier polls either. And the optics that count are of course those about the NHS and education, the two sectors where strikes are more likely to be massive, and also more likely to create significant disruption for the public. Yet support does not falter.
There is a likely scenario now, where the pay deal offered to the posties strengthens the nurses' and junior doctors' resolve and wipes away any hypothetical 'dispute fatigue'. They will also feel vindicated by the follow-up question in the YouGov poll, asking their panel whether they consider the junior doctors' demands reasonable or not. Bear in mind that they're asking for 35%, arguing that it would just make up for a decade of real-term pay cuts. Of course, Jeremy Hunt and Steve Barclay are adamant this is abhorrently unreasonable and would hurt England's economy worse than, say, Kwasi Kwarteng's voodoo economics. And now comes the moment when Rishi Sunak regrets encouraging Brits to study more maths. Because, if you do the actual maths, you find out that 35% is in fact a yearly 2.35% pay rise over ten years. Basic reverse compound interests calculation, and that does not sound unreasonable at all now. Lots of Brits would sign up for that, and that's surely why half are willing to support the junior doctors' demand.
Authoritative sources from within NHS England claim that 195,000 'hospital cancellations' happened due to one week of junior doctors strikes. As no hospitals were actually cancelled, it was alternatively described as 200,000 hospital appointments and procedures cancelled. Give or take. Thanks to YouGov, we can compare that to the proportion of their panel who say they had treatment delayed, rescheduled of effected by the strikes. Which is a colossal 11%, with a 20% peak in London. Which we should be able to correlate with statistics of NHS hospital activity, to assess the plausibility of the widely publicised number of cancellations.
Believe it or not, it's nigh impossible to find comprehensive statistics about NHS England's activity. To do so, you would have to combine statistics from different sources, which are often incompatible because they don't fit the same reporting template. Or they might be confusing as they provide too much information, plausibly deliberately, with no way to extract the relevant information to answer a very specific question. What we know, from an official report published by the House of Commons Library, is that there were 29.5 million GP appointments in England in January 2023. The most recent statistics, from NHS England themselves, state there were 27.3 million in February 2023. Statistics about hospital activity are also covered by layers of smoke and mirrors. My best estimate, also from NHS England's statistics, is 4.5 million acts in February 2023, not counting A&E. If we apply the ratios of 'effected treatments' from the YouGov poll, that would mean 400,000 to 500,000 acts would be impacted in a month. Which makes the 200,000-a-week figure probably a wee smitch overblown for effect, but nevertheless possible. We may just need more readily available, reliable and easily understandable NHS statistics to be sure.
Well, perhaps I should have said “dissemble”, not “lie”.
I don’t need to remind you politics requires a certain agility in that regard.
Arguments must be crude, clear and forcible, and appeal to emotions and instincts, not the intellect.
Truth was unimportant and entirely subordinate to tactics and psychology.
(Josef Goebbels)
I still can't believe what happened to me in Middle March. And you won't believe it either when you read it. I fucking missed a fucking poll. And one that could have earned significant historical significance if everybody hadn't missed it. It was fielded by Find Out Now on behalf of the Constitution Society, and then processed by Electoral Calculus, and none of them made any visible fuss about it. Just imagine Jimmy Carter digging up King Tut, then burying him back and welding the front door to the Pyramid shut. That's what happened to that fucking poll, mates. First remember it was fielded when Labour still enjoyed stratospheric leads over the Conservatives. So don't focus on the numbers themselves, but on the differences between the numbers in the poll's two alternative realities. The baseline is the real world were Labour still think it is a smart move to promise to Make Brexit Work. Here are the voting intentions Find Out Now found out then across Great Britain, with the detail by nation, and region within England. And, as I said earlier, don't focus on the 26% lead, this happened a long time ago, and that's not the most important part of the story.
The alternative timeline is one where Labour agree to agree with the majority of the British people that Brexit was a fucking disaster that should never have been allowed to happen, just say so and campaign on that. And it does pay dividends, as Labour would then have increased their lead to 28% GB-wide. The details show that they would lose votes in all three regions of the North of England, but gain more than needed to make up for that in Scotland, Wales and the other six regions of England. Interestingly, this alternative scenario would leave the Conservative and Reform UK votes almost unchanged. But Labour would snatch votes off the other Europhile parties, the SNP, LibDems and Greens in various proportions. From all except, remarkably, Plaid Cymru.
The whole point of the poll is of course to find out how it translates into seats, and what bonus Labour would bag if it confronted reality instead of cuddling delusion. Electoral Calculus estimated a net gain of 23 seats. My model says 32. Labour would be so far ahead in the North of England that losing votes would only marginally lose seats, two each in the North East and Yorkshire. There would be no change in Wales, the North West, West Midlands, London and East Anglia. But gains ranging from minimal in the East Midlands (+3) to spectacular in Scotland (+10), the South East (+11) and the South West (+12). Or where the reserves of Europhile votes are at their highest, either from the SNP or the Liberal Democrats.
It's quite easy to reconstruct the thought patterns of Europhile progressive-minded voters here. Chose the biggest player to boost the chances of a Europhile government in SW1. And also boost the chances of a clean break from Conservatism, with a stronger reform-minded left-wing government in charge. You kill two turds with one scone, et complevit est. I can also think of many reasons why this poll did not get the media coverage it deserved, even from those who paid for it. It would have been unthinkable to force Sir Softy to channel his inner Saul and go full Brexit Bad. You just can't drag Keir Starmer out of his comfort zone against his will, and the pretence that he can Make Brexit Work is the epicentre of that zone, since Peter Mandelson and his focus groups have convinced him that's what Andy Capp wants to hear. As if the Baron of Foy would have the fuckiest scoobie about what the good people of Hartlepool think. Errr... wait... checks notes... should he?
If you repeat a lie often enough, people will believe it. You will even come to believe it yourself.
Bring me your soul, bring me your hate, in my name you will create
Bring me your fear, bring me your pain, you will destroy in my name
I am dark matter, your odds are ruined, I am dark matter, I'm your undoing
(Les Friction, Dark Matter, 2017)
I have to admit that I was wrong when I accused Sue-Ellen Braverman of racist dogwhistling. Because it wasn't that at all, it was racist trumpeting. Like the proverbial elephant in a china shop. Which, as you all know, is French for the bull in a china shop. Now even her own MPs have to admit that Sue-Ellen is a fucking disgrace, and chastise her for giving the Conservative brand a bad name. Which of course Boris Johnson never did, as he never uttered any offensive bigoted bullshit, did he? Then Sue-Ellen thought it was brave and stunning to double down on it, by attacking her own police force for removing golliwog dolls from a pub in Essex. Which also caused quite an uproar, that Sue-Ellen will have a hard time painting as a 'woke culture war', when even police chiefs and a prominent Conservative peer are openly saying she's unfit for the job. Now there is a fun side to the story as our mates at YouGov felt they had a moral obligation to poll their panel about the Essex golliwogs. In a very weird way, as they first published it as two separate polls, withdrew them from the site after two hours, and them brought them back two days later as one poll. Go figure. Then what does the British public actually think of the golliwogs?
Quite incredibly, the British public are split about the acceptability of selling or displaying golliwogs in a public place. The political, sex and age divides are quite clear here, but I have the uneasy feeling that YouGov are also trying to insidiously prove a class divide here. YouGov routinely use social grades in their crosstabs, but almost never the education level. So why add it here, if not to engineer some divide between an educated middle class and a neanderthalian working class? Which is a very unsubtle way to add insult to injury. Of course you have to admit that the definition of 'acceptable' may vary across the demographics, especially in a country where there is a high level of tolerance to drag queens in primary schools and Sam Smith. Then YouGov drills to the core of the issue for you, asking their panel if they consider selling and displaying golliwogs racist. And the results here are probably why YouGov withdrew the poll and then reinstated it, as they probably thought they had got the numbers wrong and double-checked. But, sadly, they had got it right the first time.
This one is even more flabbergasting than the first one. I definitely have to channel my Inner Woke here. If this is not racist, then what is? And having another pub, in the backwaters of Eastern Norfolk, also proudly selling them, does not make it less racist or more acceptable. The divides shown in the crosstabs are pretty much the same as with the first question. Then you have to wonder if there isn't some underlying logical continuity here. I am not a believer in 'symbols of oppression' or 'micro aggression', but you have to be a really horrible person to think displaying racist dolls is right. As horrible as Sue-Ellen. Labour could have just sat back and let the story unfold, to their benefit, but they can't help it. Every time the Conservatives do something fucking stupid, Labour have to do something fucking stupid in return. And here come the attack ads. Action, reaction, implosion. Omnisis submitted a list of prepared remarks to their panel, and asked them to select which one best describes their reaction to the infamous ads. Here is what they found, crosstabbed with current voting intentions, which are more relevant in this case than pas votes.
That's definitely not a resounding success for Labour's spads, or focus groups. Or whoever thought the first ad was a stroke of genius, and they had to double down, and then treble down on it. And Labour definitely needed Wes Streeting's unique talent here to defend Starmer, when Yvette Cooper, Angela Rayner and The Hipstershire Gazette's editorial team wouldn't. The Omnisis poll even showed that the ads were a vote killer for Labour, with those less likely to vote Labour outnumbering those more likely to do so. In case Starmer had not got the memo loud and clear, it was promptly confirmed by a few voting intentions polls, that saw Labour drifting down and dangerously close to Hung Parliament territory. Of course, it's not my place to say which one is the most horrifically abhorrent. "Woke Councils go soft on BAME grooming gangs" or "BAME Prime Minister goes soft on paedos and mass shooters". The British public are definitely playing the both-sidesism card here, which for once is justified.
I think it's very sad. But it's politics.
I mean it's a bit like in The Godfather, when they do unspeakable things.
We don't care how his friends and his ideas are doing! What we are interested in is to
prevent them from doing what they are doing, if they are not prevented from doing so.
(Anonymous Antifa on Twitter)
The current trend of general election polls is quite disappointing for Labour. The end section definitely looks flaccid, and Keir Starmer must urgently look for some electoral viagraing. He may have it with the evacuation of British nationals from Khartoum, which looks bound to be even more shambolic than Kabul. First, British authorities missed a window of opportunity, during which France not only evacuated their own nationals, but dozens from other countries. Then, Ben Wallace had to admit the British military had to beg for help from Germany, unless they missed other opportunities to evacuate before it was too late. There is no shame in shaming the English Government for this, no matter how much Rishi and Ben pretend to be offended by it, when we have evidence that France, Germany and even Greece handled this highly hazardous situation more professionally and more efficiently than Britain. This may come at the right moment for Sly Keir because, ye ken, Labour's PR operation has not been at its best recently, with the Sunak ads and whatnot. So they would be foolish not to grab the opportunity to get back on their high horse and make that trendline look sexy again.
It is indeed quite comforting to still find some reefs of stability amidst the present ocean of chaos. Like Labour doing their best to wreck their own brand, and then the Conservatives saving their arse by doing even worse. Take Dominic Raab resigning for being a bully while forehead-vein-throbbingly denying ever having been a bully. Or Rishi Sunak appointing Oliver Dowden as Deputy Prime Minister and Alex Chalk as Justice Secretary. Which only makes you wonder if all Rishi has left is scraping the bottom of the barrel, or if the barrel has no bottom at all. This on the same Friday when Solihull MP Julian Knight became the 46th MP overall, and 33rd Conservative so far, to stand down at the incoming snap election. Because his feelings were hurt by malicious accusations about acts with a full entry in the Criminal Code, which he is adamant he has never committed, though there is an ongoing investigation into them, which is why I can't possibly comment. But I can comment on Raab, just to say I was deeply disappointed he did not argue 'strong manly leadership' as an exonerating circumstance. That alone would have made my day complete.
Take a moment. Soak in the glory. God knows it won’t be like this on Game Day.
(Olivia Pope, How To Get Away With Murder: Lahey v. Pennsylvania, 2018)
By a divine instinct men’s minds mistrust ensuing danger,
As by proof we see the water swell before a boist’rous storm.
(Third Citizen, Richard III, Act II, Scene III, 1592)
We've reached these weird crossroads in the space-time continuum now, where compassionate conservatism has the face of Margaret Thatcher and hard-line conservatism reads directly from Enoch Powell's playbook. Some of them even go back to Oswald Mosley for inspiration, while the progressive alternative looks like their select political literature comes straight out of ChatGPT. Not the most exciting choice for the incoming snap general, innit? Yet, people still seem ready to vote in large numbers, despite the English Government doing their best to lower the turnout in constituencies that don't vote 'the right way', even when evidence says there were fewer fraudulent votes at the last election than Tory MPs currently suspended from their party. With all the evidence put before them, Brits massively approve the photo-ID law. Possibly because they have also been told it already exists in Northern Ireland, and is pretty much standard practice in Continental Europe. Then today's locals in England will tell us how well the plan works, or doesn't. In the meanwhile, here's today's snapshot of voting intentions across This Isle and its Three Nations, with the Imperial Capital as a side order to the main course of England.
This Poll'o'Polls is based on the last four GB-wide polls, fielded by Opinium, Omnisis, Redfield & Wilton and Deltapoll between 26 April and 2 May. We have a super-sample of 6,648, with a 1.2% theoretical margin of error. I have not included data for Northern Ireland, as there has been no polling so far there for the incoming snap general. So we are left with the probably false assumption that voting patterns haven't changed there in three years. Or at least, have changed so little that it would not change the current allocation of Commons seats, that the proposed new boundaries have struggled so much to preserve. But we might get some useful hints from the results of the Council elections, which will be held in Northern Ireland in two weeks. Of course, any direct transposition to a general election would not be valid, as Councils are elected there on the bastardised variant of proportional representation known as Single Transferable Vote. Which makes quite a joke of the alleged proportionality of the allocation of seats, as it incites tactical voting and also triggers candidacies from fringe parties that would never stand for a Commons seat as they would be assured to lose their deposits. Nevertheless there might be some interesting news in there, like switches from Sinn Féin to the SDLP, the UUP to the DUP, the DUP to more radicalised Unionist parties, or more likely from both sides to the Alliance Party. Watch this space for more at a later date.
No one with the temperament to win a campaign should be in charge of anything.
It’s the most obvious rule in the world. No one who likes power should ever have it.
I am not an MP for any reason other than because God wants me to be. There is nothing I did that
got me here. It is what God did. There is nothing amazing about me, I am just a conduit for God to use.
(Nadine Dorries)
This week's seat projection remains massively good for the Labour Party, despite their lead shrinking. But this owes a lot to Scotland, where the SNP are close to eligibility as an endangered species. The Scottish seat projection here mostly reflects a new Full Scottish from Redfield & Wilton, revealed just in time for inclusion here, that sent many a head reeling at Bute House and Holyrood. The goriest details will come in a wee moment down the road. Then I think we should all commend Humza Yousaf for his successful attempts to live up to expectations and be remembered as The Chosen One who helped Labour again becoming first party this side of Gretna Green. Quite remarkably, Labour remain dominant in London and Wales, and successful in the rest of England. Despite Keir Starmer's transition from the reincarnation of Tony Blair to a very convincing John Major tribute act. Or could it be because of it?
The seat projection based on the incoming new boundaries is not much different from the one based on the current and soon-defunct ones. On this week's numbers, Labour are predicted to bag a 151-seat working majority on the current boundaries, or a 155-seat working majority on the new ones. More than enough to make Keir Starmer a happy bunny for the rest of the week. Quite remarkably, Labour is here predicted to bag 340 seats in England on the current boundaries, and 349 seats on the hew ones. So they wouldn't even need Scotland and Wales, which they will still get anyway, for a majority. But there are hints that Keir Starmer is embarking on a risky strategy, that would include taking the Northern working class vote for granted, while cuddling both the Metropolitan blue-haired hipsters' bubble and the centrist middle-class Commuter Belt electorate. That it seems to be working thus far does not mean it will last until the incoming snap general. Especially with Starmer reneging on pledges that were popular with the TikTok generation, and sending his Ninth Circle into a tailspin about it. Guess we will have to take a closer look at results in University towns' Councils now.
Labour are certainly aware of this sort of projection. After all, they have access to all the polls, probably before we have, and they know how to use Electoral Calculus. Then who doesn't? So they know they have to be seen actually talking to the common people, which is why some of them have even been spotted campaigning for the English locals. In Plymouth, where the Council is led by a Conservative minority administration, and where Labour are targeting Minister for Veterans Affairs Johnny Mercer in the Moor View constituency. Mercer is sitting on a 13k majority there, making it typically the kind of seat Labour was certain to gain two months ago, but could easily elude them on a mediocre performance. Labour are also obviously aware that even their buddies at The Hipstershire Gazette believe they should up their game, as piecemeal gains in Councils here and there are just not enough. What will help is that the 2019 locals, which will be the benchmark for this year's, were not that good for Labour, in the middle of Theresa May's Brexit Debacle, and just weeks before the unnecessary European Parliament election that brought the Brexit Party to the frontpages. But 2019 was also a low point for the Conservatives, as Theresa May's antics proved to be a strong vote-killer, so some sort of weak recovery can't be ruled out either, even with Rishi Sunak's antics threatening to be strong vote-killers. That would set the stage for a more difficult snap general for Labour.
Ah me! I see the ruin of my house. The tiger now hath seized the gentle hind.
Welcome, destruction, blood, and massacre. I see, as in a map, the end of all.
(Queen Elizabeth, Richard III, Act II, Scene IV, 1592)
What's the opposite of Midas Touch? Because that's my gift of turning everything around me into ass.
(Annalise Keating, How To Get Away With Murder: Stay, 2020)
I just can't believe what has happened in the proverbial Preferred Prime Minister polling. When I told you three weeks ago that 'None Of The Above' would soon be the people's choice, it was a joke. Just a fucking joke. And now it's fucking happening. Both Keir Starmer and Rishi Sunak have taken a nosedive in the latest batch of these polls, with Neither going into an exponential climb. Unfickingbelievable. Like a lot of things that have happened recently in British politics, to be honest. Is there a consensus among politicians that all this has to turn into a fucking clown show before the snap general? Looking at them, you'd definitely think so. The only one who seems to be taking matters seriously these days is Ed Davey. Who is seriously campaigning for the locals in the South of England, so the LibDems can bag serious gains, and he can then dangle the list under Keir Starmer's nose and dare Labour to grant him 50 gainable seats. Maybe the pollsters should add Ed to their list of potential Preferred Prime Ministers and see where the trendlines go.
The problem with Rishi and Keir, one that the British public must be painfully aware of, is that neither is ready and willing to own his side of the road. But they dug all the potholes themselves and people expect them to fix them. I totally understand why this is happening to Rishi Sunak. Nobody likes a man who sounds like he's perpetually taking the piss at PMQs, and not even enjoying it. But what has Keir Starmer done to you? Other than pushing the Labour Party to the right of the Liberal Democrats, that is. The Hipstershire Gazette might try and somewhat lipstick the pig about what the latest Opinium poll, that they commissioned themselves, is saying. But they can't really deny what the poll found, that the British public are split three ways about New New Labour on almost every defining trait. One third like what they see, one third don't, and one third have no opinion. That's the split you find on the most relevant question, when the public are asked whether or not they think Labour is ready for government. We've seen more enthusiastic endorsements before, haven't we?
Cast-iron certainty comes to very few. Not being certain speaks in your favour.
Certainty comes to those nutters who stand on orange crates in Hyde Park on Sunday mornings.
We’re not a family, we’re a screwed-up toxic waste dump of dysfunction.
(Connor Walsh, How To Get Away With Murder: I'm Not Her, 2017)
Turns out I was wrong last time, when I said there were no Northern Ireland polls. Because YouGov just fielded one. In England, Scotland and Wales. A poll about Northern Ireland, that surveyed nobody in Northern Ireland. Aye, richt. The issue surveyed was the eventuality of a Border Poll, which is shorthand for a referendum held in Northern Ireland about Irish Reunification. It was first mentioned in Section 1 and Schedule 1 of the Good Friday Agreement, later incorporated into primary legislation as Part I and Schedule 1 of the Northern Ireland Act 1998. Compared to Scotland, the upside is that a referendum can be legally held once every seven years, which looks like an acceptable definition of 'once in a generation'. The downside is that there is no equivalent to Section 30 of the Scotland Act, and calling a Border Poll is entirely at the discretion of the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. YouGov first asked their non-Irish panel whether or not they think a Border Poll should happen at all. And didn't get a straight answer.
The answers here are quite inconclusive, which probably wouldn't have been the case if the same question had been asked in Northern Ireland. But there has been no recent polling there either. The last two such polls were held in 2015 and 2017, and had 51% and 62% respectively in favour of the Border Poll. Interestingly the Welsh, Scots and Londoners are more supportive than the rest of This Isle. Is there a movement for London's Independence that we were never told about? Then YouGov asked their non-Irish panel what they think Northern Ireland voters should do if there ever was a Border Poll. I won't even call that paternalistic or Anglo-centric or imperialistic or whatever, because YouGov probably saw nothing wrong in asking, and felt it was totally proper. Then I guess we would have to find some appropriate equivalent of 'mansplaining' that would fit this situation.
It's quite reassuring that a massive majority said that it's none of their business, and I would love to see the same pattern when Englanders are asked about Scottish Independence. It's also quite endearing to see the Welsh and Scots again more supportive of their Celtic Brethren that the rest. And Londoners too. Oddly there has also been little polling on this in Northern Ireland, far less than in Scotland about Independence. And what we have does not show an appetite for reunification, even among the younger generation. The point is moot anyway as the successive Northern Ireland Secretaries have never indicated an inclination to actually call a Border Poll and the current one is unlikely to feel otherwise. Not in the run-up of a snap general election. Not while the DUP's pig-headedness about a genetically pure Brexit paralyses the Northern Ireland Assembly and nullifies the power-sharing agreement. That would probably only change if we had a succession of polls with a majority for reunification over a substantial-as-a-Scotch-Egg period of time. Finally, just for the fun of it, YouGov asked their non-Irish panel how they would feel if Northern Ireland chose to join the Republic of Ireland.
The middle 'neutral' option was actually phrased as "It wouldn't bother me either way". But my stronger wording is certainly more representative of what the average Englander really thinks, and possibly many a Scot too. Again Scots and Londoners are more likely to wish Northern Ireland godspeed and fair winds if they chose to go their own way, so Londoners might not be such bad guys after all. Then I fail to see the point of that poll, which is a YouGov internal and not commissioned by anyone. But the first priority right now is not philosophising about reunification, but strongarming the DUP to stop playing fucking mind games, and come back to Stormont with a good faith agenda. Which would require the current Northern Ireland Secretary to be more assertively performative and proactive. His name is Chris Heaton-Harris, and don't worry, I drew a blank too and had to look it up. His Doppelgänger (proper German spelling here) in the Shadow Cabinet is Peter Kyle from Hove, which is about as far away from Belfast as you can get while still standing on English dry land. And I had to look it up too. Next step is some solid polling about Northern Ireland's voting intentions at the incoming snap general, preferably ahead of it being called. Fingers crossed.
Sometimes I look up and watch my brother the ocean with friendship. He feigns infinity.
But I know that he too comes up against his limits everywhere.
And that is why, no doubt, all this tumult, all this commotion.
There's a world of chances waiting, pack your bags and come with me
I'm not telling you it's easy, it's not simple, it takes time
You gotta fight to get your piece of the pie and eat it in the sweet sunshine
(Alec Dalglish, Magic Numbers, 2012)
We now have two more Full Scottish polls from YouGov and Redfield & Wilton, just a month after both fielded their previous one. And it's a once-in-a-generation understatement to say that both fucking stink to Hell and high water and back for The Continuity First Minister. YouGov last polled Scotland two weeks before Humza Yousaf's anointment, and Redfield & Wilton a week after. Both now show significant slumps for the SNP, testifying to the absolute pig's breakfast Humza has made of his new temp job. The only positive part in this mess is that the pro-Independence vote at an hypothetical second Independence referendum is pretty much unclutched from the SNP vote. Though Redfield & Wilton offer a sombrer view of this than YouGov. The SNP is the vehicle for Independence like the Mayflower was once the vehicle to America, but now's the time for jet aircraft. And now we need some sort of political jetpack to break the nosedive into a downward spiral the Yes vote has taken since the Scottish Government knowingly sabotaged Martin Keatings' case against Section 30.
Of twenty IndyRef polls fielded since the English Government invoked Section 35, only two showed Yes in the lead. Of fourteen fielded since Nicola Sturgeon handed her notice, only one showed Yes in the lead. Of six fielded since Humza Yousaf won the SNP's Best In Show, none shows Yes in the lead. Of course, that's somewhat of a mute point so long as the only vote that counts is Rishi Sunak's, or Keir Starmer's a few months out, and both are a solid No. But YouGov did not limit their investigation to the voting intentions, they also inspected the Scottish public's views on the when and how of the second Independence Referendum. Comparison between these and the current snapshot of voting intentions is quite enlightening.
Despite all the doom and gloom, there is one encouraging answer in here. Aye, you read it right and I didn't mix up the numbers. An outright majority of Scots think that the Scottish Government should not 'need to get permission' from the English Government to hold an Independence referendum. YouGov's wording, not mine, of course. But this means jack shit in the grand scheme of things, as the Scotland Act won't amend itself to accommodate the democratic will of the Scottish people, will it? There are fewer reasons to be cheerful in the other two questions. There is no appetite for an instant referendum, so consider your schedule cleared for 19 October, if you hadn't already got the memo. But the prospect of pushing to some time within the next five years is more of a mixed bag. Maybe the next poll should ask separately for every year between 2024 and 2050, to see where we really are on this. I think this 'in the next five years' thing has got pretty much the same answer since it started being asked, which was something like five years ago, wasn't it? It has become our horizon. That thing that proverbially moves away while you're walking towards it.
When things aren't going your way and you're staring at the ground
Just look to the sky and search for all the things that should be found
It's all gone quite sexy now, hasn't it? The SNP. With like, lies, police uniforms.
I'm interested now. Because Happy Valley's finished. I need something to get my teeth into.
(Lucy Beaumont, Have I Got News For You?, 21 April 2023)
Some of those commenting on the SNP's current downward spiral have compared it to the Canadian Conservatives, who suffered the worst electoral defeat in Canadian history in 1993, and then were reborn and came back to power in 2006. The only problem is that this miracle happy-ever-after story is a myth. The Progressive Conservative Party of Canada, as they were officially known, never recovered from the 1993 debacle, and they simply disappeared in 2003. What remained of them was absorbed by the Canadian Alliance, who later rebranded themselves as the current Conservative Party of Canada. The original PCP dissolved into a more radical party started from the same ideological bases, who were only too happy to fabricate the 'rebirth' myth for their own benefit. In Scottish terms, that wouldn't be the SNP phoenixing after years away from power, but the Alba Party absorbing the remains of the SNP, and relaunching a more radical and historic brand of pro-Independence politics, without all the opportunistic compromises with more 'hip' ideologies. This being said, let's see how the SNP's prospects for the next Holyrood election have improved over the last three weeks. If 'improved' is the right word here.
The updated trends of voting intentions for the next Holyrood election only confirm what we already knew. Labour and the SNP are on a collision course, and the SNP are losing that fight. Even the proverbial 'incumbency bonus', that may have been just another 'social construct', has now vanished into the fifth dimension as the SNP's vote share on the Holyrood constituencies tends to align on their Westminster vote share. Which is not good news, as a lot of Scots have convinced themselves that switching to Labour at the incoming snap general is the safest way of kicking the Tories' arse and getting a 'progressive' government in SW1. This is quite delusional when the 'progressive' thing here is Starmer's New New Labour, but it works. And makes the Holyrood seat projection from the latest Redfield & Wilton poll quite bleak, whether I use my model or the historic Uniform National Swing. The pro-Independence majority is lost by a wide margin, nine seats short. Or, in more direct terms, a 17-seat Unionist majority. Even a higher vote share for the Greenies can't avoid a fucking disaster of asteroid crash magnitude.
We already know that polling is also a matter of optics, but the way The Scottish Pravda spun the earlier YouGov poll is fucking hilarious. I'm not saying they deliberately misled their readers with a triumphant headline about preserving the pro-Independence majority. Only that it was quite disingenuous of them to bury the numbers deep down in their article, hoping nobody would notice they predicted just a one-seat majority. Which, no matter how much you lipstick that pig, would already have been a massive blow for the Yellow-Green Axis. This week, they were in real haste to bury their article about the Redfield & Wilton poll very deep down their frontpage, just above the essential news that a Scot has been banned for life by an airline for being a drunken arse. When the only 'good news' you have is that Scots prefer Humza Yousaf as First Minister over Douglas Ross, it just shows how desperate you are to deny that the fucking house is already burning down to the ground. Then seeing the once-respected and once-beloved Paul Kavanagh turning all schmoozily sycophantic on the Scottish Greens did not really convince me to take The National seriously again. Now these bleak electoral prospects have a lot to do with how strongly the Scottish public trust the SNP on some key issues, and it does not look good either.
YouGov surveyed their Scottish panel on the level of confidence they have in the current Scottish Government's handling of four key issues, that will obviously be part of everyone's narrative at the next Holyrood election. It would be another Very English Understatement to say that there is quite a difference between SNP voters and the average Scot. But even SNP voters are not 100% behind the Scottish Government, and some are probably just believing that the SNP are the least bad in an array of bad choices. Because it would be even worse with the other lot, and Anas Sarwar hasn't done anything to disprove this belief. But the SNP should also be careful what they campaign on. "It's still better here than in England" won't always be the magic spell they think it is, as the YouGov poll also says that only 30% of Scots think Scotland has become a better place to live since 2014, while 36% think it has become worse. The way Humza Yousaf is trying to distance himself from Sturgeon's legacy is still mostly cosmetic, with no genuine change of direction. Not enough to dispel the Scottish public's first bad impression of him, with only 19% thinking he is doing well as First Minister, and a bruising 39% thinking he is incompetent and indecisive. Fucking ouch.
The optics of that are he looks like a fucking idiot. Around here, we call that Tuesday.
I'm calling this shot. We"re early in this battle, and you don't bust out
your dragon until you get to King's Landing and are prepared to sack the Red Keep.
(Tegan Price, How To Get Away With Murder: Let's Hurt Him, 2020)
Humza Yousaf was barely done with his first FMQs, which were a success only because anyone fighting against Douglas Ross always wins, no matter how weak their case is. And he triggered the nuclear option, taking the English Government to court over the Section 35 Order they had invoked to block Royal Assent to the Gender Recognition Reform (GRR) Bill. Just some days before, he had promised he wouldn't do that until he had received legal advice on it, and had obviously received some very smartly worded one from Patrick Harvie and Lorna Slater, those well known experts in constitutional law. I have mentioned the Scottish public's attitude to the Section 35 Order already, but it's worth summing it up one last time. From the two Panelbase polls that surveyed it six weeks apart, offering their panel a choice of three options, reportedly the same offered by the English Government to the Scottish Government, to try and defuse the current Lothian Missile Crisis. The opposition to the challenge grew significantly over time, even among SNP voters but, true to form, the Scottish Government didn't listen.
This debate is directly linked to a quintessentially British problem, the dogma of Parliamentary Sovereignty, which is like the English variant of Papal Infallibility. The direct consequence is that the Supreme Court of the United Kingdom does not have genuine powers of judicial review, unlike foreign courts like the Supreme Court of the United States, the French Conseil Constitutionnel or the German Bundesverfassungsgericht. These three, as many others worldwide, have the power to strike down primary legislation if it is found to violate the country's constitution. Which can't happen in the UK because, you got it, we don't have an actual constitution. And that conveniently makes all primary legislation, or Acts of Parliament in common English, totally immune to any form of legal challenge. Except when they are found in violation of the European Convention on Human Rights, which the English Government, not coincidentally, want to 'free' us from. Now the Scottish Government are trying to extend that domestic immunity to acts of the Scottish Parliament that would violate the terms of devolution, more precisely the frontier between reserved and devolved matters. Because that's 'the democratic will' of the Parliament, or so they say. Before the decision was made to challenge the Section 35 Order, Survation tried to find a way for Humza Yousaf to save face, using the idea of legal advice that had been introduced by Humza himself during the leadership challenge. And the results were not better than in earlier polls.
The generational and political divides here are quite what you might expect, and of course don't answer the actual question. It's more like people again taking a stand on the GRR Bill itself, or the belief in the infallibility of the Scottish Parliament. Of course Humza reneged on his promise to seek legal advice, and now this is bound to have far more far-reaching consequences that the fate of the GRR Act. You can have a philosophical debate about whether or not a whipped vote is genuinely the 'democratic will' of Parliament. Or you can oppose it with the 'democratic will' of the people, which is probed daily by opinion polls, and could formally be surveyed by referendums on the more controversial issues of the day. English and Scottish legislation sets no limits on which issues can be submitted to a referendum, only the technicality that they must be issues over which the House of Commons or the Scottish Parliament have power to legislate. Which pretty much covers everything from an international treaty to the Highway Code. The only caveat is that referendums are not legally binding, but there is a consensus that they are politically binding, which has pretty much the same effect. These are issues that should be at the core of a Scottish Constitutional Convention, because the only way to Get Indy Done Right is to start with the basics. A written Scottish Constitution, validated by the people in a referendum.
We never talked about men or clothes. It was always Marx, Lenin and revolution. Real girls' talk.
As we've seen at Westminster, the herd instinct is powerful, and when the herd moves, it moves.
And, my friends, in politics no one is remotely indispensable.
(Boris Johnson, Resignation speech, 7 July 2022)
I have already unveiled how the SNP would fare at the next Commons election, based on today's snapshot of voting intentions. But it's also worth rolling back the tape to the previous array of Full Scottish polls, and what they said about the snap general North of the Tweed. Six such polls have been fielded in quick succession, by five different England-based pollsters with past experience of Scottish polling, since Humza The Boneless became Jarl of Ystrad Clud and Brynaich. And it's the understatement of the year to say that the whole sequence is fucking shite for the SNP. All of these polls follow the now sadly familiar pattern of the SNP nosediving and Labour surging back, while the Conservatives watch from the sidelines with just a distracted eye on the lowest-hanging fruit that the SNP's fall might hand over to them.
The overall trajectory is that of a 2017ish implosion or worse, and the disturbing ups and downs of the seat projections only reflect the impact of the key factor here, the SNP's lead over Labour. It oscillates between 3.8% and 9.1%, with an average of 6.4%. Which means we are dangerously close to the tipping point where Labour would bag more seats than the SNP. The oddities of Scottish electoral geography mean Labour would not even need to bag more votes. It would already happen if the SNP's lead shrank to 2%. Even before we reach that point, the seat projections prove that the SNP Protection Scheme embedded in the incoming new boundaries no longer works when Labour are closing the gap. Don't even think of denying Labour could regain first party status, as the trend of Full Scottish Westminster polls since 2019 is far from encouraging. It is not just the result of massively biased reporting and commentary from the British MSM. It also has a lot to do with the SNP recently scoring some very embarrassing own goals, and not finding a way to extricate themselves from the web of controversy and criticism they have triggered.
Will it get worse? Or can it only get better? Both scenarios are plausible, though my tenner is on it getting worse until Rishi Sunak at last calls the snap general everybody longs for, even Conservative MPs who only want to be put out of their misery. Humza Yousaf will of course outlast Liz Truss and the lettuce, but possibly not Lord Grenville, who lasted for just 407 days as First Minister of England in 1806-1807 despite leading the Ministry Of All Talents. Yousaf doesn't even have that, and the deadline here is 9 May 2024, or 5 days after the earliest plausible date for the snap general. Which would be quite a neat date for a snap resignation after an electoral drubbing. Or Rishi Sunak might delay the snap general until the last moment, or not call it at all, and then Humza has a remote chance of outlasting Anthony Eden, who lame-ducked after the Suez Debacle for an overall term of 644 days, witch would take Humza spot on to New Year's Day 2025. And I honestly don't expect him to last much longer than that, unless the SNP's Master Plan also includes losing the 2026 Holyrood election. Weirder things have been known to happen, including many we were told could definitely never happen.
By this we are all sustained, our belief in human nature, but our faith diminishes
Close to the finish, we're only serfs and slaves as the empire decays
Fortune is painted blind, with a muffler afore his eyes, to signify to you that Fortune is blind.
And she is painted also with a wheel, to signify to you, which is the moral of it,
that she is turning, and inconstant, and mutability, and variation.
And her foot, look you, is fixed upon a spherical stone, which rolls, and rolls, and rolls.
(Captain Fluellen, Henry V, Act III, Scene VI, 1599)
Last month, Redfield & Wilton finally decided to turn their attention to Wales, and conducted their first ever Full Welsh poll. They even asked questions that are not on the table, and probably won't be for the next generation. They found that 26% support Welsh Independence and 54% oppose it, which would be 32.4% for Independence to 67.6% for remaining the Western March of England, if you weed out the undecideds and non-voters. They also found that 63% would vote to keep the Senedd, if they were asked at a referendum that nobody is proposing, and 25% would vote to abolish it. Interestingly, and quite ironically, 14% of Labour voters and 12% of Plaid Cymru voters would vote to abolish the Senedd, and I won't even try and find an explanation. Redfield & Wilton dutifully polled voting intentions for the next Senedd election, scheduled for 2026, and the updated trends of these voting intentions are probably not what Mark Drakeford would like to see.
Of course, Labour remains the dominant force in Welsh politics, but the Conservative surge we see in the last poll was quite unexpected. Labour are also far less dominant in Senedd polls because Plaid Cymru are doing much better than in Westminster polls. The seat projection from the Redfield & Wilton poll is better than usual for the Conservatives, who would lose only three seats, and less stellar for Labour, who would not bag a majority on the constituencies only, as a couple of earlier polls predicted. The real surprise here is that the Greens would get two list seats for the first time ever. But that would not give them any leverage on the next Welsh Government, as Labour would obviously favour another deal with Plain Cymru.
This projection is actually already obsolete, as the next Senedd election will be held on proportional representation in sixteen six-member constituencies, the number of seats being increased to 96. This new electoral law is a stroke of genius indeed from Welsh Labour. It ticks all the boxes for the Greens, the Liberal Democrats and Plaid Cymru: chemically pure proportionality and no legal threshold for representation. Because you don't have to enforce a threshold by law when establishing six-member constituencies. The threshold enforces itself at a whopping 14.3% of votes cast, basic maths. And there are only three parties that are sure of reaching it in all 16 mini-regions: Labour, Plaid Cymru and the Conservatives. The Liberal Democrats may have a shot at it in one or two regions, and the minor parties in none. Without proper polling of the new regions, it's difficult to make anything better than a rough estimate. So my best educated guess on current polling is 41-46 seats for Labour, 26-29 for Plaid Cymru, 22-26 for the Conservatives and 0-2 for the Liberal Democrats. Which would guarantee another term for Labour, in a coalition with Plaid Cymru. And they lived happily ever after.
Why, I pray you, is not pig great? The pig, or the great, or the mighty, or the huge,
or the magnanimous, are all one reckonings, save the phrase is a little variations.
(Captain Fluellen, Henry V, Act IV, Scene VII, 1599)
The island had come to seem one of those places seen from the train,
that belong to a life in which we shall never take part.
(Arthur Ransome, Swallows and Amazons, 1930)
England is still quite the dream place for Labour, as the current snapshot of voting intentions shows them doing better there than their GB average, which was not the case in 2019. The regional crosstabs show that Reform UK is still a clear and present threat for the Conservatives in the North, which helps Labour in potentially marginal seats there. But they also show a Liberal Democrat surge in the South, which is more of a thorn in the arse for Labour than for the Conservatives, especially when Labour's predicted vote share is sharply down on earlier polls in two out of three regions down there.
The seat projections on the current boundaries also look good, bringing back the Blairslide of 1997 as the benchmark of reference. If we had had the snap general today, Starmer would have done just as well as Blair in the North and Midlands, and better in the South. Which might be the key to Starmer's slow drift into Tory-lookalike territory. As I already mentioned earlier, the new boundaries don't alter the big picture by much. Even the Tory-friendly recarving of the South helps Labour more, and is likely to do so as long as the gap between Red and Blue vote shares remains small. But there could be a domino effect of seats switching back to the Conservatives if the gap widened in their favour. Which could happen if the LibDem vote continues surging. It is already back to almost its 2019 level after tailspinning into single digits earlier in the year, so every option is on the table. Including those who could seriously damage Labour in competitive Southern seats.
The Liberal Democrats are definitely smelling both blue and red blood on the tracks in the Home Counties. This explains why their campaign is openly focusing on the South, with Dominic Raab's seat seen as the most vulnerable and their most likely trophy. They also feel openings in the Outer Commuter Belt and in university cities. They will surely have eyes on Oxfordshire, Bedfordshire, Berkshire and Cambridgeshire tomorrow when all the results come in, and they might find reasons to challenge Labour more robustly in some constituencies. Or not. But their own challenge will be to translate Council votes into Commons votes, and we all know it does not usually work that way. Unless earlier local successes in the same regions show they have gained more momentum than expected, and they have to keep at it for another year or more. 2024 is gonna be fun.
It was like exploring a place that you have seen in a dream,
where everything is just where you expect it and yet everything is a surprise.
London! Jesus! I’d rather run a business from the Solomon Islands!
(Benjamin Landless, House Of Cards, 1990)
A few days ago, nobody would have thought that a new front would open in Keir Starmer's war against the Old Guard of Labour's Left, just down the road from his own constituency in London. But in this ever changing world in which we're living, The Curious Incident Of Diane Abbott In The Guardian might have done just that. I won't even discuss the philosophical merits of Abbott's argument, or how it is badly regurgitated Critical Race Theory or not. The truth is that, at first glance, it does sound fucking stupid. And, at second glance, it does sound fucking stupid. So Keir Starmer is unlikely to face serious criticism over withdrawing her the whip, except possibly from those who have already been withdrawn the whip. Abbott's seat in Hackney is so red there is little risk involved in deselecting her, other than a tiny blip on the political seismograph in Peter Mandelson's office. Which will obviously not jeopardise Labour's domination in the Imperial Capital. But Our Man At YouGov added an angle to that, testing the levels of approval of some public figures in London.
There's many an inconvenient truth for the Labour Party in these results. It becomes more obvious when you consider Sunak's and Starmer's net ratings, and compare them with the Opinium poll for The Observer that was fielded at about the same time. Sunak's net rating, according to these polls, is -18 GB-wide and -19 in London. Starmer's net rating is -6 GB-wide and -10 in London. Finding that the Prime Minister in not more unpopular in London than elsewhere, but that the Leader Of The Opposition is, was surely quite a shock for Keir Starmer's army of spads and focus groupers. With the added irony that Sly Keir is more popular with LibDem-voting Londoners than with his own base. Or that Mark Rowley, the current Commissioner of Police of the Metropolis, gets the same -10 net rating. Keir might find some solace in Sadiq Khan's even worse net rating of -15, that makes him less popular than Boris Johnson as Mayor of London. Searching for likely reasons, YouGov then polled Khan's approval on some key issues. And the results quite convincingly illustrate the Mayor's perceived shortcomings.
Sadiq Khan gets significantly negative net ratings on all three counts, starting with transport. Guess that the low-emission zone and the slippery slope towards a 15-minute city are not that popular. I don't own a car and I can't even drive, so I genuinely don't have a dog on this flight. But I guess that making possession of a car summat like the cross between a luxury and a criminal offence is not the smartest thing to do in London, especially when there is quite a consensus that public transport there is absolute fucking shite. And overpriced too, but that applies to pretty much everything in London, doesn't it? Especially housing, which is why Khan also gets spectacularly low grades on that one, even from Labour voters. He doesn't do much better on crime, as Londoners surely know that Rowley, as head of the disgraced Metropolitan Police, only has operational control over policing. Political control, vested elsewhere in the elected Police and Crime Commissioners, belongs to the Mayor of London. In a power-sharing agreement with the Home Office, which Khan has often used as an excuse to shift blame and do jack shit. Using the highly unpopular Sue-Ellen Braverman as a political punching ball might not be that bad an idea, but using crime as a political football definitely doesn't cut it. So the next mayoral election might not be a shoe-in for Khan. He does not have such a good record, has often been provocatively controversial, and the recent switch to first-past-the-post, instead of the earlier instant-runoff voting, for all mayoral elections in England, makes him definitely more vulnerable.
Your City is a 24-hour laundromat for dirty rubles. You have all their money. Take it.
Last time I checked, England is subsumed by humanity. Except when it comes to food.
(Lyor Boone, Designated Survivor: Summit, 2018)
As you might expect, the Victorian-engineered reboot of the medieval panto known as The Coronation has triggered lots of comments, not all of them kind and respectful. It is quite telling that, after the death of Elizabeth II, who commanded widespread respect and genuine affection, the remaining bunch of Royals are seen as a fucking running joke who don't deserve their taxpayer-funded lavish and sheltered lifestyle. Keir Starmer, as the most likely to kiss hands next, is already under pressure, from within his own party, to cut down on the undeserved gifts to a multitude of benefit scroungers. The hard truth is that only half of Brits now see the Royals as A Force For Good, and desperate attempts to make it All About Meghan look more and more farcical. To be brutally honest, I don't give a fucking shit about Harryghan's shenanigans and the way she has infantilised her needy husband. But I'm not drooling all over Charmilla either. And a recent YouGov poll, about which should be invited or not, proves that the oiks are definitely not interested in refereeing that typically nanocosmic issue.
Before you look it up, a nanocosm is something a thousand times smaller than a microcosm, or a quantification of the amount of people who don't switch to Channel 4 when Nicholas Witchell shows up on BBC News. And aye, I did rephrase the 'neutral' option to reflect my own thoughts on that. That's where even an entitled non-entity like Oliver Dowden can come in handy. Apart from acting as Rishi Sunak's accidental stunt double at PMQs, in a made-to-measure non-job, he is now also the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster. Which means he is officially the Chief Accountant and Purse-Stringer of that fictional institution meant to be The Palace's source of petty cash. Now Ollie should really make it his duty to inform the King of England that his subjects are not really thrilled about their hard-earned taxes funding a re-enactment of past Imperial glories. Especially when taxpayers' money has already been spaffed on refurbishing a massive single-use toy that hadn't seen the light of day for nine years. YouGov asked a simple and pretty much yes-or-no question about all this, and a convincing majority of Brits think that the Charmilla And Witchell Show should not be funded by the English Government. And don't even get me started about the population-based 8.3% of it that will be ripped off Scotland.
But the genuine litmus test is what Brits are planning for the Saturday after the English local elections. Other than watching replays of Election Night, that is, which is probably what I will do. No shit. YouGov asked their panel how likely they are to watch the panto at Westminster Abbey on live TV, throw fireworks into the neighbour's bin in celebration, or whatnot. And the level of interest is far below 1952, when Winston Churchill risked a civil war and Royal Dissent, when he initially decided that the coronation would not be televised. This year, it looks like a Old Southern Conservatives' Club thing more than anything else. It's good to see that half of This Isle's population don't intend to behave like cap-doffing forelock-tugging subjects, and pretend they have an interest in the televised panto. And that Scots are the vanguard of resistance to English subjugation.
Now all this is in fact shielding the Royals from the one serious discussion we should have. What the fuck shall we do with the Monarchy now, other than an extended range of Madame Tussauds figures? Can the 21st century United Kingdom still afford to fund a bottomless list of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha sprogs who have done nothing to make themselves useful to the community they feed off? Are they really a better tourist attraction than Stonehenge, Loch Ness or the Blackpool Illuminations? But oddly now's never the time to discuss the future of the monarchy. Not after the funeral. Not before the coronation. Not during a general election campaign. Not outwith a general election campaign. Not in Parliament. Not outwith Parliament. France kicked out their Monarch Of The Day five times, and three times out of five, they just substituted a new monarch for the old one. And then fifth time was the charm. Britain has had its 1793 in 1649, and its 1830 in 1688. Our 1870 is now long overdue.
Yes and every bloody emperor's got his hands up history's skirt
Of course, our deep respect for the democratic will of the people implies that we ask them first. No shit. That's what three pollsters have done recently, when they offered their panels a choice between the UK becoming a Republic or remaining a hereditary monarchy. 'Becoming a Republic' is my favoured wording here, as it is quite explicit, but two of the polls actually asked if the UK 'should have an elected Head of State'. Which means the same, but is less likely to hurt the feelings of the easily-offended monarchist snowflakes who think this particular R-word should be erased from the OED. As you might expect, they don't deliver the same results, though being held in pretty much the same time-frame, but are still in the same ball-park. On average only 53% of Brits want to keep the monarchy and 27% want to switch to a Republic. Or 34% Republican vs 66% Monarchist if you kick out the undecideds. And we also have the British Social Attitudes survey, which explores these things in more depth than basic Yes-Or-No questions, and shows that loss of interest in them is possibly a bigger threat to the Royals than Republicanism. Our trio of pollsters used the usual sort of crosstabs, and where different political tribes stand on the issue is not really surprising.
Omnisis are the only ones who included SNP voters in their crosstabs, though Deltapoll and YouGov obviously had them in the panel too, but don't publish detailed data beyond the three main English parties. There is a clear political divide here. The more to the left you are, the more likely you are to want the monarchy down, and SNP voters are the most resolute here. This is definitely a message Humza Yousaf should have listened to, instead of aiding and abetting the abduction of the Stone of Destiny and turning a blind eye to censorship of Scottish national treasures The Proclaimers. He could have a taken his cues from Plaid Cymru's leader Adam Price or their Commons Leader Liz Saville-Roberts, invited to the panto in her capacity as member of the Privy Council, who told The Palace to fuck off because of the obscene taxpayer-footed bill. Or from pressure group Republic, who feel emboldened by the public's indifference towards the coronation, and plan on disrupting monarchist propaganda in schools. Which are definitely a prime target as the younger generations are the least enamoured of the relics of medieval Wessex, even when rebooted by sycophantic Victorians.
The generational divide is conclusively more visible than the political divide. Of course it doesn't say how this will look by the time of the next coronation, when the TikTok generation have in turn become slipper-loving old farts addicted to their six-o'clock pink gin. Unless the issue has been dealt with by then, and there is no next coronation. One can dream. Finally our pollsters tried and identified some geographical divides between the Four Nations Of The Realm. Or Mostly Three Nations, as only YouGov bothered to poll Northern Ireland. And the results are quite intriguing, as they are the most contradictory in the whole poll.
The most surprising part is of course what they found in Scotland, that is either more monarchist than England or the most republican of the Four Nations. I like to think the latter is true, mostly because YouGov are the only one of the trio with past experience of Full Scottish polling, so their fine-tuning of their panel might be the most representative. Then that part of the polling is not the most conclusive. But The SNP should nevertheless remember that their own voters are the least likely to want the monarchy perpetuated, and also stop dismissing the Alba Party's campaign for a Scottish Republic as a fringe view. It's not, and the SNP should prove that they actually respect the Scottish people's democratic will. This would be a pledge to hold a referendum on the monarchy after Independence, and indeed make it a priority. This is not an issue that can be decided by the SNP's NEC or even an SNP Conference. The only way is to let the people take back control. There are strong odds that Jamaica, Canada, Australia and New Zealand will hand Charles his P45 quite soon, so Scotland would be foolish to keep him after Independence. Just make sure we get The Stone back before the divorce.
I know you’ll not make the mistake of thinking that different rules apply to the rich and powerful.
That people who aren’t used to the word ‘no’ should be exempt from hearing it. That their liberties are
different. People of privilege can no more break the law without consequence than anyone else.
Imperceptible the change as one by one our voices falter
And the double standards of propaganda still all our righteous rage
(Peter Hammill, Every Bloody Emperor, 2005)
The latest international developments around Russia's criminal aggression of Ukraine now involve everybody and their dog coming up with a 'peace plan', that would be more aptly called a 'surrender and submission plan' or a 'reward the aggressor' plan. First there was an Italian plan a year ago, that everybody has forgotten about because nobody ever took it seriously. Then there was the Chinese peace plan that never was an actual peace plan. But nevertheless stands out as it was the only one not openly advocating surrender and submission, preferring vacuous ramblings about principles that China themselves don't respect. I also try not to read too much into Xi's long awaited phone call to Zelenskyy, which is Xi playing 4D chess again. Just remember that China only cares for China's interests and what's good for business, which includes neutering the Russian Bear without the Russian Bear noticing he has been neutered. The last transparent attempt at helping Russia benefit from their crimes came from Brazil's President Luis Ignacio da Silva, who already has form as a Putin-enabler motivated by anti-Americanism. The last attempt to paint him as 'neutral', from The Hipstershire Gazette, is quite risible when his deep ties to the Russian state apparatus are more obvious than ever. A recent Opinium poll has surveyed their British panel about the various options offered to Ukraine, from standing their ground to complete surrender. The results are both reassuring and alarming.
And now we also have Emmanuel Macron turning idiot-snake-in-the-useful-grass with an alleged peace plan co-authored by Xi Jinping, which we can fully expect to be a massive dud. I'd say Lula's expert advice to "Suck it up because you can't have everything" is just the kind of thing Neville Chamberlain could have told Edvard Beneš, before flying to Munich and selling his honour and Sudetenland to the Nazis. So it is quite disturbing to see a third of Brits supporting variants of that option for Ukraine. Including half of the TikTok Generation, once more proving that the British school system is not just a failure at teaching maths, but also at teaching the basics of history. This is all the more surprising when the same poll shows that 70% of the British public think the UK's handling of the war in Ukraine has been good, and only 10% think it has been bad. Another question shows that the British public have quite a clear idea of the reasons why the UK government is so actively supporting Ukraine. And that none, in the array of possible options, include appeasement of the born-again Soviet Union, which is now combining all the salient features of Stalinism, Nazism, a rogue terrorist state and an international crime syndicate wrapped into one.
There are some political differences here, but the main point is that there is a genuine understanding, all across the compass, of why we did what we did. This clarity of views is confirmed by another poll, conducted by Redfield & Wilton in the same time-frame. One key question is how the British public assess the level of support given to Ukraine so far. More than half think it's about right, with the rest split down the middle between those thinking we did too much and those thinking we didn't do enough. Interestingly the TikTok Generation, never short of a massive contradiction, are the most supportive of increased support. It is also quite reassuring that SNP voters, and Scots in general, support the idea of doing more for Ukraine. After all, nobody on These Isles knows better than us what subjugation by an imperialistic and abusive neighbour means.
Now that we have established that the government's not for appeasing, and the British public isn't either, there are still some shadier areas in the public's assessment of the situation. A lot of this is revealed by the Redfield & Wilton poll, with questions venturing where no pollster had gone before. Their survey offers some interesting insights into the British public's contradictions, when the focus is shifted to positions of principle to what we consider the possible negative fallout of standing up for these principles. More on this below the fold. Focusing on the British part of the poll only, as I can't be arsed to give a fucking shit about what Americans think about all this. For now. Also because the USA could very easily prove to be the weak link in the pro-Ukraine coalition, as it is an established fact that too many of their politicians have some morbid fascination for authoritarian regimes like Putin's, and would gladly take his dark money in return for weakening support to Ukraine.
Because every bloody emperor thinks his right to rule divine
So he'll go spinning and spinning and spinning into his own decline
Expose yourself to your deepest fear. After that, fear has no power,
and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.
(Jim Morrison)
Obviously, one of the Brits' deepest and darkest secret fears is that the war in Ukraine will last, turning out to be as inconclusive as the Western Front's trench war between 1914 and 1918. Only 14% expect the war to end this year, while 24% think we're in for the long haul, with the war lasting beyond 2025. Which is sadly not an implausible scenario, as Putin appears ready to throw everything Russia has, or doesn't have, into the fight. We also have a rather worrying statement from a Russian official source, that as many as 750,000 Russians could eventually qualify as veterans of the Ukraine war. As a matter of comparison, 620,000 Russians qualified as veterans of the Soviet war in Afghanistan, that lasted nine years and two months. And 2,709,918 Americans were deployed or drafted into the Vietnam War over a period of nineteen years and six months. This proves that Russia are the ones seeking a long war, not Ukraine and their allies, and may explain why the Redfield & Wilton poll found that the British public are definitely confused about who is winning right now, and what a longer war could bring.
The worrying part is that the British public are not convinced that a longer war would favour Ukraine, which is the key rationale of increased support for Ukraine in the long run. There are even significant parts of the electorate who think a longer war would favour Russia, and I can only guess that this is rooted in the belief that a war of attrition would favour the aggressor, which is definitely something we saw happen at times in both World War One and World War Two. Then the poll did exactly what Jim Morrison suggested, exposing their panel to one of their deepest fears. Namely confronting them with two alternative futures that are equally bad, and asking them which one would be the least bad.
So our choice of the least bad outcome is to see this war linger on without a conclusion. Then you could argue, from a purely theoretical perspective, that it would be better to see Ukraine defeated and mutilated, because that would end the war and remove a clear and present threat. Which is not what I think, but you see how these things can easily be twisted in whatever direction. But there is still hope, as we can probably rely on Russia's unlimited supply of crass incompetence to make it easier for Ukraine, as was shown once again by The Curious Incident Of The Bomb At Belgorod. It was also quite interesting to see the Soviet Ministry of Defence instantly denying Ukraine had done it, amidst tumult from the Nazi wing of Russian media, demanding the swift dalekification of the Ukrainian gay zombie Satanists. As if the Kremlin feared escalation, and thought it was better to eat their own shit by calling it 'an abnormal descent of ammunition'. Just the same kind of poetic bollocks as Elon Musk describing his own Starship Fuckup as 'a rapid unscheduled disassembly'. Redfield & Wilton then surveyed the situation from another angle, asking their panel which future scenario they would be more concerned about.
At first glance, you might think there is some logic to this. OK, mates, it's all about self-preservation. Nothing wrong about that, as the instinct for self-preservation is what had made Sapiens survive through the millennia. At second glance, you realise that the exact wording of the question implies something totally different. That escalation would happen only if we do 'too much' for Ukraine. Whatever the definition of 'too much' is. Which might be whatever Putin decides it is. Or, closer to home, whatever definition the Appeasers' Wing of the Loony Left wants to impose on the rest of us. So pretty much anything more than a hunting rifle and a bag of hand grenades. And then you realise the right answer, if there is actually a 'right' one, is the bottom one. Our main concern should be Ukraine losing the war because we didn't help them enough. Because this would embolden Putin to gamble for more, and we would get the escalation anyway, and a more threatening one. Remember that's all the Appeasers of the 1930s got in the end, after abjectly submitting to Hitler at every turn. Trading honour for the illusion of peace, and then getting dishonour and war. A mistake that should never be repeated.
The Kremlin won’t recognise anything but brute force, we all know that.
One year passed between the German invasion of Poland and the start of the London Blitz.
My country does not see the destruction of Ukraine as a heartrending regional conflict.
It will come here. We need not imagine it. We remember it.
(Nicol Trowbridge, The Diplomat, 2023)
The war in Ukraine has always been a favourite of YouGov's, who have even been keeping trackers of the public's attitudes towards it, both domestic and international. They have just released the latest update of the British part of these trackers, with some reassuring and some confounding results. Some you might say even border on the burlesque, despite the extreme seriousness of the situation. The main point here is that support for the three core elements of our opposition to Putin is now on the rise again, after some lulls in past months. Especially the British public's determination to go on with the sanctions against Russia, which do work and harm various sectors, as Vladimir Putin himself had to admit not so long ago. The greatest damage is probably done to the Russian oil and gas sector, after the European Union cancelled all future plans to buy any of it. The Putin-enablers will laugh it off because, ye ken, India and China have come forward to buy it. They just never mention that both negotiated long-term supply at bargain prices, with 25-30% discounts on market prices last year, and reportedly 35-40% this year. Billions lost in revenue, that won't go to the Russian war economy.
The last of these three topics might appear the least credible and efficient, seeing how the FSB handles political opponents. But something quite unexpected happened that may give it back some momentum. The quite extraordinary offer, from someone close to the Kremlin, to swap Russian opponent Vladimir Kara-Murza, American spy Paul Whelan and American journalist Evan Gershkovich against Julian Assange. Which is definitely not as fucking nuts as you might think, and can be a win-win situation for Biden and Putin alike. The American hunt for Assange is widely condemned as vindictive prosecution, and it would be a massive PR win for Biden if Assange ended up discredited as a puppet of the Soviets, and exiled forever like Snowden before him. That's definitely an offer the USA should take, unless they want to up the game, and demand to get Navalny too. Which Putin could accept and turn into a PR win, the exact mirror-image of Assange. Discredited as a puppet of the CIA, and exiled forever. While this was happening, someone close to the English Government had an idea that is fucking nuts, and asked YouGov to test it. Oi, mates, what about covertly sending the SAS to Ukraine and have them fight the Russians? The British public were not really amused.
Actually, YouGov might have come up with that bullshit all by themselves, and Ben Wallace had nothing to do with it. Though, with this lot, you never know. But YouGov also had a fallback option. What about covertly sending the SAS to Ukraine, but help only in strictly non-military tasks? As if. But the British public quite oddly fell for that one. Though fortunately not massively. Let's just hope we will never hear any 'close to Whitehall' source say "Aye, it was fucking stupid, but YouGov told us we had a mandate for it". It's quite clear to me that using the SAS, in whatever capacity, is the stupidest thing to do. Doing anything that even remotely looks like 'co-belligerence', and could possibly be an excuse for Russia to do something fucking stupid, is definitely fucking stupid. If you're going to do it anyway, do as the Americans with Blackwater, or the Russians with Wagner in the early stages of the invasion of Ukraine. Sub-contract to mercenaries who can give you a veneer of plausible deniability, even if they are all former Special Ops trained to kill on taxpayers' money, which may turn the narrative into a deniable plausibility that you are not involved.
I am also quite sure that the Ukrainian government would have none of that shit, as it would collide with their narrative of a popular resistance against criminal aggression. And any misstep by foreign mercenaries acting undercover would also wreck the very powerful case Ukraine has about the multitude or Russian war crimes, and our duty to bring Putin to justice after the war. Wagner mercenaries themselves have confessed to committing war crimes on direct orders from their superiors. Other widely seen evidence of Russian atrocities supports Ukraine's claim that this is a genocidal war, and Ukraine's allies must do nothing that could allow Russia to shift the blame to their victim. Which they are trying to do after The Curious Incident Of The Drones At The Kremlin this week. Everybody with a functioning brain knows it's a fucking fake, and it even doesn't look like a proper stunt using credible props. More like an off-Amazon toy drone taken down in a puff with a funfair carbine. But Putin wants to weaponise it to justify further war crimes in Ukraine, just as Hitler weaponised the Reichstag Fire to justify the concentration camps. Just don't fall for it.
We're dealing with animals here. Reason means nothing to them.
(Annalise Keating, How To Get Away With Murder: Stay, 2020)
You cannot put women and men on an equal footing. It is against nature.
They were created differently. Their nature is different.
(Recep Tayyip Erdogan)
We have an important election on the horizon, just ten days out now, the outcome of which will obviously have repercussions on the war in Ukraine. The presidential election in Turkey, the third to be held by popular vote after decades when the President was chosen by members of the Grand National Assembly of Turkey. The incumbent President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was first elected at the first direct election in 2014 with 51.8% of the popular vote in the first round, then reelected in 2018 with 52.6% in the first round too. His re-election will not be as easy this year, even if he's using every trick in the book to win it by a nose. Erdogan is standing as the joint candidate of his own conservative and islamist Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkınma Partisi, AKP) and the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (Milliyetçi Hareket Partisi, MHP). His main opponent is Kemal Kiliçdaroğlu, the candidate of a big-tent opposition alliance led by the secularist social-democratic Republican People's Party (Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, CHP), which was founded by the father of modern Turkey Mustapha Kemal Atatürk in 1923 and ruled the country for 41 years in three different stints. Minor candidates Muharrem Ince and Sinan Ogan represent the centrist Homeland Party and the nationalist Victory Party respectively. Voting intentions for the first round show that it will be very close.
This polling also shows that a second round between Erdogan and Kiliçdaroğlu is the most likely outcome. Kiliçdaroğlu's candidacy had genuine momentum at first, as the candidate of the united parliamentary opposition that denied the AKP an outright majority in the National Assembly in 2018, making them more dependent on their ultra-nationalist ally MHP. But it then became closer as Erdogan never misses an opportunity to stress Turkey's role as a potential first-tier player on the international scene. Which he probably oversells as Turkey's performative ambiguity has cost them their once-obvious status as the embarrassing yet unavoidable go-between in the war in Ukraine. Especially since China has decided to step in, which inevitably includes reducing Turkey to second fiddle. Erdogan's failed attempt to join the European Union, despite opening negotiations in 2005, may also play against him in a more competitive political landscape where pro-European parties are gaining ground. Second round opinion polls also hint at a very close election, that could be decided in the very last days, and by the transfers of first round votes from the two minor candidates. But I definitely think that Kiliçdaroğlu has slightly better odds than Erdogan, and will win it by a hair. In that context, the well-orchestrated media blitz about Erdogan's health looks fishy. Like a desperate last-ditch attempt to get a sympathy vote from moderate voters who distanced themselves from the AKP after their dismal handling of the earthquake that killed more than 50,000 in February.
There are many factors working in favour of Kiliçdaroğlu. Nearly half of Turks voted against Erdogan's determination to turn Turkey into a strong presidential regime, with many more similarities to Putin's Russia than to the United States or post-De Gaulle France. The main Kurdish party, the People's Democratic Party (Halkların Demokratik Partisi, HDP) have not fielded a candidate, which is de facto endorsing Kiliçdaroğlu and handing him about 6% of the electorate. On top of that, Turkey is going through a cost-of-living crisis that makes Britain's look like a stroll through Regent's Park, with prices of the bare essentials up 40-50% over the last year. Erdogan's defeat would certainly bring some fresh air to domestic Turkish politics, with a return to standard democratic practices. But it would change little for the Turkish Kurds, as the CHP also bow to pressure from the ever-interfering military establishment, and endorse the traditional Kemalist vision of a united Turkish nation, without any prospect of autonomy for Kurdistan. Then the key question, at least seen from our neck of the woods, is whether or not a change of government would also change Turkey's position in the Ukraine war. I guess it would end double agentry between East and West, and aiding and abetting Putin's war aims. The CHP has a more convincing pro-EU and pro-NATO stance, that would lead them to choose sides clearly and consistently, and give up on the AKP's neo-Ottomanist policy, and all the accommodations it implies with authoritarian regimes. The litmus test would be lifting Turkey's veto on Sweden joining NATO, which formally has to be approved by the National Assembly, which is up for election on the same day as the President. But a clear sign from the new President would definitely influence MPs towards approving Sweden's application.
Democracy cannot be defined as the existence of parliaments and elections alone.
Yes and every bloody emperor with his sickly rictus grin
Talks his way out of nearly anything but the lie within
(Peter Hammill, Every Bloody Emperor, 2005)
The country of my birth is the fucking gift that keeps on fucking giving. Now we have Emmanuel Macron, the most powerful man in the second-most presidential democracy West of the Oder-Neisse, turning himself into a lame duck President just one year into his second term. In a country that doesn't have midterms, or yearly local elections, to feel the people's pulse. He has alienated three quarters of France, he doesn't have a parliamentary majority, and none of the cool kids want to play with him. It's just another day, so sad, so sad. A lot has been said about Macron being ineligible to stand for a third term, which is both true and false. Because the French Constitution has a Putin Clause rather than a Roosevelt Clause. It's not 'no more than two terms for life', but 'no more than two consecutive terms'. So Macron can't stand in 2027, but may legally come back in 2032. In the meanwhile, speculation is boiling about who could be the standard-bearer of the Macronist coalition in 2027. Three names have emerged from the punditarian consensus. former Prime Minister Edouard Philippe, Interior Minister Gérald Darmanin and Economy Minister Bruno Le Maire. All three have already been tested in early voting intentions polls with various levels of success.
Philippe is definitely the new Buddha Of Macronia here, doing way better than his two presumptive contenders. Mostly because polls say he's the only one in the trio with a reasonable chance of reaching the second round against Marine Le Pen. Philippe is also the only one who could escape being dubbed The Continuity Candidate, as he was sacked by Macron on allegedly non-amicable terms, and has done his best since to highlight that he is his own man. Darmanin and Le Maire would both give way to veteran radical left leader Jean -Luc Mélenchon, France's Lula and Corbyn in one, though Mélenchon too is quite devalued these days. Even as a unity candidate of the whole Parliamentary Left, which has been scenarioed once in these polls, he would just barely match his 2022 result. The other candidates, like Les Réublicains' Laurent Wauquiez or Communist Party's Fabien Roussel, are mostly fiddling for their own quadrant of the choir, far from a position in the second round but hoping that a visible presidential campaign would boost their party's chances at the next legislative election. French top pollster IFOP have also conducted a one-on-one between Macron and Le Pen, that is not a voting intentions poll, but about which one their panel prefer. Something like our 'preferred Prime Minister' polls.
It's actually not much of an upset that Le Pen wins in such a poll. It's like Boris Johnson doing better than Keir Starmer a year ago. Whom you would take for a pint at the pub, if France had pubs and pints, more than who is the best at fixing potholes and Putin. You could even say Macron asked for it. There are elements of personal like and dislike here, but it does fit with other polls that say Macron would now lose to Le Pen in the rematch that will never happen. It's also a worrying sign of the volatility of political allegiances, as Le Pen's appeal to left-wing voters, as shown in the poll's crosstabs, is mostly due to her rebranding herself as another anti-elite candidate who is in touch with the true concerns of the people. Basic populist rhetoric in a clean break from her party's staunch neo-liberal stance of yore, and it works. It does not say anything actually about the result of a presidential election bound to happen four years out, but is still an awkward reminder it might well go full tits up. This is what happens in a country where the government uses anti-terrorist legislation to ban protests, which wouldn't happen here, or would it? And where saucepans have become weapons of mass disruption, which should definitely happen here.
The French love retirement because, in a way, it's the strike that never ends.
(Phil Wang, Have I Got News For You?, 28 April 2023)
