Jeremy's Den: August 2023

Choose your leaders with wisdom and forethought. To be led by a coward is to be controlled by all that the coward fears. To be led by a fool is to be led by the opportunists who control the fool.

(Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents, 1998)

The whole story

To be led by a thief is to offer up your most precious treasures to be stolen. To be led by a liar is to ask to be told lies. To be led by a tyrant is to sell yourself and those you love into slavery.

(Octavia E. Butler, Parable of the Talents, 1998)

A few days ago, for reasons totally unrelated to politics and polls, I looked up Cheapside on Wikipedia, a street at the heart of the City of London. In Victorian times, it was described by Charles Dickens as "the busiest thoroughfare in the world", which might have been a wee smitch exaggerated, but never mind. What's left today is a row of steel-and-glass office buildings from which all sentient life vanishes at 17:00, when the workers migrate back to the Inner Commuter Belt. When Dickens wrote this, the City of London had a population of 133k, its highest ever, out of 2 million in Inner London, the historic County of London. Today, barely 9k are left, out of 3.4 million in Inner London, and the whole area is part office blocks and part tourist shops. Similar fates befell many towns and cities all across the UK, morphing the inner cities into ghost towns. A lot of the damage occurred during the Thatcher years, New Labour did little to cure it, and Conservative rule over the last 13 years has doubled down on it. So it's no surprise that the current trends of voting intentions polls confirm a massive rejection of the Conservative Party.

Obviously, bringing Labour back to power will not be the miracle cure Keir Starmer wants you to think it will be. Yet the people act as if they believe it, and Labour's lead over the Conservatives thusly remains in the double digits. Whether it's 17% or 23% has become irrelevant, as both ends of that spectrum would guarantee a landslide of epic proportions, bigger than Johnson in 2019, and probably in the order of magnitude of Blair in 1997 and 2001. Which is the result of a generation of austerity and dereliction of duty, which has resulted in the poorest 20% of Brits being 20% poorer than the poorest 20% of French or Germans. The British public agree that the Conservatives have an abysmal record on all issues that matter to the people, and will be at the heart of the incoming campaign. The 11 August iteration of Omnisis' weekly poll is just another illustration of this.

Even on defence, which has been for ages a forte of right-wing governments, the current one gets a net -17 rating. And it's by far their best. On immigration, an issue Rishi Sunak thought would work in his favour with increasingly inflammatory and xenophobic rhetoric, they get an awful -65. Though this one might be a double-edged sword, as you can't really tell how many actually think that Rishi is handling it badly because he isn't harsh and hostile enough. Probably more telling is that the government gets even worse ratings on its handling of inflation, poverty and housing. Three domains where the cost-of-living crisis has hit harder those who had already been hit hardest by the previous decade of austerity and budgets cuts on the essentials. The Thatcherite dream of a nation of homeowners had turned into a nightmare of repossessed homes because of an asinine interest rates policy that made mortgage repayments skyrocket. But I told you that already, didn't I? Official statistics say that the number of home repossessions has nearly doubled between 2021 and 2022, and the first half of 2023 has already registered as many as the whole of 2021. But this devastated landscape does not mean the electorate is ready to buy everything Labour has to sell.

This is taken from the same Omnisis poll in early August, on the same list of topics as the assessment of the government's performance. You might want to always see the bright side of life here, that Starmer's Band Of Merry Men get better ratings than Sunak's Gang Of Long Faces on all issues bar none. Or you might want to take the more realistic approach, that there is still a massive number of disbelievers and doubters. Around 40% of the electorate, or more depending on the issue, when you add the Both Equally and the Neither ratings. So there is every reason for the Conservatives to be desperate, but not quite as many for Labour to be cheerful. When Keir Starmer repossesses Number Ten, which looks quite inevitable by now, he will start with a low level of public trust in his abilities to tackle the most pressing issues. And, on issues where he does have some public trust, the backlash will be quick and harsh if he fails to deliver. This will be a tougher challenge than holding a 20% lead in the polls.

If you want to assert a truth, first make sure it’s not just an opinion that you desperately want to be true.

(Neil deGrasse Tyson)

We, the people, fight for our existence, we don't claim to be perfect but we're free

We dream our dreams alone with no resistance, fading like the stars we wish to be

(Noel Gallagher, Little By Little, 2002)

Net Zero, and by extension everything related to climate and environmental policies, has become a major issue in British politics. It all started with what I think was a overhasty and mistaken interpretation of Labour's defeat at the Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election. Keir Starmer was quick to blame it on green policies, because he did not want his chosen candidate's personal flaws to be publicly exposed. Rishi Sunak was quick to jump on the bandwagon because he is delusional enough to think that cuddling three dozen of extremist climate deniers within the Conservative Parliamentary Party is the road to victory. This is also Rishi's way to deflect attention from his failure to meet his five pledges, or five goals, or five indicators, or whatever. Unfortunately for both Keir and Rishi, several recent polls prove that the British public don't fall for their stunts, and consider that green policies deserve better than being used as political footballs. We have something of a background picture painted by an Omnisis poll about attitudes to climate change.

The British public take climate change seriously, are ready to act because it is not too late and think the current government does not do enough. This should be incentive enough for both major parties to think twice before ditching green policies. Especially as earlier polls have already shown that the British public support the general framework of Net Zero in 2050, are not massively opposed to stronger measures like London's Ultra Low Emissions Zone or the extension of Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, but just question the ways to achieve the goals when they appear to have an excessive cost for households. Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has got the message, announcing an expansion of grants to buy ULEZ-compliant cars, and also reminding Londoners that only 10% of their cars are not compliant, which puts the issue into perspective. There is a strong case for extending low-emission policies to other sectors, which will work only if public support is strengthened by appropriate financial compensation. But we have another poll, from YouGov, that confirms Omnisis's findings and shows that Brits have very serious doubts about how seriously the government is taking climate change.

Only Conservative voters credit the government with taking climate change seriously, which is also quite a reflection of how these voters take it, which is not very seriously. In that respect, we pay the price of deeply rooted cultural attitudes in the conservative camp, that "progress", measured only in the quantitative terms of economic growth, is an end in itself and irreparable ecological damage is a price worth paying for it. Which, in turn, open a window of opportunity for the extremist theory of degrowth, the only predictable result of which would be to further impoverish the already most economically vulnerable. The British public have other ideas, as shown by an Opinium poll last month, totally devoted to surveying their approach to Net Zero policies. Opinium first asked their panel to assess how positive or negative these policies would be, and the overall picture is quite encouraging, even if in a reasonably cautious way.

The most important results, which should be noticed by Rishi Sunak and Jeremy Hunt, is that the public consider climate policies to have a positive impact on the economy, the availability of quality jobs, and our energy bills. The UK government should be more lucid about it, and see there is a lot of wisdom in this point of view. An obvious way to succeed is to offer more opportunities for an efficient coupling of academic research and industrial innovation. Private sector involvement in funding research should not be some sort of ideological taboo. We should instead look at the many past instances where privately-funded research led to innovation that was both beneficial to the common good and profitable for its sponsors. The two are not mutually exclusive, far from that, and there is nothing 'right wing' about advocating such partnerships. Especially when the end result is higher resources than you could achieve from taxpayer-funded grants alone.

True perfection has to be imperfect, I know that that sounds foolish but it's true

The day has come and now you'll have to accept the life inside your head we give to you

(Noel Gallagher, Little By Little, 2002)

You cannot carry out fundamental change without a certain amount of madness. In this case, it comes from non-conformity, the courage to turn your back on the old formulas, the courage to invent the future.

(Thomas Sankara)

The UK government are so busy making up reasons for not doing anything about the climate emergency, just because 43 MPs and five corporate donors don't want to hear about it, that they fail to explore ways to actually do something, that would have support from the opposition parties. That's quite a daring update of the Bain Principle. In case you have forgotten, that was once Labour's mantra, that they would never support anything the SNP proposed. Now the Conservatives have just changed the order of the words to take to it the next level of stupidity. They will never propose anything that Labour might support. Theresa May and Boris Johnson already tried this, and we know how it ended for them. Rishi Sunak now using the same stunt does not make it cleverer. Yet many policies exist, that could gather cross-partisan support. If the Conservatives really haven't the fuckiest scoobie what to do, the panel for the aforementioned Opinium poll have some ideas for them.

This is the point where I have to recycle Tony Blair's campaign soundbite from 1997. Because recycling is good for you. It all boils down to "Innovation! Innovation! Innovation!". The directions outlined by the Opinium poll are not even that innovative, technically. What would be really innovative would be a strong political will to go down these roads, and set aside parochial partisan politics. Down the road, you would obviously find pathways to genuine innovation that haven't been properly explored yet. Opinium even submitted a more specific list of industrial sectors to their panel, where investment in capacity, development and innovation looks like a good idea. Renewable energy and green industries are definitely the priority, and are supported all across the political spectrum. Advanced manufacturing, which you could also call 'smart manufacturing', is also worth exploring as an obvious way to reap cumulative benefits. As in green industries excelling in smart manufacturing. Surely all our politicians are already aware of these options, and all they need is the brains and baws to actually make them priorities.

Development of renewable energy is, or should be, a complete no-brainer. It is worth remembering that, in 2021, 89% of the UK's primary energy consumption relied on CO2-producing sources. That's the sum of coal, gas, oil and biomass. Because, in case you had missed that episode, there is nothing green about biomass. Part of it is extracting gas from sewage and landfill. Part of it is burning waste and wood pellets. Both of which add more CO2 to the atmosphere, so it's definitely a no-fly zone in Net Zero terms. We should also remember that the economics of renewables, ceteris paribus, are more favourable than for any other energy source. The cost is predicted to remain stable, and in some cases go down, over the next 15 years. A much better prospect than any fossil fuel and even nuclear electricity. And we can surely bet that stable or lower costs will also mean stable or lower prices for customers, which the British public will absolutely love. To complete their overview of public support of green policies, Opinium also asked their panel which energy sources the think must get priority, and the results are again unequivocal.

It is quite reassuring that the British public choose the three most iconic renewables as their top three choices for the energy of the future. And also have the common sense to rate the fake green biomass last after both variants of fossil fuel. Nuclear power come fourth probably it is easy, and factually true, to sell it as closer to carbon-neutral than anything bar renewables. But the public surely have legitimate concerns about nuclear waste with a longer half-life than the full runs of EastEnders and Coronation Street combined. One of the messages that are now received loud and clear is that we shouldn't let future generations deal with our mess, and nuclear waste is the iconic textbook case. On top of skyrocketing construction costs that make nuclear power a much less appealing source of electricity than was originally thought, and would impact our energy bills during our own lifetime. That's one of few cases where the selfish and the selfless converge on one message. Don't do it. And that's definitely good news too. So politicians can't say they don't know what the public expects of them. It's up to you now, mates. As proverbial common wisdom goes, when there's a will, there's a way.

As Karl Marx said, those who live in a palace do not think about the same things, nor in the same way, as those who live in a hut. The struggle to defend the trees and forests is above all a struggle against imperialism.

(Thomas Sankara)

You can have your own opinions, but you can't have your own facts.

Truth is not a democracy. It doesn't give a shit what you believe.

(Ricky Gervais)

Now let's say for a minute that we do have that new source of green electricity that everybody loves. Now we have to find a way to feed it into the National Grid where it will inclusively mix with all the non-green electricity from coal-fired plants in Germany and the nuke thing just outwith Edinburgh. Because, ye ken, contrary to what your leccy provider told you, there is no such thing as 'guaranteed green electricity at the point of delivery'. All electrons have to travel through The Grid, where they meet all the other electrons from all power plants in the UK, and all those we have imported through our interconnexions with grids in Continental Europe. All your provider can tell you for sure is that he bulk-bought the leccy from someone who produces it from a guaranteedly green plant, or that he produces it himself in such a way. Then you can't paint the electrons green, so there's a fair chance that those you will get from the lower-voltage tier of The Grid will be of a totally different colour. Back on track, Survation recently conducted a poll about the acceptability of new grid infrastructures. To set the stage, they first asked their panel to what extent they think the lack of grid infrastructure is a barrier to new renewable energy sources.

I'm quite amazed by the results as it is a fucking idiotic question. Just take a deep breath and think it through. If you have a power plant and no grid, what do you do with the electricity? Jack shit, mates. Your power plant without a grid is as useful as a five-ton SUV locked inside after you lost the garage keys. So any answer other than 'fucking severe' is irrelevant, unless you have really thought it through and retort that it's not as bad as it looks if the guy who operates the power plant is one move ahead, and has already filed for a planing permission for a brand new power line. Which is where his problems have begun, because power lines are a pet hate for all shades of Nimbys in Middle England. Because, ye ken, they kill kittens and sour the milk, or summat. But we all know that you can't be a pollster worth his salt if you're not also an expert at massaging polls. Especially when the client is an advocate of renewabling the UK. So they did just that with a question about support for new power lines "to enable the decarbonisation of the UK economy and improve the UK’s energy security". Cant' get better than that, can it?

We know now that Brits massively support extensions to the existing grid infrastructure, if it is for the greater good and helps winning the next FIFA World Cup. But that's not all there is to that debate. Obviously overhead power lines are quite the plight for sore eyes atop the White Cliffs Of Speeton. Then just think of all the giant rats roaming along the undergrounded power lines under Oxford Street. Naw, just kidding, they're just regular cat-sized rats. Anyway, the British public does support new power lines in their back garden, if you offer the proper narrative to make them attractive. But some more practical incentives may also be needed, and Survation dutifully addressed that point to. Their client RenewableUK came up with some innovative ways to boost support for an extended National Grid, and all work really well with the poll's panel.

Of course, the three incentives in the middle of the graph do sound like more "Talk! Talk! Talk!" to be used by either the UK government or the energy companies. The two bookending options are more practical, and assume community involvement in the future of The Grid. Guidance on the lines' design actually means giving the locals an informed choice between overhead and underground. Undergrounding power lines is a proven method, and has been widely used world-wide for generations, even for high-voltage lines that pose specific technical challenges. In some cases, undergrounding will not survive a thorough costs-benefits scrutiny, or even a detailed technical study. Then all you have left is choosing the shape of the pylons, and have them painted green to better mix with the high grass. The idea of funding local projects is also quite interesting. Only cynics will argue it amounts to bribing the locals to gain acceptance. Calling it a 'community benefit fund', as the poll does, hardly makes it look better. 'Community projects investment fund', or summat, would have made it less patronising. But what the fuck, when the locals are willing to not look that gift horse anywhere? The Council might even see it as an opportunity to have all potholes plugged for free.

Life is not a problem to be solved, but a reality to be experienced.

(Søren Kierkegaard)

Jesus, this isn’t EastEnders, this is politics. We’re all on the same plate, there’s no clean hands.

(Jamie McDonald, The Thick Of It: Spinners And Losers, 2007)

To keep Rishi Sunak on his toes during his California holidays, J.L. Partners have surveyed the popularity of the current Cabinet on behalf of the Daily Express. In case you have forgotten, Rishi's current Cabinet includes himself cosplaying Prime Minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named because nobody remembers his name, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Chairman of the Conservative Party, the Starfleet Admiral of the Privy Council, the Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal, seventeen Secretaries of State, and eight Ministers, or somebodies of ministerial rank, with a permanent invite to attend Cabinet meetings. Quite a fine array of hoofspangling clackwankers, if you believe me. J.L. Partners' panel seem to agree, as they give them quite abysmal ratings across the board. Sadly, only fourteen of them were submitted to the panel's sagacious scrutiny. But I feel safe to assume that the rest of the hoofwanking dangleberries would have fared just as badly.

Just as enlightening as the list of those who were tested is the list of those who were not. Oliver Dowden, Ben Wallace, Alex Chalk, Michelle Donelan, Mel Stride, Mark Harper, Greg Hands and Oor Alister Jack, to name but a few. The average ratings of those guinea-pigged for this experiment are 17% very or fairly positive versus 47% very or fairly negative, a net rating of -30. Everyone doing better is a shining beacon of hope and success in the scorched ruins of what was once the world-beating Conservative Party everyone envied us. Or not. By these metrics, the Best In Show is Penny Mordaunt on -4, and the Ugliest Duckling is Therese Coffey on -48. Rishi Sunak himself scores just the average -30. These dismal ratings are a reflection of the public's verdict on the English Government's abysmal performance. This is tested quite regularly by all pollsters, and lousy ratings have become the norm on almost all major topics. One of the last examples of that is provided by IPSOS in their August Monitor, which shows massive majorities thinking the government is doing a bad job on all key issues bar one.

The very positive rating on the government's handling of the war in Ukraine is obviously also linked to the British public's massive support for Ukraine, and we'll come to that later. The most unbelievable result here is one third of Brits thinking that government is doing a good job with Brexit. Which makes as much sense as saying that Jesus rode a dinosaur on Flat Earth. Sadly, this is not an outlier. YouGov have been conducting their Brexit Tracker for more than three years now, and regularly ask their panel if they think the government is doing well or badly with it. For several months, their findings have been quite steady, and almost identical to the IPSOS poll. The last example of this costly omnishambles is the UK retaining the EU's trademark CE safety label, after spaffing millions up the wall on a British variant, that would have duplicated 100% of the EU standards, only with more red tape and a Union Jack around it. But bad marking for the current government is not enough, you also have to evaluate the people's expectations for an hypothetically incoming Labour government. Of course IPSOS have surveyed that too, with quite a mixed bag of results.

Brits mostly expect Labour to do better than the Conservatives, though not in overwhelming numbers despite the bar being set pretty low. Not having high hopes is indeed quite rational when the alternative solution does not appear that much alternative after all. I have a hunch that a lot of people just think that Labour can't possibly do worse because it's not humanly feasible, but are not convinced that they will do really better. I've said it already but it's always worth repeating. Labour can only blame themselves for this lack of enthusiasm. Disowning radical change in the name of realism and responsibility is not what the people expect, even when they admit there is some sense in it. But there are limits to this line of reasoning, especially when the people compare the necessities of post-Sunak reconstruction to those of postwar reconstruction. After all, if Keir Starmer and Wes Streeting had been in charge in 1945, we would never have got the NHS. Because, ye ken, it clashed with other priorities and tough choices had to be made. And spending some much money on it would have spooked the markets.

Free thinkers are those who are willing to use their minds without prejudice and without fearing to understand things that clash with their own customs, privileges or beliefs.

This state of mind is not common but it is essential for right thinking.

(Leo Tolstoy)

Honest politics and Tory politics are contradictions in terms. Lying is a necessary part of a Tory’s political equipment, for it is essential for him to conceal his real intentions from the people.

(Aneurin Bevan, 1944)

The trends of the now proverbial "Preferred Prime Minister" polling have been pretty consistent over the last few months. In all the recent iterations of this polling, from the half-dozen pollsters who survey it on a weekly or fortnightly basis. Poor Rishi Sunak is still less liked than Mister Neither. Sly Keir Starmer gets the votes for Best In Show, but is not living his best life either, with barely more than a third of Brits really wanting to rehome him at Number Ten. But there is more to this than reluctantly choosing one to sit in the Cabinet Room's black chair. There are more sides to a Prime Minister than to the Brass Threepenny, and the public are definitely entitled to voice an opinion on all of them. But we have weekly deliveries from Redfield & Wilton, who look behind the mask and update us on what the Great British Public think of the two Top Dog Contenders on a diverse and inclusive array of traits.

Redfield & Wilton's panel always give both Sunak and Starmer better ratings in the "Best Prime Minister" category than other pollsters, as there are fewer all-round doubters. But don't let that fool you. As soon as the Pandora's box of worms of the full array of character traits is unleashed, doubt comes back howling and it kinda gets tits up for both contenders. I'd say the list is carefully chiseled to gather the public's feelings on issues that do define who is prime-ministerial material and who is not. It is quite worrying that neither of the PM wannabees gets a majority rating on any item, and that both get mediocre ratings on most. I will let you decide what it is a symptom of. The low quality of today's political personnel? Or the public's growing disillusionment with today's political personnel? Or a blend of both? Whatever you answer, it is not the sign of a healthy joyous democratic life, nor of trust in the institutions that keep our democracy alive.

At the end of the Scrutiny Game, doubters win and both contenders get a lower average rating than their Best Prime Minister score. Interestingly Sunak loses more points than Starmer when subjected to detailed forensics. I certainly won't jump to the conclusion that neither is fit for office, but I can see why some people will. Then we have Savanta and their randomly delivered Political Attitudes Polling, which also offers an insight into the people's assessment of our two PM-wannabes. But from a totally different perspective, which you might call a "real human" approach about whom you would trust most in certain situations. That certainly does not say anything about their fitness for the top rung, but might help you choose which one you would spend a week in Benidorm with. I'm a bit miffed that Savanta did not think of including summat about "walking your dog while your leg is in a cast after a ministerial car ran a red and hit you". If that happened to me, I would definitely pick Rishi to walk my dog, because a lad with a gentry mansion in Yorkshire has to be a dog lover. Or at least have enough footmen to make sure the dog has his thrice-a-day walkies.

They could also have added some more imaginative options like paying for your funeral or your sex-change surgery. That's real issues of really solid trust, innit? But never mind, there are still enough bizarre options in that line of polling to have some good clean fun with it. Like asking why Savanta set a £5 limit on the loan, when both can easily go all the way to £5k and reclaim it as constituency expenses. Or what kind of conclusive evidence anyone has that Rishi is more of a nerdy pub bore than Keir. It also raises some quintessentially philosophical issues. Can real humans ever become Prime Minister? Does contending for the Prime Ministerial slot require some variant of genetically-engineered abilities that real humans do not possess? Do Prime Ministers ever do anything that allows you to describe them as real humans? Thousand-word essays expected by the end of the week. Class dismissed.

When all the wheels come off at once, you find out who you really are. It’s all very well as an expression, but when that happens, you nearly always find out that you’re the driver.

(Ian Fletcher, Twenty Twelve: Countdown, 2011)

This is history in the making. This is the ending of a chapter of a very thin book that nobody enjoyed reading.

(Malcolm Tucker, The Thick Of It, 2012)

Today's snapshot of voting intentions is the aggregate of six polls conducted between 14 and 21 August by More In Common, Opinium, YouGov, Omnisis, Redfield & Wilton and Deltapoll. That's a super-sample of 10,636 with a theoretical margin of error of 0.95%. It's not the best we've seen for Labour in recent times, though it remains fairly good, with Labour leading the Conservatives by 17.3%. Of course, we have been accustomed to Labour leading by 20% and change, and the media have built a whole narrative around that. So they might be quick to jump to the conclusion that something is going wrong. Which may be true but also exaggerated, only the next batch of polls will tell us one way or another. Bear in mind too that these 17.3% may be lower than what Labour got a month or two ago, but it's still higher than 1997's 12.5%, 2001's 9% and 1945's 11.5%. Even the Johnson landslide of 2019 was won on a lead of only 11.5%. The boundaries, especially the 2023 version, favour the Conservatives, so Labour would probably need like a 14% lead to match Johnson's 365 seats. Notwithstanding, Labour HQ should probably not worry. Yet.

Labour are also still doing pretty well across the regions of England outwith London. They still come first, albeit with narrow margins in the South, in all eight regions, even where they are facing stronger competition from the Liberal Democrats. The current voting intentions also affirm and validate Ed Davey's strategy, that the LibDems should prioritise the South, and specifically the South West. I have also updated the algorithms for a better assessment of the Reform UK vote. I now simulate my outputs with a Reform UK candidate standing in all constituencies, and no longer just those where they stood in 2019. It does not result in many changes in the seat projections, as the key factors are not significantly altered, but it makes the whole picture more faithful to the actual findings of the polls and their regional crosstabs. Especially that Reform UK are making inroads in the Leafy South, with some polls even finding that they would do better there than in the North. With the unintended consequence that a less uneven spread of their vote also makes them more of a nuisance for the Conservatives all across England.

I may have explained it already, but it's worth repeating. I never use the raw data from the regional crosstabs of any poll. That would give a disproportionate weight to data taken from small samples, which might also be just random sampling variations. I use an aggregate of them as differential corrections to the first tier results calculated by my algorithms, which are designed to incorporate 30% of proportional swing to 70% of uniform swing. You can see the differences between the two variants of swing from this Canadian source. It might be eight years old, but the same maths apply on both sides of the Atlantic, and maths don't change with time. Then the logic of a differential correction is not to determine by how much Labour are doing better or worse in any given region than the national average from the same poll, but by how much they are doing better or worse that they were doing in the same region in 2019, compared to their actual national average in 2019. So, if they were 2% above their national average in 2019 and are still 2% above in today's polls, there is no correction. If they are 3% above average in today's polls, there is a +1% correction on the algorithms' raw results for that region. If they are 1% above in today's polls, there is a -1% correction on the raw results. Simples.

If we don’t whack this raccoon first time, we are looking at a total crap fest here.

(Siobhan Sharpe, Twenty Twelve: Boycott, 2012)

First-rate men will not canvas mobs, and mobs will not elect first-rate men.

(Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Third Marquess of Salisbury)

If you look at Labour's voting intentions poll by poll, datapoint by datapoint, and not at the trend, it does look like some sort of sinusoid. Sometimes my snapshot catches them at the top of the sine wave, sometimes it catches them at the bottom. Today is definitely a bottom case, but it does not massively alter the final picture. Labour's predicted victory is not as massive as it used to be in earlier projections, but it is still of near-Blairite magnitude. There is an interesting evolution on previous projections though. Three weeks ago, Labour would have bagged a majority on the seats from England outwith London only. It's no longer true, and they would need the whole of England. Which is still better than Tony Blair, as he was two seats short of an England-only majority in 1997, and seven seats short in 2001. Interestingly, if you like pointless electoral knowledge that you can never use in speed-dating, Clement Attlee in 1945 would have bagged a 22-seat majority with England only.

The seat projections for the eight regions of England outwith London are also still excellent for Labour, and there are some recurring results in there, that are revealed only by the judicious injection of multiple polls' regional crosstabs. Labour are predicted to do about as well as in 1997 in the Global North, and a wee smitch better in the Midlands, a clear sign that the Red Wall is again up and running, which was surely Labour's couch strategists' main goal since 2020. But they are also predicted to do much better than in 1997 in the Global South, where trust in the Conservatives has been lethally eroded by Liz Truss and has never bounced back enough since to jeopardise the prospect of fucking big Labour gains down there. On current numbers, Labour would get a third of their English seats outwith London from the Leafy South, quite a feat. And also less than half from the North, which could lead to some interesting shifts of influence within the Parliamentary Party and the Cabinet. In the meanwhile, the Conservatives would get 12% of their English seats outwith London from the North, 17% from the Midlands and 71% from the South. The proportions were 21%, 25% and 54% respectively after the 2019 election.

This opens a new line of speculation for the few months left before the snap general. What will be the effect on the Conservative Party of becoming again the Party Of The Home Counties And Middle England, as they were in the first two terms of the Blair Era? Will they again succumb to the Curse Of The Nasty Party, choose the most unelectable leader they can find, and thusly shield Labour from the effects of their own Post Landslide Hubris Disorder? Half of the current Cabinet are predicted to lose their seats, but that would still leave some heavyweights in a position to fight in a leadership contest. On current numbers, we would still have Jeremy Hunt and Tom Tugendhat to represent the still-slightly-sane wing of the party. Then the genetically-engineered certifiability of the rump Conservative Parliamentary Party would mean that the final round, to be decided by the even certifiabler grassroots base in the backwaters of Wessex, could plausibly be between Kemi Badenoch and Sue-Ellen Braverman. Which would be a fucking ball for the rest of us, and I, for one, would certainly watch the replays on BBC Two.

Our wealth is being transferred to the super rich. The oligarchs are running the country right now and they're running it for their benefit, not the benefit of the people. There is a stench of corruption in this society.

(Mick Lynch)

Let’s roll this tortoise here, guys. Break out the magic dust. Get maple syrup on your waffle from the get-go.

If we don’t get airborne fast, we are so going to be eating tarmac.

(Siobhan Sharpe, Twenty Twelve: Catastrophisation, 2012)

Scottish politics are getting muddier by the day. You can hear the bullets buzzing past as they criss-cross the air in sometimes random directions. Humza Yousaf looks perpetually trapped between a bad mistake and a worse one. Anas Sarwar still hasn't firmly decided which side he's on in the Labour Civil War, while the Labour candidate in Rutherglen and Hamilton West keeps defying the authority of the Mothership. In the meanwhile, Joanna Cherry KC MP is forced to seek special protection to shield her public appearances from thuggish activists. Just business as usual, actually. Thanks Dog we have Redfield & Wilton, with the new episode of their now ritually monthly Full Scottish polling. Then, just a few days later, another new Full Scottish from YouGov, who hadn't shown up this side of Gretna Green since April. And finally a new one from Survation, who had been silent since June. There is an interesting contradiction between the three on one very specific issue, which we will explore later. Let's first see how the IndyRef voting intentions have evolved with the new polls added to the pot.

Quite expectedly, The Scottish Pravda did not deviate from their tradition of cherrypicking the polls they like, and made headlines only with the YouGov poll. While it is factually true that Yes is 3% higher than in the previous YouGov poll of four months ago, it is also factually true that all three polls found the same result, once undecideds are scratched, 52% No to 48% Yes. But there is another obvious reason why The Scottish Pravda ignored Redfield & Wilton, and prioritised YouGov, which we will see further down the road. The snapshot of IndyRef voting intentions, from the weighted average of all polls fielded in July and August, also shows that there is nothing novel in a 52-48 result. It has actually been the trend and plateau on which we have been struck for the last two months. As one of my esteemed and learned friends on TwiXter pointed out, there is something of a Markov Chain effect in being stuck on 52-48 when asking a simple Yes-or-No question. Or maybe it's Groundhog Day in Brigadoon.

There is another important finding in the Redfield & Wilton poll, as they routinely include three questions about the timing and context of the second IndyRef in their monthly Full Scottish. The August delivery says that support for holding the referendum within the next five years, and only if we get a Section 30 Order from SW1, is the same as in the July delivery. But support for holding the referendum within the next year has noticeably increased, to the point that the result has been reversed, and we now have a wee plurality supporting it. That's the kind of result The Scottish Pravda would have made a headline of, if they had not deliberately yezhoved Redfield & Wilton out of our sight. Lack of attention to detail always gets you. Interestingly, they did not mention what the YouGov poll found on the same questions. That their panel also support holding a referendum within the next five years, but strongly oppose it within the next year, and by a much wider margin than they did in the previous YouGov poll four months ago. No doubt that should never be mentioned either, also because it is a strong hint that the YouGov poll is the outlier here, not the Redfield & Wilton poll.

It took the madmen of yesterday for us to be able to act with extreme clarity today.

We must dare to invent the future.

(Thomas Sankara)

What it is, yeah, you know, what they do with these surveys is, you ask the wrong people the wrong questions, they’re going to give you the wrong answers.

(Graham Hitchins, Twenty Twelve: Catastrophisation, 2012)

Earlier this month, Bylines Scotland treated us to a full column of pearls of wisdom from Comrade John Curtice, the English media's favourite expert on Scottish politics. I have often made fun of Curtice, for uttering self-evident conclusions from polls, that I had already reached all by myself, and pontificating about seat projections any clever 10yr-old would have got from Electoral Calculus, and this new iteration certainly won't change my mind about how over-rated Dear John is. Don't misunderstand me, John is right on a number of key points. Support for Independence now disconnected from the SNP vote, Labour being first boosted by the disastrous Truss Interlude in SW1, the SNP losing ground because of the ferocious leadership contest and Humza Yousaf's unpopularity. But he is wrong to downplay the impact of the botched Gender Recognition Reform bill, or deny that a significant number of voters have switched from the SNP to Labour. Flaws that probably explain why his column ends on a cliffhanger, without even a pretence of a conclusion. Which is what we have come to usually expect from media-anointed pundits. In the meanwhile, the trends of Westminster voting intentions in Scotland only confirm that there are still no sunlit uplands on the horizon for the SNP.

As usual, this chart uses Full Scottish polls only, the ones conducted with a Scottish panel and a sample size of 1,000 or more. No Scottish subsamples of GB-wide polls were harmed in the making of this chart. It is quite obvious, even to the untrained eye, that you can't get this kind of trajectories, with Labour and the SNP on a collision course, if Labour had snatched votes only from the Conservatives. Obviously they have snatched a lot from the SNP too. The Redfield & Wilton poll offers an oven-ready way to dispel the myth that SNP voters of 2019 are now bracing themselves for massive abstention at the incoming snap general, as they did by the tens of thousands in 2017. You just have to look at the voting intentions, first in the raw data before any weighting and stuff, and then after the pollster has performed his usual magic tricks, weighting the raw data by likelihood to vote and phasing out the undecideds and abstainers. The results don't even leave a margin for interpretation.

The raw data say it all. Only 1% of 2019 SNP voters say they would not vote, and 8% are undecided. But 22% would switch to other parties, including a massive 15% to Labour. You don't even need to consider the reworked numbers, when this rises to 17%. The raw data are enough to assess the situation, and the extent of potential damage for the SNP. If you do the basic maths, the Redfield & Wilton poll predicts 805k votes for Labour, a 83% increase on their 2019 votes. With 126k votes coming from 2019 Conservative voters, 48k from 2019 Liberal Democrat voters, and 190k from 2019 SNP voters. We again have more voters switching to Labour from the SNP than from the other two Unionist parties combined. Which only confirms what I have been saying for months. Labour are way past coalescing the Unionist vote, and keep increasing the number of left-wing voters they are snatching from the SNP. And you see just this in the voting intentions and seat projections from the last three Full Scottish polls.

What you see here is just the tail end of a very long sequence of polls that prophesy disaster for the SNP. If there is no spectacular change in the Scottish voters' state of mind before the incoming snap general, the SNP are far from certain of bagging 29 seats, a majority of Scottish seats. That would be the end of the last alternative independence strategy the SNP have got, until they come up with something equally abstruse as a basis for their 11th mandate for Independence. The vote shares for Labour and the SNP also show we are tiptoeing on the knife-edge of a cliff on a tightrope between the SNP holding their position as the first party in Scotland, and Labour dislodging them, after successfully kicking the Conservatives out of the second place. In that context, you have to wonder who at SNP HQ had this genius idea to expel Angus MacNeil. His seat was already in the danger zone before, now SNP HQ have handed it to Labour on a golden platter. There are only two ways the situation can evolve now, and neither takes the SNP to a 2015ish landslide or even close. Either it gets better, and it's at best 2017 all over again. Or it keeps getting worse and we're samtylered back to October 1974. Which was, after all, the best ever result in the SNP's history.

So the question we asked ourselves is, how would it be if things didn’t have to be the way we know they actually are, yes? What would a world look like if it was different?

(Adam Brady, W1A, 2014)

This is major shit. We screw the pooch on this one, we’re sucking nothing but sauerkraut here.

(Siobhan Sharpe, W1A, 2014)

Redfield & Wilton also probed their panelists for their Holyrood voting intentions. You won't have heard of this poll in The Scottish Pravda, because it does not fit what SNP HQ want you to hear, and now Ballot Box Scotland are erasing Redfield & Wilton from their library of polls because they don't like their findings. I saved the state of their Holyrood page on 13 August to preserve evidence of this for posterity. You have to wonder what would motivate a poll aggregator and election prognosticator, who sells himself as "Democracy in detail", to not just dismiss polls from his predictions, but also hide from his viewers that they even exist. Which is fucking stupid when you consider that the full list of Holyrood voting intentions polls is available on Wikipedia, to everyone with a browser. Which is where you can all check that what I'm telling you here is not fucking bollocks, and you can even rebuild the very same trendlines that I use all by yourself. Provided you are semi-fluent in Excel. And you will thusly get the exact same results as me. That these trendlines look just as shit for the SNP as the Westminster ones. That the SNP and Labour are on a collision course here too. And that Labour have better odds than the SNP of ending up on top. Here I have deliberately omitted the last published Full Scottish from YouGov, for reasons that will be made abundantly clear below the fold.

Right now, there is growing tension, discontent and unrest within the SNP, about the Bute House Agreement with the Scottish Greens. It's so strong that even The Scottish Pravda has been forced to acknowledge it and devote a whole column to it. It's fucking hilarious, and also sadly revealing, that all the diehard Sturgeonistas-turned-Yousafistas have to say about it is that it's basically "not valid", totally parroting the Greens' soundbites. It's also highly amusing that the only SNP MSP going on record to defend the agreement is anti-abortion wokephobic creationist John Mason, though his appraisal of it as "the lesser of two evils" is definitely not a ringing endorsement. If they are so sure that they have a solid case, SNP HQ should put the agreement to a vote at the next Conference. But they do seem very keen to avoid that, as they might lose it, and thusly lose the no-confidence-proof majority that was the one and only genuine reason for the Yellow-Green Axis. Scrapping it would risk losing a vote of no confidence and triggering an early election. Which would really end badly, as the last Redfield & Wilton poll tells us.

Here you have it. Whichever way you process the numbers, the pro-Independence majority is lost by a wide margin. You get a 23 or 25-seat majority for the Unionist parties, and the very real plausibility of the SNP and Labour being tied on seats. The very situation that opens a new door, again. Remember we are in a future timeline, where this happens in 2026, two years into Keir Starmer's first term at Number Ten. Obviously the Mothership would allow Anas Sarwar to sign up with the Liberal Democrats, but would veto a deal with the Conservatives. So we would only have the Traffic Lights Coalition left on the table, a Lab-Lib-Green minority government. They would get away with it because both the SNP and the Conservatives would need time to lick their wounds after such drubbings. And the very real prospect of a full-blown SNP civil war post-election, with an explosion or an implosion in the making, would make them a totally irrelevant opposition for some years. The best way to get a full appraisal of the SNP's predicted disaster is to look at the cartography of the seats. The full breakdown of seats by region.

There's a clear pattern here of Labour making big gains all along the Inner Central Belt, plus some inroads down into Ayrshire, and up into Fife. They even score in the North East, thanks to unexpectedly high voting intentions on the list vote there, and in Highland and Islands, thanks to the crumbling Conservative list vote. And they're definitely on the upper edge of their winning streak in Glasgow, where they are predicted to bag the biggest trophy of all. Glasgow Pollok, where this poll predicts Humza Yousaf losing by a merciless 5%. The SNP would hold only three constituencies in their erstwhile Mothership City on these numbers: Cathcart, Maryhill and Springburn, Southside. Just as they would hold only three in the National Capital: Central, Northern and Leith, Pentlands. And the overall situation could be even worse if the Greens prove that they have more bite than bark for once, and do field vanity candidates in all constituencies. Which probably wouldn't hurt the SNP in SNP-Lab marginals, as the Greens would snatch votes from both. But could spell doom for the SNP in a couple of SNP-Con marginals. Too bad their beloved Bute House Agreement did not cover that, and preclude Green candidacies against SNP incumbents.

What we’re talking about here is underwriting a commonality of creative purpose through a shared awareness of diversity. It’s about creating public spaces where cross-cultural resonances can self-generate spontaneously.

(Anna Mitchell, Twenty Twelve: Roman Remains, 2011)

You can't hide from a hurricane under a beach umbrella.

(Philip Rahv, The Daily Worker, 1934)

I don't usually devote two separate entries to just two polls treading the same waters, but it's worth an exception here. As you might expect, The Scottish Pravda crafted their Holyrood narrative from the findings of the last YouGov Full Scottish, and what you can make of it through uniform national swing. And now I give you the full picture of Holyrood voting intentions trends, including the infamous YouGov poll at their tail end. And you can clearly see wherein lies the rub, and my educated questioning of the YouGov poll that The Scottish Pravda used to justify a triumphant column, complete with pictures and a rainbow chart. That's the whole point of trendlines, helping you identify which poll looks like an outlier, and which doesn't. Clearly the outlier is the one that makes the line veer in the opposite direction predicted by ten polls before it, when there has been no significant event to explain it, not the one that just confirms the already-detected trends. So it's definitely Redfield 1 - 0 YouGov here for me.

I'm not saying that this YouGov poll should be airlocked and swept under the rug. Or I wouldn't be mentioning it or discussing its merits. When you look at current individual Holyrood polls, YouGov and Savanta are mostly at the upper edge of the dispersion of SNP's voting intentions, while Panelbase and Redfield & Wilton are mostly close to the lower edge, and Survation in the middle. If you look back at the polls fielded before the 2021 election, Redfield & Wilton wasn't there yet, but the others were. And you can see that, in the last mile before Election Day, Panelbase and Survation were the closest to the actual result and missed it by less than the margin of error. But YouGov, polling just two days before the election, was wildly off and overestimated the SNP vote by more than the margin of error. And you remember what Homer Simpson said about history repeating itself, or was it Shakespeare? The farce part is that, if we hypothesise that this YouGov poll missed the SNP, Labour and Conservative vote shares by the same amounts as their last 2021 poll, and correct their numbers accordingly, what we get is pretty much a doppelgänger of the Redfield & Wilton poll. Anyway, here's what the YouGov poll has found, and what sort of seat projection you can deduce from it.

It's clear that SNP HQ and their press team at The Scottish Pravda can only love this poll more than the half-dozen before it that went in a totally different direction. My critical thinking also says they should have wondered why the Westminster voting intentions from the YouGov poll match the findings of other pollsters, but their Holyrood voting intentions are totally off piste. Having one poll that says that the pro-heat-pumps majority will survive, albeit with a reduced number of seats, does not erase all those before, that said it will be gone. Neither does it change the Scottish people's assessment of the way the Scottish Government do their job, which is far from stellar. All I have here comes from the Redfield & Wilton poll, as YouGov did not bother to poll this, which could have been used as rebuttal of Redfield & Wilton's finding. The only hint offered by YouGov is that 30% of their panel think Humza Yousaf is doing his job as First minister well, and 46% think he is doing it badly. Not a ringing endorsement, and something that tends to validate and affirm Redfield & Wilton's findings, rather than rebut them.

The only solace for the SNP here is that the UK government gets even worse ratings from the same poll, with a net average of -31, while ScotGov bag "only" a net -11. Of course, a lot of Scots love to blame the distant shadow of Elizabeth Tower for anything that goes wrong, but their discontent is also quite conclusively aimed at our own government. It would be interesting and useful now to have some pollster drilling deeper down into some contentious issues, like environmental policies and gender reform. The Yellow-Green Axis have clearly botched all they did in both areas, and we haven't heard the end of either yet. Gender reform will remain a live wire for so long as the frivolous action against Alister Jack's Section 35 order slithers its way through the courts. Both sides surely want it to last until the snap general, to use it as ammunition in the campaign. Then we are just at the beginning of the Heat Pump Civil War, Paddy Harvie having painted himself into a corner on that one. There is a clear and sensible path out of it, in three steps. Extend the transition period to at least 2035. Extend grants to other carbon-neutral and less expensive heating devices. Scrap the zero-interest loans in favour of bigger one-shot grants. Three steps Paddy won't take because he has made it a make-or-break crusade, over which his authoritarian narcissism can't allow him to back down. Whatever harm that does to the common people.

It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society.

(Sinéad O’Connor)

Doubting is not settling in uncertainty. It is entertaining, one after the other, two contradictory certainties.

(Robert Merle)

Now that I have devoted separate entries to the Holyrood parts of the Redfield & Wilton and YouGov polls, I obviously have to do the same for the latest Survation poll, to offer you a full, fair and balanced view of the situation. Interestingly The Scottish Pravda devoted two articles to the Survation poll. The fist one was standard National gobbledygook spiced with Curtice Pearls Of Wisdom, which quite remarkably mentioned all the parts of the poll, including the lousy Holyrood findings and the people's opposition to the continuation of the Yellow-Green Axis. The second one again called John Curtice for a lifeline, and he dutifully predicted a 50/50 for the Westminster seats. The Scottish Pravda seem to have come to terms with the idea that they can't hide all polls they don't really like from their readers, especially when they have already been commented on by other newspapers. This is interesting as the new Survation poll falls, as I have already mentioned before, in between the other two in its findings about Holyrood voting intentions. But it is closer to the Redfield & Wilton poll than to the YouGov poll, which just confirms my earlier verdict that the YouGov poll should be the one treated as an outlier.

There is an interesting twist in the seat projections, totally because of my inclusion of regional crosstabs. Reform UK predicted to bag three seats when uniform national swing says they would not get any. Of course, under proper circumstances, a party can get list seats on a wee share of the national vote. Reform UK's situation here is quite similar to the Greens in 2007 and 2011, bagging two seats each time on about 4% of the national vote. The key is having a very unevenly spread vote, with peaks above the de facto threshold in a few regions. The regional crosstabs of that Survation poll say it would work for Reform UK in Central, Mid and Fife, North East. Then, whichever way you process the numbers, the pro-Independence majority vanishes and an hypothetical Lab-Lib-Green coalition gets more seats than an SNP-Green coalition. Just like the Redfield & Wilton poll, though with less favourable numbers for the alternative Traffic Lights Coalition. Survation also tested the issue that The Scottish Pravda won't be making too much fuss about, public support for the Bute House power-sharing agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens. And it's definitely not a popular hit.

The Yellow-Green Axis is a no-go in every region except Lothian, and only by a wee margin, 39% supporting it to 36% opposing and 25% who can't be arsed to give a swimming fuck. When even the blue-haired tofu-munching metropolitan abrosexuals are not that enamoured with you, you have to realise something went fucking wrong. Interestingly the highest net level of opposition is in the North East, that region where Maggie Chapman was elected in 2021, with 51% opposing and 22% supporting. I guess all the paternalistic shrill lecturing of oil workers, fishermen, users of the A90 and old ladies on a state pension with houses smaller than a heat pump, about how they must reframe their trauma and embrace intersectionalitisation, did not go down according to plan. Survation has already polled support for the Paddy Harvie Ministry some months ago, and it's interesting to see how the people's assessment has evolved since. One word: fucking disaster.

Survation are the only ones who have polled this so far, and it would be fun to see other pollsters probe it too, to build something of a tracker. With what we have here, Scots were split roughly down the middle about The Deal in May, and now oppose it 45% to 32%. Now Humza Yousaf will tell you he doesn't give a fucking shit about that because SNP voters support it. Because he always forgets that a First Minister's mission statement is to govern for all people, not just those who elected him, especially when they didn't actually elect him. He is probably not that good at maths either, or he would have noticed that support from SNP voters has decreased from a net +47 to +33, which is a bigger fall than with the average Scot In The Poll. Humza has not awoken yet to Paddy's and Lorna's astonishing levels of crass incompetence, even if a lot of the Scottish public have. Then this is the lad who thinks Shona Robison is the perfect fit for Deputy First Minister...

Are you not aware that there comes a midnight hour when everyone must unmask?

(Søren Kierkegaard)

Britishness is a political synonym for Englishness, which extends English culture over the Scots, the Welsh and the Irish.

(Gwynfor Evans)

Redfield & Wilton also delivered a new iteration of their ritually monthly Full Welsh polling. Unlike its Scottish counterpart, this one passed The Scottish Pravda's Censorship Board, who found it good enough to headline with it, though they again cherrypicked only the findings that suit a pre-scripted narrative. They did not mention that there is an obvious trompe l'oeil component in the poll's findings about Welsh Independence. Compared to the July results, the spontaneous Yes vote has gone down. But the spontaneous No vote has gone down more, as the number of undecideds rose sharply. At the end of the day, with undecideds and abstainers airbrushed out and all the black magic of weighting performed, it's 62% No to 38% Yes. This indeed a 2% gain for the Yes side since the July poll, but they should also be worried by the higher proportion of undecideds.

Other parts of this poll will look quite doomy and gloomy to the eyes of Labour's Branch Office in Wales, who will wish time had stopped when they were at the top of the curve. Labour are still the most liked party in Wales, just ahead of Plaid Cymru, and the Conservatives the least liked, but Labour's voting intentions have quite visibly fallen since July. The bulk of the change is voters shifting from Labour to Plaid Cymru, which won't really be a consolation for Mark Drakeford's successor at the tiller. Drakeford has confirmed this month that he will not seek re-election to the Senedd in 2026, which is definitely not a surprise, just a confirmation. But the rest of the plan is still unclear. Will he also stand down as First Minister before the end of the current term, as was announced three years ago already, perhaps a wee smitch prematurely? If he does, will that happen before or after the incoming snap general? What sort of impact, if any, will Labour's slump in this month's poll have?

Of course, Labour's supremacy and dominance of Welsh politics is not under threat as they remain 18% ahead of the Conservatives, a far better result than their 4% lead at the 2019 election. But the last poll says their vote share would be barely better than their lacklustre 2019 result, and quite a distance from the 55% Tony Blair bagged West Of The Dyke in 1997. Labour is also clearly helped by Reform UK doubling their vote share and thusly coming in the way of the Conservatives holding even seats that looked like strongholds. Bear in mind too that Labour's Welsh seats from earlier elections were included in the post-Johnson narrative about The Fall Of The Red Wall. So there is some logic in seeing these too, and more, return to the fold. Even if this last poll is less favourable for Labour, it does jack shit for the Conservatives, as the one and only significant movement is from Labour to Plaid Cymru.

The changes in voting intentions have little impact on the seat predictions. This is a direct consequence of the 2019 results. Labour won 11 of their 22 seats, on the old boundaries, with a margin higher than 20%, while the Conservatives won 8 of their 14 with a margin lower than 10%. The redrawn boundaries did not change that. 9 out of 19 notional Labour seats would have been won with a margin above 20%, and 6 out of 12 Conservative notionals with a margin below 10%. This a clear picture of an entrenched Labour versus fragile Conservatives, and there is no way this is going to end well for the Conservatives in the current hostile environment against them. So long as Labour maintain a double-digit lead over the Conservatives, and are able to contain a possible surge of the Plaid Cymru vote, they will bag significant gains. Even if that entails some acrobatic figure skating between cuddling Plaid Cymru in the Senedd and hitting at them in the Westminster campaign.

The office of the Prince of Wales is a princehood illegitimately imposed upon us by an oppressive imperial conquest.

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

We’re surrounded by ghosts. We can’t see them. We can’t touch them. But they’re there alright.

A million shadows of human emotion. We’ve just got to learn to live with them.

(Jack Harkness, Torchwood: The Ghost Machine, 2006)

Redfield & Wilton also polled the next Senedd election, of course. But this line of questioning is passé already, as it is based on the current electoral system, constituencies and regions, and we know already that all of this will have ceased to exist when the next election is held. What we know so far about the new system is definitely not enough to start polling on new hypotheses. That would be like wondering where to put the dog's bed, when all you have are the house's foundations and load-bearing walls. I guess the finishing touches will be pretty quick now that we have the final design of the 32 Westminster constituencies for Wales, which will be paired to spawn the new 16 Senedd constituencies. Experts are surely playing Meccano with these new maps already, assembling and disassembling until the shoe fits. There is obviously just a finite number of workable combinations here, so we will probably hear more soon, possibly even before the snap general. In the meanwhile, the trends of Senedd voting intentions are just indicative, as we have no idea how the new rules will influence and reshuffle them.

I will not share my seat prediction for the next Senedd this time, as you and I both know it will look nothing like that after the reform. The current system is specifically designed to give a second chance to the smaller parties who can't get any candidate directly elected. The new one will have the opposite effect for two reasons. First, any system based on the highest averages method, like D'Hondt, mechanically favours the largest parties. Second, the choice of six-member constituencies automatically raises the bar to 14.3% of votes cast for a seat. Imagine a constituency where the votes go 42% Labour, 20% Conservative, 15% Plaid Cymru, 10% each to the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK. Which is not far-fetched, we will probably get summat like that in a Cardiff constituency. That would not deliver what you think it should, because you are fixated on proportional. The result would actually be 4 Labour seats and 1 each for the Conservatives and Plaid Cymru. The new system could actually make it easier for Labour to get a majority, not more difficult. But that will still require some effort, as Redfield & Wilton's panel don't have a really positive view of Welsh Labour's performance in government.

Quite interestingly, the Welsh Government end up with the same average rating as the Scottish Government in the other poll, a net -11. The areas of strength and weakness are not the same, but mild discontent with the devolved government is a thing in both nations. Their only solace is that the UK government get really awful ratings in both nations too. It's even worse in Wales, where they end up with an average net rating of -35, four points below Scotland. A lot will depend now on the timing of Welsh Labour's leadership election, and whom gets chosen to succeed Mark Drakeford. I think the window of opportunity is at the end of 2024 or the beginning of 2025. A timeline that would allow Drakeford to oversee the passing of the electoral reform, and then leave his successor a year or more to assert their position and prove themselves in action. That's the garden variety of the singular they here, as used commonly in the English language since the days of yore and Chaucer. Right now, the strongest contender is probably still Economy Minister Vaughan Gething, who already challenged Drakeford for leadership in 2018. But you never know. Finance Minister Rebecca Evans and Health Minister Eluned Morgan, who also stood for leader in 2018, might have as much appeal as Gething with the Labour base, if not more. We will know in due course.

The average life is full of near misses and absolute hits, of great love and small disasters.

It’s made up of banana milkshakes, loft insulation and random shoes.

(Eugene Jones, Torchwood: Random Shoes, 2006)

Sorry, I can’t help being from Yorkshire, love. It’s just luck.

(Nick Jowett, Twenty Twelve: Inclusivity Day, 2012)

La Reconquista Del Norte, Rebuilding The Red Wall, has always been at the core of Labour's strategy over the last three years, even if it looks like they are often approaching it in obliquely convoluted ways. But it's working, and not always where you most expect it. The results, in both votes and seats, are quite as expected in the North West, disappointing in the North East, and fucking stunning in Yorkshire and the Humber. Here we have a region that gave more votes to the Conservatives than to Labour in 2019, and by quite a significant margin, and now is predicted to have the biggest swing towards Labour in the whole North. Globally, and factoring in the smaller number of seats, it's pretty much 1997 all over again across the North, with Yorkshire making up for a sub-standard performance in the North East. The reassuring part for Labour is that the Reform UK vote, higher here that in the rest of England, seems to be working against the Conservatives now, unlike 2019 when the Brexit Party attracted a significant number of Labour voters.

It is quite telling that only seven Conservative MPs are predicted to survive in the whole Yorkshire and The Humber region, and only five in Yorkshire proper. The other two are from the Northern Parts of Lindsey in Lincolnshire, that were annexed by the artificial short-lived Humberside County, and more properly belong in the East Midlands. But what the fuck? Anyway, Rishi Sunak is predicted to be among the survivors, albeit with a sharply reduced majority of around 4,000. Stirling-born expat Julian Smith is also predicted to hold his seat in Downton Abbey... oops, sorry, Skipton and Ripon, but by a hare's breath too, with his majority slashed from almost 23k to barely 1k. With Kevin Hollinrake and Alex Shelbrooke also holding Thirsk and Malton, and the newly-carved Wetherby and Easingwold respectively, the Conservative North Yorkshire contingent in the next Parliament would be quite faithfully representing the landed gentry of the rural parts of the county. Which is definitely not the image Rishi Sunak wants to project, but he will have to live with it.

We’re in Yorkshire, mate. Here they think paparazzi is a pizza topping.

(Gemma Draper, Murder On The Blackpool Express, 2017)

The weight of traditions protects us. There can be comfort in making a journey others have made before.

(Gaal Dornick, Foundation: Preparing To Live, 2021)

The Midlands are also predicted to be quite a pleasant surprise for Labour. Bear in mind we have two regions here where Labour's influence slowly declined during the Blair years, then both spectacularly broke up with Labour in 2010 and never gave them a second chance since, with 2019 being quite the nadir in a bottomless well. For months afterwards, and even a couple of years, the Midlands looked like quite the battleground, and a steep hill to climb for Labour. Conservative incumbents, who had been there for a decade, appeared to be successfully entrenched. Even the newbies of the 2019 intake in working-class towns and cities looked quite secure for a while. This is much less the case now, even after Labour's well-publicised reverse ferrets on working-class-friendly reform proposals. Rejection of the Conservatives is strong here too, as polls predict a return to summat 1997ish voting patterns.

Quite interestingly, the predicted vote shares also point to a significant gap between West and East here, just like in the North. Could it be summat in the North Sea? But you see much less of that in the seat projections, as the Conservatives are also hurt by a rather high Reform UK vote. The picture here is clear and unmistakable. It's a better result for Labour than 1997, which is not what they, and everybody else, were expecting even just a year ago. Such spectacular reversals of fortune of course always beg the same question. Will it last? I'm now leaning towards saying that it will. Not because Labour have gained in credibility. Successive U-turns don't usually achieve that. But the Conservatives are projecting an even worse public image, and their credibility has sunk to Beaufort Dyke's levels. Aye, that place in the Irish Sea where all sorts of dangerous and toxic waste have been dumped since the Second World War. And, once you're down there, hopes of recovery are as low as Yevgeny Prigozhin's chances of escaping the FSB's Kill Squads.

The thing no one could have prepared me for, is how much English people drink.

(Emma Mackey)

Sun-bleached bones were most wonderful against the blue.

That blue that will always be there as it is now after all man’s destruction is finished.

(Georgia O’Keefe)

For all intents and porpoises, the Global South should now deliver manna from Heaven for the Liberal Democrats. At least that's what they, and pretty much everybody else, are expecting after they scored massive gains and meaningful upsets at the local elections. But the people work in mysterious ways and it's not happening. The Liberal Democrats are still predicted to be slightly down on their 2019 vote share across the UK, and even a wee smitch more so in England outwith London. But seeing the same trend across the South is slightly bewildering, and even counter-intuitive when we consider the local election results over the last three years. There is an oven-ready explanation for this in the Commuter Belt, North Eastern South East and South Western East Anglia, based on the post-Covid influx of younger enlightened middle-class voters from London. It's more difficult to make full sense of it in the South West, when all extraneous factors say that Ed Davey was right to choose it as his prime target area. But that will work only of the LibDems clear the 20% hurdle and more. Failing that, Labour will remain the clearest and presentest threat to Conservative dominance Doon Sooth, and bag massively better results than the 1997 Blairslide.

There is a high probability that attention will continue to focus on just one constituency in the South, Mid Bedfordshire, Nadine Dorries's seat. Nadine has always craved for attention, but obviously not the kind she is attracting now. First, Flitwick Town Council sent her a letter demanding her resignation. Then she came under fire for her record, or rather the lack thereof, as an absentee MP who still gets her £87k a year for doing jack shit. Then Rishi Sunak concurred but conceded he can do fuck all to kick her out of Commons. Finally, a second council in her constituency, Shefford Town Council, sent her an equally strong-worded letter telling her to fuck the fuck off. The pressure is mounting as Nadine hasn't shown up in Commons for more than a year, and in her constituency for three years, and continues to not just bag her own MP's salary, but also to provide two taxpayer-funded jobs for her daughters, totaling an alleged £45k a year. All this is apparently not an impeachable offence in the rulebook enforced by the Commons' Standards and Privileges Committee. Unless it is, as the deputy editor of Conservative Home, of all people, explained in detail. Which looks like an argument that "when there's a will, there's a way" to kick out someone who would have been shown the door long ago in any private company.

If you’re gonna make an omelette, you’re gonna have to have a frank and open discussion with the eggs.

(Dan Miller, The Thick Of It, 2005)

The whole story

My argument to the Treasury is that a pound spent in Croydon is far more of value to the country, on a strict utilitarian calculus, than a pound spent in Strathclyde.

(Boris Johnson)

Is Jeremy Corbyn just trolling the Labour Party, or is he seriously considering standing as an independent for Mayor of London, or MP for Islington North, or both? After all there is no law against somebody seeking two elected offices at the same time, and there is precedent of double-jobbing as Mayor and MP. Before you all shout "Boris", he wasn't the only one. Ken Livingstone did it too. But those were the days of yore, and people tend to frown upon double-jobbing now, though it is still legal for directly elected Mayors bar two, Greater Manchester and West Yorkshire. It would be fun to see Jezza gambling on this race, but possibly not such a good idea as he is not really popular in London. Ironically, Sadiq Khan is not either, and even Keir Starmer gets a net negative in his own back garden. This may explain why Labour's fortunes in London have varied over the last few months. It is now quite plausible that they will not match their landmark vote share in the Imperial Capital, which is not Blair's 49.5% in 1997, but Corbyn's 54.5% in 2017. The fun part is that Labour's uncertain fortunes are not the result of a Conservative rebirth, but of an unexpected surge of the Liberal Democrats' voting intentions.

Labour HQ should be somewhat alarmed though, even if Labour remain the dominant player in London politics. The seat projection based on current polling shows that the Liberal Democrats are doing all the heavy lifting to dent the Conservatives' share of seats. One Labour seat, Dagenham and Rainham, is even perilously close to the danger zone where it could fall to the Conservative side. There is also quite a body of evidence that many Londoners have actually had enough of Mayor Sadiq Khan's antics, which tend to represent woke extremism rather than seasoned progressive politics. Triggering a controversy about a page on the Greater London Authority's website, that reportedly claimed that a white family "doesn't represent real Londoners" was definitely ill-advised, to say the least. It's appalling to see Khan playing right into the hands of far-right buffoons like Lozza Fox, who love nothing more than howling at the moon about alleged "anti-white racism". Sadly, the wokextremist variant of inclusivibility lends credibility to such claims in some dark corners of the electorate. Backpedaling at flank speed and blaming a lowly staffer for it makes it even worse, and Keir Starmer should be worried that it also stains the Global Labour brand and damages their electoral prospects by association.

Indeed, you would generate jobs and growth in Strathclyde far more effectively if you invest in Hackney or in Croydon or other parts of London.

(Boris Johnson)

Is a corrupted echo more original than a perfect one? Or does it fade away to nothing?

(Cleon XIII, Foundation: The Leap, 2021)

Will the incoming general election in New Zealand be summat of an antipodean reboot of last month's Spanish general election? In Spain, the incumbent PSOE-led coalition seemed headed for a trainwreck, and then defied all odds, polls and predictions, including mine. The Labour Party of New Zealand is also facing quite an uphill battle now, three years after they bagged the one and only outright majority since New Zealand switched to a Mixed-Member Proportional Representation (MMP) in 1996. Labour have obviously lost their single greatest asset when former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern decided to resign and leave politics. During her tenure, Ardern became summat of a progressive icon worldwide, through a carefully chiseled public image relying on classic celebrity media coverage. Her successor Chris Hipkins is far less charismatic, and more of a run-of-the-mill politician. Labour's credibility has also taken hits in recent months, after three Ministers resigned more or less willingly, one of them being even ruthlessly stripped of all his ministerial prerogatives by Hipkins. This has benefited the conservative National Party, but their current voting intentions are far from spectacular, and they would have to rely on a deal with the libertarian populist ACT.

Of course Labour's voting intentions are not overwhelming either. In their best case scenario, they would still have to seek a coalition with the Green Party and Te Pati Maori, who represent indigenous rights from a left-wing perspective, on behalf of the Maori community. The Greens already have a coalition deal with Labour, though Labour technically does not need it, and hold two ministerial positions. Te Pati Maori have transitioned ideologically in recent years, from a centrist party who supported a National Party government after the 2008 general election, to a progressive party often seen as more to the left than Labour. What matters next is how these voting intentions translate into seats, and New Zealand's Electoral Commission offers innocent bystanders an oven-ready calculator to do just that. Projections were uncertain at first, even hinting at a plausible majority for a left-wing coalition of Labour, the Greens and Te Pati Maori. It has gone the other way more recently, predicting a razor-thin majority for a National-ACT coalition, and the return of the nationalist and xenophobic New Zealand First to Parliament after a three-year absence.

New Zealand's electoral law is quite similar to Germany's, with a mix of constituency seats and additional list seats designed to achieve proportionality between all parties who bag at least one constituency and/or 5% of the list vote. It allows overhang seats, in case one party bags more constituencies than its share of the popular list vote would allow. Historically, overhang seats have always gone to Te Pati Maori. If it happens again this year and pushes the total number of seats to 121 or 122, instead of the standard 120, it could plausibly deny the National-ACT coalition a majority. This could lead to an interesting situation, as New Zealanders remember that Jacinda Ardern, despite her progressive credentials, was only too willing to accept support from New Zealand First to form a government after the 2017 general election, despite the National Party coming first in votes and seats. To cut to the chase, a Labour defeat and a National-ACT government remains the most likely option for now, but it would be unwise to rule out an upset just yet, seeing Labour stay in power by a hare's breadth, just like the PSOE is likely to do in Spain.

Am I really the only one who thinks a giant sumo wrestler in a hockey goal might get the job done?

(Sam Seaborn, The West Wing: Stirred, 2002)

The world’s full of pain. You want to control how you get hurt. But you can’t.

(Maurice Warfield, Cold Case: Blank Generation, 2005)

Earlier in the summer, J.L. Partners polled their panel on behalf of the British Foreign Policy Group, providing material for their Annual Survey of UK Public Opinion on Foreign Policy and Global Britain of 2023. This offers interesting insights into the British public's attitudes to foreign affairs in general, with a focus on Ukraine also offered as food for our thoughts. To provide some background, J.L. Partners first asked their panel how five recent events have impacted the UK's reputation abroad. Their choice is interesting, but also quite odd. Let's just say I think Eurovision and the coronation totally irrelevant here. Nobody would ask if Bruce Springsteen at the Super Bowl has improved or damaged the USA's standing around the world, would they? But the first three items in the list are indeed relevant, and very enlightening.

The British public are fortunately under no illusion about the impact of Brexit and the cuts to foreign aid. But you can also see residual traces of British exceptionalism, or what some would call a colonialist state of mind, or even 'white privilege'. Brexit gets a much worse rating because it hurts us directly, while the cuts to foreign aid don't. These cuts also have no effect on our first close circle of friends, or former pre-Brexit friends. But, if you look just a wee smitch further, they do have effects already for some Commonwealth countries, and clearly not positive ones. These cuts were definitely a bad idea, not just on ethical grounds, but also on cynically political grounds. They came at the worst possible moment, when Russia is extending its own colonisation of Africa, and using well-rehearsed anti-colonialist soundbites against the Global West. The poll then probed the level of confidence the British public have in a select list of foreign countries, with quite reassuring results.

The British public still rate the European Union as our most trusted foreign partner, which is quite heartwarming after years of Brexiteer propaganda demonising it. France is even the second most trusted, with a better net rating than the USA, despite all the made-up quarrels over the small boats. I'm only puzzled by the inclusion of the UAE in the list. I don't remember us having a beef with them, other than their attempt to steal David Attenborough's mammoths. Surely Qatar or Saudi Arabia would have been a better choice, given their proven toxic influence in many parts of the world. Then it is also reassuring to see that the British public correctly identify Russia and China as the least trustworthy countries in the world. But this is a no-brainer, as we have had truckloads of evidence against both over the last twenty years. More relevant now is the perceived level of threat to us they might represent, which J.L. Partners have also surveyed.

There is a shared feeling, across all demographics, that both are equally dangerous, though Russia is the greatest current threat. This is probably explained by Russia using and respecting only brute force, while China acts in subtler and cleverer ways. The irony here is of course that China is a greater threat to Russia than to us. Their long term plan is clear. To create a New World Order in which they share the top rung with the United States, and do their best to dislodge them and dominate. An essential stage of the plan is subjugating Russia, making them subservient to Chinese power, and using them as a source of cheap natural resources for their growing tech industry. Only Putin hasn't seen it yet, or so it seems. Fortunately, our own intelligence and security Parliamentary Committee are not fooled, and have warned us about the Chinese threat, and their strategy. Our main weakness, for too many years, has been our belief in the discredited concept of 'the end of history', which was already a delusional fallacy when the book pretending to prove it was published thirty years ago. Democracy through free trade and neo-liberalism failed because it was bound to from the first day. China understood it and reaped all the benefits they could from it, leaving us whining about missed opportunities and dashed hopes.

It’s, like, sometimes you have to believe in yourself, because no one else does either.

(Will Humphries, W1A, 2015)

Where this song came from

You’re a stranger to history. You’re a stranger to war. You just wave your hand and it all goes away.

It’s not so easy for those who died. And it was not so easy for those who sere left behind.

(Jean-Luc Picard, Star Trek: Picard, 2020)

The J.L. Partners poll allows us something of a step by step progression through the nature of the threats facing us now. Because being aware of who constitutes a threat is not enough. We also have to identify in which way they do. J.L. Partners asked their panel to rank the three most serious threats they think the UK is facing now, regardless of its source. And the results are quite fascinating when you include incremental representation, from the threat that was spontaneously mentioned in rank 1, to the aggregated results on ranks 1 to 3. It reads like the report on a Scottish Council election, when the underdog candidate fares badly on first preferences, and then comes from behind to win the seat on transfers at the last count. And, as you might expect, the top two threats identified here come from Russia and China.

It is indeed a welcome sign of common sense and realism that Russian aggression tops the charts here. This is in welcome contrast to the Age Of Appeasement in the 1930s, when whole countries were in denial about the threat of Nazism. But it still took us time, as there was a similar string of warnings in the last 15 years as in the 5 years before the Second World War. Consider the Russian aggression of Georgia in 2008 versus Hitler's remilitarisation of Rhineland in 1936. The Russian annexation of Crimea and the military occupation by proxy of Donbas in 2014 versus the Anschluss, the German annexation of Austria, in 1938. All these warnings culminating in the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, just like the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939 marked the end of the Age Of Appeasement. We must also not forget that Nazism and Putinism rest on the same foundations and obsessions. Hysterical hatred of the democratic West. Militarisation of society to serve a totalitarian ideology. Aggressive expansionism to secure an ethnically pure Lebensraum for the Fatherland. Fortunately, the British public today also quite clearly identify the immediate consequences and the possible long-term fallout of the Russian aggression.

Not everything is doomy and gloomy here. The level of support for investment in domestic energy quite nicely closes the circle with my very first point today, so long as we agree that this domestic energy has to be renewable and green, not involving more holes at the bottom of the North Sea. There is also something less joyous to be made of the belief that China is now more likely to invade Taiwan. This works only if you factor in that the West's response to Russia's criminal aggression of Ukraine was dominated by massive procrastination, doing the right thing but always too late. Which is of course mostly the United States' responsibility, both from their making up of imaginary red lines that never existed in Putin's mind until Biden drew them, and their pressure on other countries to not deliver anything significant to Ukraine. Polish Soviet-built war planes early in the war, German tanks some months later, F-16s until a few weeks ago. It always looked like the Biden administration never wanted Russia to lose conclusively, for fear it would trigger Putin's downfall. Classic "the devil you know" syndrome. Ironically, there is a quite credible scenario now where all this has been for nothing, as Yevgeny Prigozhin's impromptu removal from our plane of reality might make the situation in Russia more unstable and potentially explosive, not less. Fortunately the British public are immune to calculated procrastination, and the J.L. Partners poll still shows them offering massive support for significant help to Ukraine.

The high levels of approval for all options are not surprising. They fit with YouGov's findings in the Ukraine Trackers they have been surveying since the very beginning of the Russian aggression. YouGov's last update was two months ago, when they found 74% supporting sanctions and 64% supporting further deliveries of military equipment. It is quite reassuring to see that support for both has increased since. The last time YouGov polled the delivery of F-16s was in February, and then they stopped as it seemed the point had become moot. Back then they found 63% supporting it and 20% opposing it. It is also quite stunning that the numbers are so close to that now, after months of American procrastination, and their military sources trying to convince us that Ukraine does not really need the planes. Of course they do, and I hope we will never see the day when Biden regrets not having sent them sooner. Which will plausibly happen as the scheduled deliveries will be few and far between, and below what Ukraine has been led to expect. In the meanwhile, support for Rishi Sunak's policies in that area, and that area alone, is still absolutely necessary until Putin's defeat. Unless we are ready to face the prospect of having nothing left but crying over squandered opportunities and lost friends.

The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, and wiser people so full of doubts.

(Bertrand Russell)

Jeremy's Den

24/08/2023

We Have No Need For Ancient Ways

We Must Be Dreaming