Jeremy's Den: Earthling, If I Have Summoned You...

When one is troubled by the reality of this world, it can be comforting to consider other possibilities, even if those possibilities disturb us, so strong is the desire to escape the tyranny of consciousness and the narrow boundaries of our perceptions, to unlock the prisons of thought in which we trap ourselves, all in the hope that a better world or a better version of ourselves, perhaps, may lie on the other side of the door.

(Nobusuke Tagomi, The Man In The High Castle, 2015)

The only way to view the truth of life is to stand apart from it, to see the consequence of every thought, every action. But still, we are bound by time and space, unable to steer our destiny.

(Nobusuke Tagomi, The Man In The High Castle, 2015)

Remember to click on the images for larger and easier-to-read versions.

In due course, Rishi Sunak will have to face the Judgment Of The People, and probably sooner than we all expect. Of course, today's Popular Tribunal is nothing like the kangaroo courts of Cromwell's Commonwealth, which they did not call kangaroo courts because they didn't even know what a kangaroo was. But the verdict can be just as harsh and career-ending, even if the end of a political career today means making millions a year on the after-dinner-speech circuit or as CEO of a tech corporation. No specific names in mind here, of course. And, for some, it just means going back to writing cheap novels that will never sell as much as Graham Linehan on Amazon. No name in mind here either, Scot's Honour. For now, Rishi just has to face Trial By Media and Trial By Polls. The most interesting one being when people are asked to assess how well he is doing with his Five Pledges, that are no longer pledges by now, in YouGov's Pledges Tracker. Aye, that's a thing, and the results never looked good for Wunderkind. What they found in September is no exception. IPSOS also surveyed this in the last instalment of their Political Pulse, on a simpler Good/Bad scale. And the results are just as damning for Sunak in the two-tone version as in the rainbow version.

Rishi Sunak's problem is that, whatever he promises, the people just don't see it happening. The have in fact never seen it happening since he made his pledges, and didn't even believe in them to begin with. The best example is the cost-of-living crisis. We all know by how much the price of our usual groceries has increased in a year, summat like 15% and even 20% in many cases. We even have the BBC to tell us precisely. But Rishi Sunak will tell you that inflation has gone down since he made his pledge to reduce it. And that's a fact. Even if experts will tell you that it would have gone down anyway, even if the government had done jack shit. Which is actually exactly what the government has done. That's also a fact. And I can tell you that what we have now is still the highest level of inflation in 32 years. That's another fact, and Rishi and I both have the Office for National Statistics to prove our point. Just as revealing of the people's growing discontent is their assessment of the shape public services are in, which was of course surveyed by YouGov ahead of the Conservative Conference.

The Great British Public's Verdict is quite clear. Nothing works anymore, that has a real and significant impact on their everyday lives. Only the fire services get a clean bill of health, which is fortunate as we will need them to extinguish the perpetual binfire that the English Government has become. This should also serve as a warning to the people, in England, who think it would be a smart move to vote for the Tories because Sue-Ellen Braverman and Rishi Sunak have taken a strong stand about imported toxic ideologies infecting Britain. But don't fucking do it, mates, because it's a fucking bad idea. Vote Tory to save your NHS from woke extremists and, after five more years of Tory rule, you won't have any NHS left to save from anything. Because it will be sold out to corporate interests, who will kowtow to the very ideology you want to expunge from public services, because it will offer them massive profits on close to no investment, and actually already does. That, and all Council-funded services vanishing in a massive meltdown. So think twice before scoring such an obvious massive own goal. In the meanwhile, we Scots will sort out our own mess with our own means.

The Prime Minister of the UK is in a very powerful position in government, relative to their colleagues, and if they rely excessively on a small team of advisers, they are more prone to error.

(William Hague, State Of Chaos, 18 September 2023)

I think what’s been damaged the most in recent years is the principle of integrity. I think we have an issue of trust in politics, sort of full stop. It’s not just a Tory Party issue.

(Sajid Javid, State Of Chaos, 25 September 2023)

Another clear sign of the chaotic state of the Conservative Party is Rishi Sunak's shifting policies on Net Zero and tackling the consequences of climate change. Their Manchester Fiasconference started just when scientists warned that September had been the warmest on record, The September To End All Septembers. Climate deniers will of course argue that not all reasons for this are man-made, though it is easily demonstrated than changes in the patterns of Pacific currents are also part of the incoming man-made disaster. And bickering over it is irrelevant, as what counts is the end result, and this again proves that radical action is needed. More than ever now, as governments have failed to make the right decisions for decades. This makes it really unbelievable that Rishi Sunak is still pandering to a minority group of climate-deniers at the right of the Conservative Party. Or it is just another sign that he is getting ready to call and throw the general election, as he obviously knows that public opinion is clearly in favour of strong action to tackle climate change. This was again emphasised, a few days before the Conservative Conference, by a poll conducted by Survation on behalf of Greenpeace.

Only a tiny minority of Brits think that we should do less, and even Conservative voters massively reject inaction in this domain. It's not even a divisive or controversial issue, as the poll's crosstabs show very similar levels of support for action across all politics, geographics and generations. The real debate in not between action and inaction, but about keeping on doing the same and doing more. And, once we have reached a majority agreeing that we should do more, which is not a distant prospect, the debate will shift to what measures will gather the largest popular support, while also promising to be the most effective. The poll surveys a number of options that are quite iconic of a green agenda, and interestingly all of them are less popular that the level of support for the principle of a green agenda. Not because of massive opposition, but because more people are undecided.

As you might expect, the least popular option is again the coerced installation of heat pumps, even with higher subsidies. Both the English and the Scottish governments are enamoured with heat pumps, that now have become summat of a pet hate, not just for opponents of climate-conscious policies, but also for a lot of people who do support the green agenda. Quite remarkably, the Great British Public are strongly supportive of a wealth tax, and even more so of a windfall tax on oil and gas profits, to fund ambitious green policies. That's quite a nudge to the Labour Party, who are always afraid to scare off wealthy donors, but should be encouraged to do just that by the level of popular support. Keir Starmer has to understand that being risk-averse is counter-productive, and that public opinion will always have doubts about his leadership skills if he does not fully commit to bolder ways to achieve popular policies. Survation also tested a more political approach to the issues, and the public appear really supportive of such moves, and also quite critical of the current government.

Labour have an oven-ready way to embody genuine and meaningful change. Just listen to what the Great British Public have to say, and lead by following. That shouldn't be too difficult for the current Labour leadership. And I will even refer them to an old cliché. Sue-Ellen Braverman used it at the Conservative Conference, so there's surely no harm repeating it. It's just a question of will. And, if I may add, it doesn't take a lot of will, or very strong will, to just do what the public think you should do. It's even extremely safe, which should totally fit with Keir Starmer's approach to politics. It even has the added bonus to draw a line between Labour and the Conservatives, who are widely seen as too compliant to corporate interests and out of touch with the needs and hopes of the people. Convincing a majority of the people that something must be done to tackle climate change has taken decades. Now that it's done, it would be dereliction of duty for the next government to not build on it. Especially when poll after poll proves that it is popular, and even electorally beneficial. As long as you combine it with a safety net to dampen any negative impact on peoples' finances, and leave no room for accusations that you are pursuing "punitive" policies.

Looking ahead, I think the party can absolutely recover from this, and the first step to recovery is having the right leader.

(Sajid Javid, State Of Chaos, 25 September 2023)

The real purpose of the ECHR is to make us accept rights which we may not want.

(Jonathan Sumption, The Spectator, 29 September 2023)

One of the seriously worrying aspects of the Conservatives' desperation is their constant willingness to undermine human rights in the UK. Not just the rights of immigrants and asylum seekers, where they sadly have quite a large level of support in public opinion, but also our own, which we have been taking for granted for generations. The temptation of authoritarianism is nothing new, we've seen it already under New Labour, and we have already agreed to see our basic rights eroded. There is always a good oven-ready excuse for this, usually involving protecting us from some threat from the outside world. But today's Conservatives don't even pretend to have that excuse, it's an assault on human rights for the sake of it. Savanta have surveyed the Great British Public about human rights issues, on behalf of Amnesty International. Who have seriously damaged their image with their ideological endorsement of some fantasised "rights", but are nevertheless summat of an authority on the matter. They asked their panel if they thing the UK should stay in the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) or withdraw from it, which has become the battle cry of the Tory's war on rights.

I selected this first, although it's not the first question in the poll, because it highlights the dishonesty of the most deranged Tories, who hails withdrawal from the ECHR as a Brexit benefit. While even a moderately-aware person knows the ECHR has nothing to do with the EU, as it is a creation of the Council of Europe, which predates the EU by a couple of generations and was masterminded mostly by Winston Churchill. But the anti-human-rights Brexiteers will of course always conflate the two, to entertain confusion among badly-informed people. It's not reassuring to see that four out of ten Brits would support withdrawal or don't give a flying duck, even if the crosstabs show that it's a clear left-right dividing line, and that the Celtic Nations are far less likely to fall for the stunt. We should bear in mind that it was never about a modernised redefinition of rights, but solely about the suppression of basic rights, and cuddling the deranged ultra-right lobby who can't stand the idea of Britain being accountable to any sort of international standards. Savanta's actual opening question, about whether or not the Government should have the capability to restrict human rights, sheds a light on the dark side of the Great British Public.

A third of Brits would approve the selective suppression of human rights. It's not a surprise that it's a hit with the Right, Conservatives and Leavers alike. After all, this was one of the first measures taken by Fascism and Nazism, wasn't it? It's more worrying to see a non-negligible part of the Left also endorsing it. At least the Right are bluntly honest about it, while many on the Left are perniciously hypocritical. This is the direct result of intersectionalist woke extremism infecting the Loony Left. They are totally at ease claiming that some people should have fewer rights, like the right of assembly and free speech, in the name of wrongthink. And that others should have more rights, which are in fact privileges, to compensate for alleged, and often imaginary, oppression. That's the perfect Orwellian pick'n'mix of bigbrotherism and animalfarmism, clearly identifying the intersectionalist lunacy for what it is, the temporarily fashionable costume of totalitarianism. It didn't get better when Savanta asked their panel which place human rights should have in foreign relations.

This is not really appealing, as the combined feel you get from these questions is that an alarming proportion of Brits opine that human rights are not an absolute, as was taught by the Enlightenment and universalism. But are a relative, variable and conditional, subservient to Realpolitik and political expediency. Which is just the kind of neo-conservative doxa that made us give away Hong Kong to a totalitarian dictatorship, and convinced Germany that they should cuddle Putin, rather than confront him. It's not just morally repugnant, it is also a clear sign of cowardice. There are other issues surveyed in the Savanta poll, but I will leave it at that for now. It certainly does not paint a shiny happy picture of the Mother Of All Democracies. It might surprise you that so many Brits are ready to abdicate their own human rights, and other peoples' rights too, but then you have to bear in mind that there are twice as many CCTV cameras across Greater London as in Moscow, on 60% the area and the population. But we see nothing wrong with that level of surveillance, and even love to call Russia a police state. It's just up to what definition floats your goat.

The requirement not to be rude about judges applies only to judges in this country. It does not apply to judges in the EU, so let me be rude about them. Let me indulge in the floccinaucinihilipilification of EU judges.

(Jacob Rees-Mogg)

It is the end of normal. We’re in a period of greater disruption, where people are struggling with longer-established ideas.

(William Hague, State Of Chaos, 25 September 2023)

The Conservative Party have become a fair rendition of an asteroid crashing into a trainwreck in the middle of a forest fire after an earthquake, and the trends of voting intentions polls continue to show that the Great British Public are fully aware of it. And the sight of half-empty halls at the Conservative Conference in Manchester did nothing to change their minds. Especially now that we officially know that Rishi Sunak no longer has a majority, after Liz Truss and Her Band Of Merry Economy Crashers announced their clear intention to not let him pass any legislation that doesn't send the remains of the UK twirling down the cliff at flank speed. Not surprisingly, Labour are still enjoying a comfortable lead in voting intentions. Interestingly, their were going slightly down in the days before the Conservative Conference. But the chaos that happened there, and the more disciplined and tightly choreographed show Labour put on up to its glitter end, despite the abominable news coming from Israel and Gaza, helped keep them on track.

The Conservative Conference in Manchester was quite the belter, better value for money than HS2. I don't quite yet know where to begin, as we had so many crack acts in there, better than this year's Edinburgh Fringe. Sue-Ellen Braverman claiming that human rights are a "luxury belief" for tree-hugging tofu-munching multi-culturalist beaver-cuddling metropolitan woke liberals quite set the tone, and kind of supports the point I made just above. But the two real stars here were obviously Nigel Farage and Liz Truss. Rishi Sunak is so desperate that he is ready to take back Nige, but Nige will have none of that and has probably already found his forever home. With Liz, of course, who wasn't asked, and probably would have denied, that she is contemplating founding her own breakaway party and rehoming Nige in it. If that's Liz's new Master Plan, she's probably too late to the party, for reasons I'll share with you later. Our friends at YouGov, the ever-ready speed-pollster, were there to tell us how much the Great British Public are thrilled by Liz's come back to the front. Or not. They naively asked their panel how interested they are in what Liz has to say. And the reply is quite cruel. In a word, nobody gives a fucking shit, not even Conservative voters.

I feel something very odd is happening with the Conservative Party right now. Rishi Sunak's recent announcements, no matter how outrageous they sound at first value, look like random thoughts thrown out to the public without the slightest hint of a method. This does not bear the mark of a Prime Minister governing, but of a party leader already on the campaign trail, willing to draw any sort of dividing line with the Labour Party, that could guarantee media exposure and trigger controversy. The best part being when he says with a straight face he will oppose policies that nobody has ever proposed, and that he has just made up for a soundbite. But some of his statements are so utterly stupid, like his insistence that inflation is a tax to avoid discussing the issue of actual taxes, that you get the feeling you are listening to a man who has already decided to throw the election, because he's had enough of it all, and wants to end his ordeal as soon as possible. And has a better job elsewhere in his sights anyway, especially now that he knows all the knives are out to get him. So I can only confirm what I have said before, that I wouldn't be surprised at all if we got a big surprise next week, just after MPs come back from their Conference Jollies. You guessed it, a Royal Proclamation of dissolution, starting the countdown for a snap general election, that could be held on the 23rd or the 30th of November. Stranger things have happened, and more risky gambles have been made, if indeed the intent is to lose it and be done with it.

Solid political institutions, continuity, cautiousness, even boringness. All of that looked as though it was gone.

(Philip Hammond, State Of Chaos, 25 September 2023)

There had been a lot of chatter, pushing very hard for an early election. But we always had the view that elections are always dangerous.

(Gavin Williamson, State Of Chaos, 11 September 2023)

The Conservative Party making headlines even in the French press, and not in a good way, sums up quite well how they are now seen abroad. Le Monde is of course a wee smitch biased, as they are the French equivalent of The Guardian, targeting the same type of "progressive metropolitan" audience. But that does not make them wrong on everything, actually they're spot on about many aspects of the disastrous Manchester Conference. And the Great French Public love nothing more than jibing at les Anglais, as they too tend to conflate British and English. But you have to be fair to them, though. The whole Manchester Freak Show deserved the jibes. It was like watching a star explode in slow motion, leaving nothing but a black hole behind it. In the meanwhile, my new snapshot of polls built up to include the last six in the public domain. Fielded by Techne, YouGov, We Think, Opinium, Deltapoll and Redfield & Wilton between the 4th and the 8th of October. That's a super-sample of 10,430, with an implied margin of error of 0.96%. And it has Labour leading the Conservatives by 16.7%. Higher by a bat's whisper than two weeks ago. Definitely no Conference Bounce for the Conservatives in there. If anything, it has bounced the Liberal Democrats. On top of that, we've also had a hat trick of Full Scottish last week, to be discussed later. Scotland is thusly represented by a super-sample of 3,798, with a 1.59% margin of error.

But, whatever suits Keir Starmer's Narrative Of The Day during the Labour Conference, there is still a lot of ambiguity in these results. The Hipstershire Gazette conveniently chose the opening day of Labour's Trip Down Penny Lane to publish the results of a survey that shows that the Conservatives are losing the working class, but Labour is not gaining them back. This is definitely not a major surprise, as something similar has happened over the years in several European countries. A sizeable part of the working class feel attracted by far-right parties, which they see as more protective of their interests than a vaguely liberal metropolitan Left. You may try and argue it's a delusion, but they just are not ready to listen, and that's how we get Reform UK's voting intentions on double digits in the North of England. Now, if you want to understand how the Conservative Party still has so many voters, and how Penny Mordaunt can aspire to being their next leader, there was a wee test for you in the last Opinium poll. They just extracted three statements from Rishi Sunak's prepared remarks at the Conference, and one from Sue-Ellen Braverman, and asked their panel if they think they are true or false.

Spoiler alert: the first three statements are fucking bullshit, stuff that one of Rishi's staff writers made up on the hoof after too many pink gins at the free bar. It is therefore fucking hilarious that even one person thought that any of it was true. Though there are some good fake answers in there, to quote the immortal Richard Osman. Perhaps we shouldn't let Labour see this, as you never know. "A tax on meat? Have you heard that, Keir? We could make it on imported meat only, like, you know, Australian meat. Wadda ya think, Rachel?" or "Seven bins, sounds good, that's my lucky number. Should we ask Sadiq to start a trial in Islington? Or maybe Andy, and we'll promise to get him HS2 back. Wadda ya think, Keir?" It's quite amusing that a third of the Great British Public think this one is true. And surely that explains a lot. Including how so many think that Rishi Sunak genuinely believes in safeguarding women's rights against regressive reality-denying ideology. He doesn't. He doesn't even give a flying fuck. To him, it's just another campaign soundbite to fuel his confected War On Woke. The fourth statement, from Sue-Ellen Braverman, is far more insidious, and henceforth dangerous, because nobody knows if it is true or false, not even Sue-Ellen herself. But it has the appearance of truth if you deliver it in a stern and strong enough voice, which is what Sue-Ellen did. Because the Conservatives have nothing left but soundbites and made-up controversies.

Announcing an election when you haven’t really worked out what you think your manifesto is going to be isn’t at all a smart decision.

(Justine Greening, State Of Chaos, 11 September 2023)

But the key with Prime Ministers that were out of sympathy with the country, that were going too far, the key is the British system was able to deal with them, and in very short order, dispatched two people it deemed were not up to the job of Prime Minister. So the British system, in the end, worked. It was just messy getting there.

(Simon McDonald, State Of Chaos, 25 September 2023)

This week's seat projections confirm that Labour are still on a winning streak. A snap general election before the end of the year is definitely their best gamble, and they must hope Rishi Sunak just gives up and calls it. One of the reasons is that a massive lead in the polls can only erode with time, there is no example of it holding for two years or more, and Labour have been in that position for a year already. Another reason is that Labour has everything to gain from a short campaign, like the legally prescribed 25 working days between a Royal Proclamation of dissolution and Election Day. A longer campaign would only see the Conservatives overcoming their deep divisions and delivering a continuous broadside of cheap soundbites. They would obviously play on Labour's known weaknesses, which even a successful Conference can't hide. Don't forget that, during a campaign, it doesn't matter whether your talking points are true or made up bollocks. All that matters is the number of people who buy them, and the longer the public are exposed to them, the more likely they are to fall for any cheap stunt.

This week, Labour are still predicted to be close to the results of the 1997 Blairslide, actually a few seats closer than two weeks ago, and to get a majority on the English seats alone. The sequence of my seat projections since the last general shows that Labour are in a good place by now, even if they're no longer at the stratospheric zenith Liz Truss propelled them to. But being in Blair territory is the very definition of a good place, innit? It's fun to read The Hipstershire Gazette now, as they are literally ecstatic about the Labour Conference and Starmer, sometimes to an embarrassing level of sycophancy. Even their serial Tory-enabler Owen Jones is no longer campaigning for a hung Parliament, because he knows which side of the toast is buttered. Expect him to tell us after the election that he always told us so, and was always on the right side of history. Which, in Owen's case, means always being on the winning side, no matter which bandwagon he has to jump on at the eleventh hour. Ironically, Blairite Old Timers are far less impressed by Starmer, but what do they know anyway?

Labour should definitely not lower their guard because today's projection amounts to a massive 189-seat working majority, with Sinn Féin still not taking their seats and the SDLP de facto taking the Labour whip. The awkward part is that Labour HQ will have to make tough choices if polls start veering in a less favourable direction. Right now, Keir Starmer may feel confident he can get Scotland, the North and the South without prioritising any. But the day may well come, when he has to do just that, and withdraw resources from some constituencies to avoid losing others. The most likely tough choice, if the Labour vote slumps, would probably be between Scotland and the South. Both carry huge symbolic value in Labour's narrative, and getting weaker in either would probably elicit some ideological acrobatics to save the day. Keir Starmer would have to face his major problem then, that he has softened his stance so much on pretty much everything that he has nothing left to renege on to seduce floating voters anywhere in the UK. Now, that would be real bad luck.

I kind of want to go into that automatic cliché sportsman’s answer, “You never really lose, you just learn, and you’re up against some great opponents”. In truth, it was terrible.

(Ugo Monye)

The English have a fierce reputation for conquering the world, invading loads of different countries and then getting upset when those people follow them home.

(Tommy Tiernan)

The Big Thing in Scottish politics is obviously the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election. The weekend before, Labour sounded more confident than ever. Which surely prompted Humza Yousaf to take a deep breath and admit it was a challenge for the SNP. That did not make the campaign more civil or less confrontational, as our two Old Hutchesonians really love nothing more than slinging mud at each other. In the last mile, The Scottish Pravda even graced us with John Curtice and Angus Robertson's polling man ponderously pontificating about what the election meant. Because that's what self-appointed gurus do, mansplain things before they happen, with enough alternative options to tell you that they told you so, whatever the result. The Scottish Pravda also felt they had to take us through a digest of the underlying issues in that election, as if we didn't already know, in what was, for all intents and porpoises, an SNP campaign bulletin. Probably in the name of fairness and balance, The Hipstershire Gazette relayed Anas Sarwar's buoyant talking points on the wee hours of Election Day. Then came the more difficult task of explaining the result of the election after it had happened. And totally defied all predictions that were made before, based on a mix of Electoral Calculus and my own model.

I've said it before, it's an impossible task to accurately predict the result of an election in a specific constituency, and even more so when it's a by-election. But we did at least get the result right, if not the way it was achieved. Electoral Calculus and me missing the exact vote shares is thusly quite irrelevant to the Great Scheme Of Things. What matters is what you and me, the punditariat and the political HQs will make of that result. The current narrative is obviously that the SNP badly blew it and Labour blew the doors off, but a 20% swing will definitely not be repeated at the incoming snap general. The trends of Westminster voting intentions, as measured by Full Scottish polls only, have ceased to be totally catastrophic for the SNP, and Labour has even lost some ground recently. If you combine the findings of the four most recent Full Scottish, Labour would bag 'only' 14 seats to the SNP's 31, with the Conservatives on 7 and the Liberal Democrats on 5. The SNP would thusly hold a majority of Scottish Westminster seats. Which they would definitely use as leverage to force the English State to approve a second Independence referendum. Naw, just pulling your leg here, obviously they wouldn't. They didn't have a real strategy before the by-election, and now even that is under attack from within, which can only result in more inaction while counting the mandates on the shelf.

The funniest thing, after that fucking debacle for the SNP, was hearing that Mhairi Black had threatened to throw her toys out of the pram if her favourite blue-haired staffer did not get a chance to lose the SNP selection in Paisley, after being rejected at vetting. He will undoubtedly lose now, after the cat too is out of the pram, and local members will want to send a message to the MP who threatened to quit already before every election, because SW1's toxic masculinity hurt her feelings, and then found that the gravy train was not that bad after all. The Conservatives had already become champions of Party Before Country, now Mhairi is playing Buddy Before Party. It's quite a shame though that SNP HQ did not call her bluff, as a by-election in Paisley would surely have been quite a show in the current climate.

History is written by the victors. Well, yes, but not if your enemies are still alive and have a lot of time on their hands to edit Wikipedia.

(Elon Musk)

Scottish separation is part of the process of England’s imperial disintegration and is a help towards the ultimate triumph of the workers of the world.

(John MacLean)

The morning after the Rutherglen by-election, even before The Hipstershire Gazette had regaled us with its mansplainer of it, the Tony Blair Institute For Global Change published a long and detailed study of the current state of Scottish politics, based on the findings of an Opinium poll they had commissioned, that was conducted in early September. You shouldn't dismiss it because it was spawned by a Blairite think tank, as parts of the poll are actually quite bad for Labour and they nevertheless honestly used it in full. The only problem is that they published the study three weeks after the poll was fielded, which made it well past its sell-by date. But we could rely on the ever-present Redfield & Wilton for a new instalment of their monthly Full Scottish poll, which they released the day after the Rutherglen Earthquake. Then we had an unexpected and quite shocker poll from Panelbase for The Sunday Times, and here we had a truckload of fresh meat. Of course, The Scottish Pravda headlined with the Opinium poll that found Yes 4% ahead, and totally ignored the Redfield & Wilton poll that had No 2% ahead, and the Panelbase poll putting No 4% ahead. This in spite of the general trends of IndyRef voting intentions now pointing to a 49-51 likely result, just what Redfield & Wilton found.

We are definitely treading on shaky ice here. 24 IndyRef polls have been conducted since Humza Yousaf became First Minister. 4 found Yes leading and 20 found No leading, so we're not quite there yet. But the message we're getting from SNP HQ is that there's nothing here that a complete lack of strategy can't cure. I'm not saying that Alex Salmond did have a fully-formed one back then in 2012, and he was probably just as surprised as anyone that David Cameron gave up so easily and signed the Edinburgh Agreement. But Big Eck had the baws to go for it and push Call-Me-Dave into a corner he couldn't escape. Humza doesn't even have that and has pretty much rationalised failure even before trying. Because it's always somebody else's fault, even those who weren't there. The devilish coupling of incompetence and spinelessness surely explains why Humza is not that popular. This time, Redfield & Wilton did not probe Sarwar's and Ross's ratings for comparison, but still featured both of them in the Best First Minister duets.

It's fucking hilarious to see that Keir Starmer is more popular, in Scotland, than Humza Yousaf. Starmer's ratings here are even quite close to what he gets in GB-wide polls, which could mean several things. One is that Independence does not score high in peoples' priorities, so they don't hold it against Starmer when he rejects even the thought of a second referendum more vocally than Sunak. Another is that giving the SNP leverage in Westminster, which they don't use, is secondary to defeating the Tories, which only Labour can credibly achieve. Even if Rutherglen and Hamilton West is just a freak accident, and Labour have lost ground in Scottish polls, we obviously haven't heard the last of them. The Best First Minister results are quite amusing too. Of course Humza handsomely beats Oor Doogie Ross, but then who wouldn't? But Dontknow wins the Yousaf-Sarwar match, just as it wins a lot of Sunak-Starmer matches in GB-wide polls. Which is certainly a fair comment on the overall mediocrity of the current political personnel, at a time when we need the sharpest and most forward-thinking.

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt.

(William Shakespeare, Measure For Measure, Act I, Scene IV)

If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.

(General Melchett, Blackadder Goes Forth, 1989)

Now comes the hardest part, the Holyrood polling. Because we have many pollsters involved, and usually with wildly divergent results. You know what they say about too many cooks. Right now I will not discuss the last Opinium poll, because it's three weeks old and thusly starting to smell funny. But also because Opinium are scarce observers of the Scottish scene, and also have form underestimating Labour's vote shares in their GB-wide polls. Something they acknowledged, sort of, and explained when they altered their algorithms summat like two years ago, resulting in a sudden sharp drop of Labour's lead over the Conservatives. That leaves us just YouGov and Redfield & Wilton for now, until Savanta and possibly Survation show up again on Calton Hill. This has elements in it of a combination of two outliers, and I will come back to this later. Quite likely, it does not influence the trends of Holyrood voting intentions that much, which have evolved in a way quite similar to the Westminster voting intentions.

Now my reasonable doubts come from different directions. YouGov have been conducting Full Scottish polls since 2014, so we have several oven-ready benchmarks to compare their findings with actual election results, and reach the conclusion that they have a clear house effect that overestimates the SNP vote. Redfield & Wilton are newcomers. They specifically polled our Westminster voting intentions once in November 2022, and have been releasing a monthly Full Scottish only since March 2023. So we don't have any benchmark for them yet, and won't have one until the next election, when it will be too late to assess whether or not we were right to trust them. On the plus side, there are no alarming quirks in their GB-wide polling, which has been released weekly for almost four years. On the minus side, there are some in their Welsh polling and their Scottish polling, like allotting a double-digit vote share to the Scottish Liberal Democrats, which does look fucking unlikely. Anyway, and with all the necessary caveats in mind, here is what they found this month for the next Holyrood election.

So we're back to the Doomsday scenario, where the pro-Independence majority is gone for good. We might even get a tie in seats between Labour and the SNP, in spite of a weaker performance by Labour. Which is explained by the uneven spread of the Labour vote, giving them unexpected advantages in the constituencies of the Central Belt. And also by the odd effects of the proportional part of our AMS system, which does indeed reward an unevenly spread vote over a more evenly spread one. Interestingly, what we have here revives my crazy idea of a Traffic Lights Coalition. Just do the maths, and Labour + Liberal Democrats + Greens get 65 seats both from my model and uniform national swing. A close one, but totally workable. And the Greens only fueled speculations about this when they failed to deny they are contemplating a Bute House Revisited deal with Anas Sarwar, in the immediate aftermath of the Rutherglenami. There are multiple clues of how we reached this situation in the Great Scottish Public's assessment of the Scottish Government's achievements on a select array of issues.

The issues surveyed are those considered as priorities of government action, by descending order of priority from left to right, as found by the same Redfield & Wilton poll. The economy, which I imagine also covers the cost-of-living crisis, come first with 67% of Scots ranking it as their top priority. Gender reform comes last, considered a priority by only 2%. Independence is quoted as the first priority by only 19% of Scots, which helps explain various odd phenomenons we have seen here and there. These ratings are not as bad as you would think at first glance, as the average is a net -5%, much better than the English Government, who are more like a net -40% on similar issues in GB-wide trackers. But the Scottish Government's worst ratings are on the economy, housing and gender reform. I think we can forget about the latter, as it will be drowned out of sight by a longer legal battle than in Bleak House. But the first two are likely to play a part in the next Holyrood campaign, and in a way that will not help the Scottish Government. Of course, the overall landscape will be different in 2026, with a Labour government in charge in London for two years already. If their record is as bad on the people's priorities as the Conservatives' today, then the SNP might find a way to deflect criticism and get away with it.

You must always keep your promises to your children, because one day they’ll get to vote.

(Birgitte Nyborg, Borgen: Dyden I Midten, 2010)

You are all so convinced that you are the rightful owners of all of the power that it doesn’t even occur to you that someone else could be in the driver’s seat.

(Alexandra Levy, The Morning Show, 2019)

Of course, now I can't not devolve its own space to that Panelbase poll, that came out of the blue. Which is not a pun about it being published in the Conservative-leaning Sunday Times. Panelbase hadn't put boots on the ground North Of Gretna Green for the last four months, when they were quite prolific before that. And that Poll From Brigadoon was really a fucking shocker. I remembered Panelbase being always roughly in the middle of the voting intentions' spread of Full Scottish. But here they are clearly on one side, really close to Redfield & Wilton's findings and quite a distance from YouGov and Opinium. Which still does not tell me who is the most reliable pulse-feeler of what's happening in the Great Scottish Public's minds, but adds credibility to the scenario in which it's again getting real bad for the SNP, after a brief surge. Which may be true even if it's an opportunistic John Curtice saying it on flimsy evidence. You can't get a guilty verdict from a partial print, or rebuild a dinosaur from a jawbone, but the Great Guru can predict a whole Parliament from one by-election. Aye, richt. Anyway, here's what the sequence of the last four Full Scottish predicts for the Scottish representation in Westminster.

Obviously, Labour have not sealed the deal with Scotland. Yet. But such results can only revive Keir Starmer's hopes of getting a Blair-like majority at the incoming snap general. In the present state of polls, Labour does not actually need these Scottish seats, Keir Starmer and Anas Sarwar know it. And The Hipstershire Gazette fantasising about a deal between Labour and the SNP is fucking hilarious, as well as being ridiculously incompetent journalism. But it's all a matter of optics. A strong come-back in Scotland could make all the difference between ending with more than 400 seats, or fewer. Between a 1997ish headcount and a 1945ish headcount. Not that there was anything wrong with what Clement Attlee achieved, but he did not clear that 400 hurdle, that must have all the significance of a magic number now for Keir Starmer. But Anas Sarwar surely has his eyes firmly on another headcount, in Holyrood. Will he fulfill his childhood dream, becoming an astronaut... oops, sorry... First Minister of Scotland. The Panelbase poll says he has a fair chance.

Oddly, the seat projection on uniform swing, as you can get from the sole public Holyrood predictor this side of the Bajoran Wormhole, does not match what The Sunday Times published. But my model confirms their conclusion, if not the exact number. Labour would become the first party in the Scottish Parliament by a hare's breadth, after a hiatus of 19 years. Both my model and uniform swing predict that the pro-Independence majority would be irretrievably lost. But the Panelbase poll is not as favourable as the Redfield & Wilton poll for the alternative Traffic Lights Coalition, that would fall one or two seats shy of a majority here. But the SNP and the Conservatives would surely suffer such long-lasting PTSD from that Saint Stanislaus Day Massacre that it wouldn't really matter. And minority governments have been known to work just fine in Scotland anyway. Again, a lot would depend on how much the Greens value ministerial cars and salaries. Would they stick to their principles, which would be a first, or migrate to where the grass is redder? It would probably boil down to which soundbite they could attach to either option, which one could be painted as more progressive for the good of all. And their own egos.

And here with our dead faces, we surge through the labyrinth gloom

Whilst the bronchi web coughs with the engines and the march of the afternoon

(Alexander Hampton)

When I said the route to a Labour majority went through Scotland, some of our opponents laughed. Well I tell you something, they’re not laughing any more.

(Anas Sarwar)

Just when I least expected it, YouGov also published their new Full Scottish, conducted on behalf of the Fabian Society. Just three weeks after their previous one, the shortest gap ever between two Full Scottish from YouGov. Did they feel threatened by other pollsters' findings? They did not poll next Thursday's Independence referendum, but only the Westminster and Holyrood elections. There is an interesting twist to their findings, a swing back from the SNP to Labour, which is massive in the Westminster voting intentions and less conspicuous in the Holyrood voting intentions.. I have included their findings in the trendlines for both votes that are included above, but decided to keep my earlier questioning and the entry about the Panelbase poll as they were, so you can enjoy the road I went down then, before YouGov reshuffled the landscape. Here's what the sequence of Westminster polls now says, with the Opinium poll omitted so we can have the last two YouGov polls on the same readable chart. And, before you ask, East Kilbride is predicted to switch to Labour in all plausible scenarios, so Lisa Cameron jumping ship to the Death Star won't make a fucking difference.

It is quite intriguing, even a wee smitch frightening, that YouGov could find such different results, just three weeks apart. That's a 5% swing from the SNP to Labour, and a combined 4% swing from the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK to the Conservatives. And it of course has an earthquaking impact on the seat projection. Of course, such big swings in such a short amount of time can happen, Liz Truss remembers it to this day, but not that often. And when they do, it's not always easy to get a clear idea why. That's where all the fun is for us psephologisto-prognosticators, though pollsters can also be a fucking pain in the arse. Like YouGov rejoining the pack on their Holyrood polling too, and predicting a less that flamboyant outcome for the Yellow-Green Axis at the next election.

Here too, the pro-Independence majority is going down the pipes, but alternative scenarios are less self-evident than with the Redfield & Wilton and Panelbase polls. This time my model is more favourable to the incumbent coalition than uniform national swing (UNS), a rare occurrence, and it predicts a Unionist majority less than half as big as UNS. But, if we follow the UNS worst case scenario, the usual alternative Traffic Light Coalition would get as many seats as the current SNP-Greens one. Which would make matters really difficult for the Greens. To switch or not to switch, that is the question. Especially as both options would be minority governments on only 58 seats. The SNP governed with fewer seats during Alex Salmond's first term and got away with it, but it surely can't be repeated in the future. Then you can also think many cables outside the boat, of an SNP-Labour coalition, which would have a super-majority of 86 or 89. Just don't say it can't happen. It surely could, and it might even work.

Right now, you seem really desperate, and desperation is not a strong position to make a big move.

(Cory Ellison, The Morning Show, 2019)

And I thought the end of the world couldn’t get any worse.

(Ianto Jones, Torchwood: Sleeper, 2008)

The Labour Party's position in Wales is extremely strong at the moment. Stronger than it has been at any time in the last twenty years, actually, except for the Corbyn Surge in 2017. The overall trends of Full Welsh polls might not convey that, but only because Labour's vote share rose to implausible levels during and shortly after the Liz Truss Interlude in SW1. But Labour is safe there so long as their voting intentions remain around 45%, and the Conservatives lag behind by 20% or more. Every little bit of outside help matters, so Labour can only welcome good performances from the other parties, especially the Liberal Democrats and Reform UK, as they are the most likely to snatch votes off the Conservatives. Reform UK have exactly jack shit chance of bagging a seat, and the only plausible LibDem gain is a perennial Con-Lib marginal, way out of reach of Labour. It could get a wee smitch awkward with Plaid Cymru, as both their only plausible loss and their only plausible gain are Plaid-Lab marginals. But that will surely sort itself out in due course.

There has been no Full Welsh fielded and released over the last two weeks. But it's just a question of time before we see one emerging, and I guess it will again come from Redfield & Wilton. I must say that Full Welsh are less fun by now, and will be so long as we are in limbo about the exact details of the new electoral law for Senedd elections. But, for now, I had to think of some filler material that would still be relevant to the incoming snap general, and of even moderate interest for my faithful followers. Like seat predictions based on the aggregation of Welsh voting intentions through the summer and early autumn.

The aggregate voting intentions here are the weighted average of all polls, both Full Welsh and Welsh subsamples of GB-wide polls. It says that subsamples are not that bad after all, if you add a full month of them to the broth. Whatever way outliers go, which tends to be quite common with subsamples, including a bigger mass tends to iron them out. Or, as statisticians would call it, enlarging the scope of the observations results in regression towards the mean. No matter by how wide a margin subsamples are wrong, a large clustering of them tends to be about right. And here, it does not deviate from predicting a decisive advantage for Labour at the incoming snap general, something Keir Starmer can only welcome, as Labour HQ won't have to spend too lavishly in Wales, and can redirect some resources to neighboring areas of England. You will find out which ones very soon.

There’s gotta be something you can do, otherwise what’s the fucking point of you?

(Gwen Cooper, Torchwood: End Of Days, 2006)

Our lot is not that of grandeur and gale. Let us stay close to the ground whence we hail.

(Nikolaj Frederik Severin Grundtvig)

Polls continue to show that Labour's Reconquista Del Norte, Rebuilding The Red Wall, is well underway and successful. What we have now is slightly less spectacular than 1997, both in votes and seats, but still close enough to be considered a conclusive recovery. The Conservatives are bagging fewer votes across the North than in 1997, and you also have to consider the impact of two new players, the Greens and Reform UK. They either did not exist, or were an insignificant presence, 25 years ago, which is clearly no longer the case. The good news for Labour is that the Greens don't have enough support in the North to be a real nuisance, while Reform UK have enough to be a nuisance for the Conservatives. On current voting intentions, there are 55 constituencies across England where Reform UK are predicted to bag more votes than the Conservatives, and 43 of them are in the North. There are also 19 Northern battleground seats where Reform UK's predicted vote is higher than Labour's predicted majority over the Conservatives.

Contrary to what I thought at some points along the line, Northerners don't seem to be bothered by Keir Starmer's creative ambiguity. Not even obvious U-turns on classic Labour policies won't deter them from promising their votes to the party. Obviously, rejection of the Conservatives dominates here, and they're not ready to give the 2019 intake a second chance. This will obviously be a challenge for the Labour government after the snap general. I don't recall hearing anything specific about levelling up during the Conference. Unless Labour's much-publicised plans to build 1.5 million houses and tackle knife crime include provisions targeting the North, that certainly needs urgent action on both more than London or the South. The new intake of Northern Labour MPs will also face some challenge, in just making their voices heard. In 1997, 51% of Labour MPs came from the North, 27% from the Midlands and 22% from the South (not counting London). My current projection for the next election has 41% coming from the North, 24% from the Midlands and 35% from the South. Quite a change, one that would shift the party's centre of gravity and might affect their priorities.

We need to unleash that gas that we are sitting on.

(Liz Truss, Conservative Party Conference, 2 October 2023)

The Civil Service are expected to toe the line, and toeing the line being cover up for mistruths if necessary.

Don’t tell politicians things they don’t want to hear. Don’t worry so much about facts and evidence. Just do as you’re told.

(Josie Stewart, State Of Chaos, 18 September 2023)

There has been lots of talk recently about one of Rishi Sunak's bravest and stunningest moves, one that might drive the proverbial Thin Edge Of The Wedge between the North and the Midlands. The cancellation of the last leg of HS2, between Birmingham and Manchester. Rishi procrastinated longer about this than Joe Biden about delivering planes to Ukraine, before saying he had actually canceled it. I'm not even sure he was sure where he was heading, if you assess that by his dodging specific questions about it. In fact, the more we didn't hear about it, the more it looked like another dead cat dangled under our nose, and that was reinforced by the Transport Secretary also dodging questions a dozen times. They kept treating it as something that was never meant to actually happen, but to be used as campaign material in the run-up to the snap general, until they finally had to come out of denial and let the cat out of the bag. Because it's obviously a divisive issue, now that it has been made clear that HS2 is the Northern Powerhouse variant of the Danaïdes' bathtub. YouGov of course had to speed-poll that one too. The first item on their menu was "Do you support or oppose building the HS2 rail link between London, Birmingham and Manchester?". The exact wording matters here, as you will see later, and it's an overall lukewarm display of support, though with massive differences between demographics.

Then YouGov resorted to one of the oldest tricks in the pollsters' book, asking the exact same question in reverse, for verification. Instead of asking you if you oppose or support a given position, they ask you if you support or oppose the exact opposite, shake and stir, and have a good laugh at the results. YouGov use that all the time, they have even explained it as a way to massage polls, as the answers depend on the wording of the question. And yet people always fall for it, which is fucking hilarious. It worked perfectly this time too, when YouGov used "Would you support or oppose canceling the portion of HS2 between Birmingham and Manchester, so high speed trains only ran between London and Birmingham?" as the follow-up question. Which was in fact probably not the exact follow-up in the actual poll, to not make it look like too obvious a stunt. But they're displayed in sequence in the poll's results, thusly making another of these collisions of contradictions that are always the best part of opinion polls.

So we had first 33% of Brits opposing finishing HS2 as planned, and now we have 23% supporting the cancellation of the Manchester branch. Which is pretty much the same thing, innit? Yet we have 10% supporting the mutually exclusive options of finishing it and cancelling it. But the final nail in the coffin is YouGov's final question, about whether their panel think HS2 is good or bad value for money. It's fucking hilarious to see 15% opining it's good value, when the latest cost estimate is twice the original amount, even after the Leeds branch has been pruned. Then you might say a slow high-speed train is better value for money than two aircraftless aircraft carriers, which would be quintessentially English stiffupperlipping for King and Country. Or you might say both are a fucking waste of money, and it's a fucking shame Scotland has payed 8.4% of all this, and we should get our money back.

To sum up the poll's findings, we have similar proportions of Brits thinking HS2 is a fucking waste of money, and opposing the cancellation of the Manchester branch. Of course, they are not the same parts of the panel, but you still have summat like a quarter of Brits wanting HS2 to go all the way to Andy Burnham, while thinking it's spaffing taxpayers' dosh up the wall. I guess Rishi Sunak was actually happy to see the Great British Public confused about this, as nobody in the English Government could be arsed for days to say if The Thing would be axed or not. Now it's sowing discord within the Conservative Party, and frustration and discontent in the North. All this only supports my view that Rishi Sunak is no longer governing, but already campaigning, and testing whatever he last came up with as a possible campaign soundbite, if it can embarrass Labour. The problem being that it actually embarrasses the Conservatives more. But it nevertheless confirms my hunch that we are heading for a snap general election much earlier than most people think. If that's the plan, we will know about it by the middle of next week, after MPs return from their Conference jollies, and Rishi meets Charles again.

If you tell the international investment community you are going to do something, you had bloody well better stick to your word.

(Andy Street, Conservative Party Conference, 2 October 2023)

Nobody's doing this shit out of a vacuum. Everybody's too busy just trying to fucking survive.

(Chip Black, The Morning Show, 2019)

The situation in the Midlands is more ambiguous, from Labour's perspective. On one hand, they have made obvious progress over the last year, and are back to their 1997 performance. On the other hand, the Midlands are not, and have never been, the most solid part of the Red Wall. They were the first part of it to fall down in 2010, long before Wales and the North, and confirmed their blue leanings throughout the 2010s. The explosive mix of disenchanted former industrial areas and cosy rural areas even resisted the Corbyn Surge of 2017 and got deeply bluer in the Corbyn Debacle of 2019. Even if that sounds quite counter-intuitive at face value, the Midlands are probably the least safe area of England for Labour at the next election. Over the last year or so, the regional crosstabs of GB-wide polls have shown more volatility in voting intentions there than in Scotland, and even in the South.

Labour's current discourse works well in the Midlands, for probably the same reasons as in the North. They too have had their fair share of incompetent Conservatives MPs, and just as many compelling reasons to want a change. But it's not carved in stone for all of eternity. On current numbers, there are more battleground seats, those predicted to be won by 9.99% or less, in the Midlands than in the North, on a smaller overall number of seats. That includes 16 of Labour's prospective gains, including 7 where the Reform UK vote is predicted to be higher than Labour's projected majority. Labour may have Anna Soubry's vote, as well as gaining her old seat in Broxtowe, Nottinghamshire, they are not invulnerable in the Midlands.

I want cheaper food. I want hormone injected beef from Australia.

I've eaten beef in Australia, it's delicious. There's nothing wrong with it.

(Jacob Rees-Mogg)

There is no greater sorrow than to recall happiness in times of misery.

(Dante Alighieri)

On the meanwhile, the South continues to be the unexpected reservoir of new seats for Labour. Those they can't get in Scotland, they have to seek here. But only if they want to match their 1997 record. Otherwise, they certainly can afford to lose ground in the South without losing their majority. According to this week's polling, they have a buffer of 85 seats between their predicted performance and the majority hurdle, not far from their current predicted result in the South. Even if they failed to gain even one seat here, they would still have an overall majority from the rest of the UK. If they just matched their 1997 performance here, they would still bag as many seats overall than the Conservatives in 2019, give or take a couple. This is quite a reversal of fortunes Doon Sooth, both in votes and seats, with Labour doing significantly better than in 1997. There is still a massive question mark about what might happen here, as we have not seen yet the full deployment of the Liberal Democrats' campaign machine. They clearly intend to go after as many Southern seats as they can, and it is not totally clear whom they will snatch votes from once the campaign unfolds.

Of course Ed Davey will assure everybody that his campaign will be targeting only 'soft Tory' voters who would not consider switching to Labour. While Labour will argue that those same 'soft Tories' are just the ones they need to switch to secure significant gains. Seeing how this fight develops could become quite a popcorn moment within the campaign. Later on, it will be interesting to see how Prime Minister Keir Starmer will handle the conflicting interests of his Northern voters and his Southern voters, if both provide similar shares of the post-election Parliamentary Labour Party. Middlesex-born Baron Mandelson of Foy and Hartlepool, who seems to have forgotten his acquired Northern credentials, basically advised Starmer to forget the working class and prioritise the interests of the middle class, which is surely not the best piece of advice Starmer has ever received. Following it would be obvious short-termism and quite a gamble, unless Starmer intends it to somehow balance his decision to throw Nimbyism overboard, that is more prevalent in Southern Middle England. That will be the time for tough choices indeed.

You're actually pretty lovable when you're not acting like a wet cat.

(Bradley Jackson, The Morning Show, 2019)

The condition we live in is justly regarded as being one of the strangest ever seen in the world. We have more riches than any other nation and London is full of wealth of every kind. But here, there are also those steeped in the most abject poverty, sinking into the deepest degradation.

(Frederick Wicks, The British Constitution And Government, 1871)

London is also a victim of the fallout of the Conservative Fiasconference, as it has now surfaced that the remains of HS2 will probably never reach Euston, but be blocked in the Outer Marches of the Imperial Capital next door to Kensal Green Cemetery. And all they have left is a slow-high-speed shuttle from the Northern Frontier of Wormwood Scrubs to the Fox and Grapes. But the worst news are in the current state of voting intentions, that hint at a mediocre performance, and Labour even losing the marginal Dagenham and Rainham seat to the Conservatives. This might even not be the worst of things to come, as parallel polling shows that next year's mayoral election might be an unexpected challenge, not seen since Boris Johnson ousted Ken Livingstone fifteen years ago. I was quite ready to disbelieve the Redfield & Wilton poll from early September as too pessimistic, until a later one from J.L. Partners also predicted the Conservatives within touching distance of Sadiq Khan.

Things might nevertheless get better for Sadiq Khan soon, as the Conservative candidate Susan Hall appears to be his best electoral agent, after she repeatedly shot herself in the foot while having it firmly stuck in her mouth. Unless we see the Doomsday Scenario unfolding, that pollsters have already tested, Jeremy Corbyn standing at the election as an independent. Labour HQ can't dismiss the fact that Corbyn is still really popular within London Labour, and other circles within the radical left. Just the part of the Left that will probably not be driven off by Corbyn's reactions to the events in Israel, because they are on the same wavelength as him. A Corbyn candidacy thusly has the potential to put Sadiq Khan in the danger zone, and even to hand the Mayoralty to a questionable Conservative candidate who would probably make a fucking dog's breakfast of it. No offence intended for the dogs, of course. I guess that Labour HQ is now in no mood to negotiate anything with Corbyn, or even talk to him at all. Which is probably the right decision if Starmer wants to strengthen his own credibility.

How seriously should Labour HQ take the prospect of an independent Corbyn standing for whatever election comes next? The Weekend Hipstershire Gazette seemed to imply that they should. But that was last Saturday, and they may wish to take that back now. Then Hamas atrocities in Southern Israel happened. Then demonstrations supporting Hamas on the streets of London happened. Then Israel going into an indiscriminate revenge killing spree happened. Rishi Sunak was the first to totally misreact to the situation, when he hinted that the UK could provide military support to Israel, which they obviously don't need, and should never have been considered an option. But it's easy to see this stunt for what it is, another desperate attempt to lure voters to the Conservative side. Labour HQ clearly realised that this is a live-grenade-in-a-minefield issue, coming at the worst moment for them in the middle of a carefully choreographed conference. They must have undertaken some risk analysis about alienating the voters in Golders Green, or those in Tower Hamlets, or both, and decided that the best course of action was to avoid saying anything of real substance. Jeremy Corbyn was not that careful, and his posts on TwiXter, both just after the events and after two days, when he appeared to be somewhat backpedaling on his knee-jerk reaction while simultaneously doubling down on it, will come back to bite him in the arse. Enough to kill his come-back plans? I'm not even sure.

There is no intercourse, and no sympathy between rich and poor. They are fed by different foods, they are ordered by different manners, and they are as ignorant of each other’s habits, thoughts and feelings as if they were dwellers on different planets. One can only wonder that the whole crazy fabric still hangs together.

(Frederick Wicks, The British Constitution And Government, 1871)

Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. In would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

(C.S. Lewis)

Poland will vote on Sunday to elect members of its Parliament. The lower house is called the Sejm, which is an ancient Polish word for "gathering". Its 460 members are elected by proportional representation from 41 multi-member districts with 7 to 20 seats each. The upper house is the Senat, which is Polish for Senate, but you probably had guessed already. It has 100 members, elected by first-past-the-post in as many districts. To make the most of their votes, Polish parties have formed coalitions fielding joint lists for the Sejm and joint candidates for the Senate. Fewer wasted votes and less tactical voting there. Five main coalitions competed for the previous election in 2019, and are competing again this year. The United Right, led by the conservative nationalist ruling party Law and Justice (best known by its acronym PiS). The liberal Civic Coalition, led by the Civic Platform party. The social-democratic Lewica (The Left), an association of several left-wing parties. The agrarian centrist Third Way, led by the Polish People's Party, the oldest existing Polish party, dating back to 1895. The far-right Confederation, an association of small parties ranging from libertarianism to ultra-nationalism, including one Rishi Sunak would love as they are a single-issue party "fighting for the rights of drivers". The United Right are the current Polish government, after winning their second term in 2019. The opposition parties won a plurality of seats in a hung Senat in 2019. The Civic Coalition are trying to get back in government, a position they held between 2007 and 2015. The results of the 2019 election were as follows.

Pollsters abound in Poland and survey the electorate even more often than their British counterparts, especially when getting closer to the election. They poll only voting intentions for the Sejm, as the FPTP system makes the Senat far less predictable by their standards, and also offer seat projections of their own, which saved me the bother of trying to do it myself. Domestic policies are at the core of the campaign, as the PiS has been widely criticised by the opposition for its lurch towards authoritarianism. This includes the proposed removal of constitutional safeguards that are part of a traditional checks-and-balances constitutional order, and the possibility for the Government to legislate by decree without parliamentary supervision or approval. They are also protectionist, socially conservative, eurosceptic and anti-immigration. Which, when you think of it, is not too dissimilar to our own Conservative Party. Quite fittingly, the PiS are also campaigning on the same soundbites as Rishi Sunak, sternly opposing policies that nobody ever proposed. Just saying. The Civic Coalition, on the other hand, are fully committed to upholding the rule of law and constitutional principles. They are also strongly pro-European, mildly socially conservative and committed to some baby steps to tackle climate change, which is not a popular issue in coal-reliant Poland. The trend of polls is unmistakable, predicting that United Right will come first, albeit with a strongly reduced share of the popular vote, and that the Civic Coalition will progress only by a few points.

Polish pollsters also routinely offer seat projections, that open a whole array of speculation. Most of these projections originally predicted a hung Sejm, with the possibility that the combined strength of the centrist and leftist oppositions would outnumber the PiS. But the most recent ones clearly show a path to a government majority for an anti-PiS meta-coalition of the Civic Coalition, Third Way and The Left. It is especially credible as The Left, unlike other post-Soviet left-wing parties in Eastern Europe, is pro-European and opposed to Russian influence. The latter is in fact a common trait in Poland, which you can describe as the only genuinely Russophobic country in Europe. Of course, they have centuries of history to back that, from the dismemberment of Poland in the late 18th century to the Stalin-Hitler pact of 1939, and its subsequent systemic elimination of Polish elites by the Soviets. Ironically, there is also a strong under-current of Germanophobia in various quarters of the Polish right. But they have obvious reasons for that too, haven't they? A few of the seat projections also open the possibility of a more disturbing scenario, a post-election government deal between United Right and Confederation, which would boost Poland's lurch towards nationalist authoritarianism and illiberal policies.

In the meanwhile, the European Union have watched the whole campaign from the sidelines, and carefully avoided any comment. Which does not mean they are totally indifferent to the result, and probably secretly root for the Civic Coalition. A more radical PiS staying in power would be another thorn is the EU's arse, which they don't need after Hungary has become Putin's Trojan Horse in the EU, and Slovakia is now bound to try and derail any pro-Ukrainian initiative. The EU should be alarmed by the Polish United Right's willingness to pick an absurd fight with Ukraine purely for short-term electoral purposes, and their obvious readiness to intensify their populist anti-EU rhetoric when the EU issues warnings about their illiberal politics jeopardising the rule of law. The EU have a lot to gain from a Civic Coalition victory, as they are fully committed to the EU, and would not use Ukraine as a political football in domestic politics. Ukraine would also benefit from having to deal with Donald Tusk, a supporter of free-trade liberalism, rather than Mateusz Morawiecki, who is strongly supporting protectionism against imports of Ukrainian cereals into Poland. Preliminary results are expected in the wee hours of Monday, and the final headcount, after very likely recounts, by the middle of the week.

The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated. But those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.

(C.S. Lewis)

We need to give Ukraine the support it needs to bring this war to an end. As Defence Minister, I was very often confronted with reasons not to do this. Mostly from people who didn't know the difference between one end of a rifle and the other.

(Ben Wallace, The Telegraph, 2 October 2023)

The worst recent news for Ukraine did not come from the frontline, or even from Russia. The first blow came from Washington DC, where a vociferous fringe group of pro-Putin Republicans forced Democrats into accepting a budget deal that excludes $24bn of aid to Ukraine, to avoid the perennial bogeyman of US politics, a government shutdown. Sloppy Joe Biden tried to spin it as a good thing, that could lead to a proper debate on Ukraine aid only. He just forgets that this sort of toxic deal would never have happened if he hadn't procrastinated for months over any significant increase of this aid, which opened the door to the Trump Party weaponising it. The second blow came from Slovakia, where a general election was held on the last day of September. Voters chose Smer as the first party, an allegedly social-democratic party who are in fact outspoken supporters of Vladimir Putin's war crimes in Ukraine, rabidly anti-European and openly homophobic. The far-right Slovak National Party, also vociferous Putin-enablers, returned to Parliament at this election, and are now coalition partners in a Smer-led government, as they already had been twice in the past. This could weaken the EU's support for Ukraine, and the UK has thusly more and more reasons to never budge and actually increase its level of military aid. Which would certainly be supported, as yet another recent YouGov poll shows that Ukraine is really popular with the Great British Public, while Russia is definitely not.

There was a massively divisive option briefly on the table, before Rishi Sunak jumped into damage control mode to disown it, when Substitute Defence Secretary Grant Shapps suggested sending the British Army to Western Ukraine to train the Ukrainian Army. Even I, a staunch supporter of anything we can do tho help Ukraine, was totally flabbergasted by the sheer stupidity of this. I am totally opposed to Biden-style procrastination, and not against poking the Russian bear, but this was one gratuitous poke too many. How could Grant Shapps not realise that he had opened the door to Putinist propaganda claiming we were becoming co-belligerents and thusly legitimate targets for retaliation? Which the vodka-soaked Dmitri Medvedev of course said immediately. I don't think Shapps is smart enough to play any sort of smoke-and-mirrors or triple-bluff, so we can blame that on his complete amateurism and appetite for being in the spotlight. This demented idea was speed-polled by YouGov on the 2nd of October, in the minuscule window of opportunity between Michael Green toying with his new Master Plan in front of the media, and Rishi Sunak telling Sebastian Fox to shut the fuck up and go to his room. With the unambiguous wording, "Would you support or oppose sending British troops to Ukraine to train Ukrainian soldiers?", and quite embarrassing results.

It is quite unbelievable, and honestly quite scary, that a majority of Brits would support such an obviously dangerous and unfeasible proposal. It would definitely feel much better if the Great British Public didn't fall for such obvious stunts, and just reaffirmed their solid support for aid to Ukraine. Which is the only thing Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak have done right, and Liz Truss did not have enough time to totally fuck up. YouGov have not polled their British and European panels about Ukraine since June, but their American branch has polled theirs, just three weeks ago. Ukraine is buried deep down in the bowels of the poll, questions 38 and 39. Its findings are quite different from the CNN poll from late July, that I quoted in my previous article. I have concatenated the replies to the two Ukraine questions into one chart, which was basic maths, to give you the complete vision of the state of American public opinion. We are now quite close to a majority supporting sustained military aid to Ukraine, and only a small minority wanting to stop it entirely.

These results look quite favourable at face value, but there is still a massive political divide. In American practice, party identification refers to what people have declared when registering to vote, for the purpose of voting in primaries. It may differ from how they self-identify ideologically from left to right. Both crosstabs nevertheless show that Ukraine has support from the left and centre, and only the right oppose helping them. More worryingly, the generational divide again shows that the core of "working America" are more likely to oppose aid to Ukraine, just as they are more likely to vote for Donald Trump, and support comes from the opposite ends of the generation spectrum. There is a lot of speculation now about what can possibly happen after the MAGA mob helped kick out House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, a first in American parliamentary history. I have a hunch it won't actually make it more difficult to pass standalone legislation in support of Ukraine, as only a minority of 60 to 80 House Republicans are bound to oppose it, and a majority of Senate Republicans will support it. But the fear of uncertainty should definitely convince Joe Biden to stop procrasturbating and seek more aid packages more quickly, before the debate is polluted by both sides going into full campaign mode in just a couple of months. Time is of the essence here, more than ever.

If we pull the plug on Ukraine, that's ten times worse than Afghanistan. It would be a death sentence for Taiwan. You missed all of World War Two if you don’t know how this movie ends.

(Lindsay Graham, Face The Nation, 2 October 2023)

Jeremy's Den

12/10/2023

Earthling, If I Have Summoned You...

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