Jeremy's Den: December 2023

If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media, having tasted blood, would demand that it expel its socialists and form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives, which would be allowed to take office now and again, when the Conservatives fell out of favour with the public. Thus British capitalism would be made safe.

(Tony Benn)

Freedom is not a crown worn lightly. It weighs heavy with responsibility for those of us who are fortunate enough to wear it. The price of liberty is eternal vigilance. No matter how dark the darkest night, the light on the hill will never go out.

(Catriona Bailey, Secret City, 2016)

Remember to click on the images for larger ones that will be definitely looking better.

On the Ninth Day of Advent, something unexpected happened. The government's immigration bill was defeated by five votes, by an opportunistic alliance of the Left, who found it unnecessarily too harsh, and the Right, who found it leniently not harsh enough. Then the Home Secretary offered to resign, which was refused. Don't go frantically searching the news, wondering what the fuck you have missed. That happened in France. But it can't happen here, can it? It didn't, for now, as Rishi Sunak narrowly avoided a humiliating defeat at the second reading of his Rwanda Bill, when only 308 Conservative MPs voted for it. Rishi has obviously been saved by the "moderate" Tories of the One Nation persuasion, who don't want to be held responsible for a defeat that would have triggered a leadership challenge from the loony wing of the party, and possibly an earlier-than-expected snap general. On the other hand, Labour should be careful what they wish for, as the trends of voting intentions polling have become far less favourable for them recently. Of course it's still a solid double-digit lead over the Conservatives, but it's quite intriguing to see the Labour vote going down while the Reform UK vote is going up.

Sadly we have now reached the Dry Season Of Polling. With Hanukkah, Winter Solstice, Saturnalia and that other thing with the over-baubled plastic trees happening, pollsters have done what MPs do this time of year and run to the beach. So, due to this dearth of polls, I have had to extend my PollMash to a slightly longer timeframe, so this one looks more like a summary than a snapshot. In it, we have the last five polls conducted by Savanta, Redfield & Wilton, Survation, Techne and We Think between the 15th and the 22nd of December. Just a bit dated, but all pollsters seem to have fallen into a black hole after the Solstice. Even YouGov has gone into unscheduled hibernation. So now we have a week-old super-sample of 8,055 and it says Labour are leading by "only" 17%.

This is not the best result for Labour this year, though it still guarantees a landslide at the next election. All that remains in doubt is the magnitude of the landslide. Labour have wisely never said what kind of target they have in mind, but I'm quite sure they are determined to do better than the 365 Tory seats of 2019. Attlee's 393 seats in 1945 look like the lowest plausible target, and Keir Starmer is probably secretly hoping to better Blair's 418 seats in 1997. Which was definitely a certainty under Liz Truss, but has since been downgraded to no more than a possibility. But it looks like Labour HQ have finally understood they have to up their game and get ready for a Spring election. The big question now is what will survive of social-democratic policies in their manifesto, and what will be replaced by establishment-pleasing social-liberal policies. The most visible effect of Labour's born-again centrism is that it incites Rishi Sunak to resort to cheap stunts to boost his proudly-right-wing credentials. Like promising, again, to scrap the inheritance tax in the Spring Statement. Which will have jack shit effect, as he won't even have time to enforce it before he loses the election, but is solely designed to make Labour look bad when they reinstate it. Because they will, won't they?

If British law says Rwanda is safe, it’s safe. If British law says a cat is a dog, so it is.

(Ian Hislop, Have I Got News For You?, 8 December 2023)

Rishi Sunak’s school, the school he used to go, has a private art collection. I thought, like, my school had a private art collection. But it was, like, a cock and balls behind the bike shed.

(Lucy Beaumont)

The Great British Public definitely hold a dim view of Rishi Sunak's ability to meet what were once his Five Pledges, and have now become an ill-assorted collection of wafflingly-defined objectives. But there is also some irony in their assessment, as surveyed in a recent We Think poll, like a plurality thinking Rishi can improve economic growth, when Conservative policies are actually leading straight into recession, and the UK is forced to borrow more to pay the interests on a blooming national debt. Can't make that shit up, can we? It's also quite puzzling that a fair number of Brits believe that Rishi can cut inflation and reduce the cost of living, and outrageous that the question is even worded that way. What's become of basic British common sense? The one that tells you that reducing inflation does not reduce the cost of living, just makes it rise less painfully fast. And that we still have to live with the accrued effects of past inflation, like our groceries now almost 30% more expensive than before Covid. Rishi can't blame Covid or Ukraine for that, as the cost of living in the UK is more than 20% higher than in either France or Germany, who have gone through the exact same episodes. The only difference is that we have had Brexit and they haven't, but don't expect any Conservative to admit it.

Rishi Sunak has painted himself into so many corners that I lost count, and now he's asking for more. As the coerced switch to heat pumps is as unpopular in England as in Scotland, he's now contemplating going the Soviet way and making it even more coercive and punitive. Which can only backfire, even if Labour lends a helping hand, and make both the government and heat pumps even more unpopular than they already are. We Think also asked their panel if they think that Rishi should remain as leader of the Conservative Party, or should leave. Quite predictably, Remainers are a minority here. But this is quite a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Rishi will be kicked out after the general election anyway. He can't wait for it, actually, as he is doing everything in his power to lose the election, so he can fly away to the sunlit uplands of a cushy job in America. The interesting part is that there are far more Remainers among current Conservatives than among 2019 Conservative voters. The shrunken voter base are more supportive, probably because they are feart of the alternatives. They're right, as it's becoming increasingly clear that post-2024 will look like post-1997 for the Conservative Party. A retreat to the most hard-right positions, that will make them unelectable so long as Labour don't drag us into a faraway war.

Then we now have a totally unexpected episode of the Tory Civil War sending ricocheting ripples all over the place. That's Proud-Scot-Butt Michelle Mone for you, ratting on the whole Conservative Party who aided and abetted her massive embezzlement of taxpayers' money. Didn't have that one on my 2023 Bingo Card. But it's still fun to watch the Conservative Party looking like a crime syndicate in its death throes. First the "Five Families" thingy, and then this. Couldn't happen to worthier people, could it? It definitely would be great fun to see Mone taking down a double-decker bus worth of them with her. Starting with the one who gave her a peerage, Lord Call-Me-Dave. That does not make the people's verdict really better for Keir Starmer, though. People want him to stay as leader of the Labour Party, but by a far from convincing margin. Funnily, Starmer also has more support among his current voters than among Labour's 2019 voters. But he isn't as successful with his voters as Sunak with his, which should be quite an alarm at Labour HQ. If a disgraced and soon-gone Prime Minister does better with his base than the plausible next Prime Minister, where did it go wrong? And the answer is, everywhere, mates.

The dissatisfaction with Starmer's performance as leader has deep roots in his own ideological volatility, or lack of an ideological backbone. British political traditions mean that the Labour Party has avoided pasokification, which was actually never a plausible outcome, but also radicalisation, which was a distinct possibility under Jeremy Corbyn. The flip side is that Starmer has chosen the opposite direction, embracing a shift towards centrist social-liberalism, that I can only describe as English Macronism, for lack of a better analogy in neighbouring democracies. There is an obvious risk here, as it leaves a massive vacuum where classic social-democracy used to be. Politics abhor a vacuum just as much as nature, and foreign experience suggests the far-right may fill it quite quickly. Just like what we're seeing in Northern England with the rise of Reform UK, who are not relying only on disgruntled Conservative voters. Formerly left-leaning industrial wastelands are the easiest to capture, we have seen that in the USA with the Rust Belt voting Trump, in Germany with the success of the Alternative für Deutschland in the Eastern Länder, in France with the Hauts-de-France anointing Marine Le Pen. Don't say it can't happen here, it actually already has. Anyone remember Theresa May's totally unnecessary European Parliament election in 2019?

I never though I’d live to see the day when the right wing would become the cool ones, giving the finger to the establishment, and the left wing becoming the snivelling self-righteous twatty ones going around shaming everyone.

(John Lydon)

The British are a nation of zombies who elect donkeys to rule them. They forget that five thousand years ago, we Egyptians were building the Pyramids, while they were wearing animal skins and shitting in caves.

(Mohamed Al-Fayed, The Crown: Hope Street, 2023)

The last Redfield & Wilton poll of 2023 shows that the Great British Public are still reasonably sure that the election will deliver a Labour majority. But just not overwhelmingly confident that it will. The only caveat is, as always, that people are confusing a predicted result with their desired result. But, even so, Conservative voters have a really bleak vision of their party's chances, while Labour voters are still buoyant because of the long uninterrupted sequence of polls predicting that they will prevail. That's 781 polls in 753 days since the last one showing the Conservatives in the lead. That's now more than half the time elapsed since the last election, and Boris Johnson was still Prime Minister. Tempus fugit fucking fast.

The seat projection my model deduces from these voting intentions is still a massive Labour win, even if it falls short of the 1997 Blairslide. But it is still a 181-seat majority for Labour, by my own approach, that might be controversial but isn't, as I will explain below the chart. The Electoral Calculus predictor, the perennial darling of the metropolitan punditariat, treads pretty much the same waters, though it is as always more favourable to Labour and quite dismissive of the Liberal Democrats. And that's all the benchmark I can get, because there are far fewer predictor engines online now than we had back in 2015. And the other surviving ones have not refurbished their mapping of constituencies to the new set spawned by the 2023 Periodic Review. A couple of sites do offer their own predictions, based on the new boundaries, but without an option that would allow you to simulate your own prediction. So it's just Martin and me now playing the serious game, for better or for even better.

Now, for the avoidance of any confusion, you do know that the majority in the House of Commons is not the punditariat-propelled proverbial 326 seats, don't you? Just don't tell me it is because basic maths says you need 326 for a majority out of 650. First of all, there are not 650 seats in the House of Commons, but 643 currently, and most probably after the election too, because Sinn Féin don't take their seats. Then the real measure of a majority is not what the basic maths says, but how many votes you need to win a division. When that happens, the Speaker and Deputy Speaker don't vote, so we're down to 641. And the four tellers, the ones who count the others' votes in the division lobbies, do technically cast a vote, but they are not counted in the official tally. So we're down to a humanly possible maximum of 637 votes cast, and that makes the actual majority 319. QED. And every authorised absence and abstention lowers the hurdle even more, and lower still with the antique tradition of pairing in place. That's why you see the whips frantically running down the corridors and emptying the bars to gather their flock every time the Division Bell tolls. Because the bell may toll for them if they miss by just one vote.

One is reminded once again that the career of Prime Ministers is nasty, brutish and short. Once people get a taste of life at the top, they never want to leave. They just want to keep... on and on.

(Charles, Prince of Wales, The Crown: Sleep Dearie Sleep, 2023)

It's disgusting the way the press have tried to manipulate, gaslight and control Harry.

I mean, who do they think they are? Meghan?

(Jimmy Carr)

Between two surveys of genuinely important issues that really matter to the Great British Public, Savanta found time for a Monarchy poll on behalf of Republic, who, as you might have guessed from the name, are not enamoured with the monarchy. This definitely takes a special meaning now, after the BBC regaled us on Boxing Day with a "documentary" about the coronation, that was such an obvious piece of propaganda that even The Torygraph found fault with it. I confess that I watched it out of curiosity, and the most salient thing about it is that Harry was totally erased from the plotline. Can't wait now for the Netflix six-parter telling his side of the story. Savanta resorted to one of the pollsters' best time-honoured stunts, asking pretty much the same question multiple times with different angles of approach, to check the Great British Public's consistency. Part One is about how much Brits support or oppose the monarchy.

Oddly, Savanta chose to split England into familiar geographic subsets, but bundled Scotland and Wales together in one subset, something they never do with regular polls. Even so, support for the monarchy is not smashingly spectacular. Already with this non-committal approach, we have a third of Brits opposing the monarchy, more than the usual "just a quarter of Republicans" pro-Crown narrative. Then Savanta drifted into less ambiguous and more political territory, probing which proportion of the public would want to abolish the monarchy. You don't get hints of a revolutionary spirit in these results, but a feeling that the younger you are, or the more lefty you are, the less you adhere to the perpetuation of Victorian-reframed variant of English feudalism. The Celtic Nations are, quite unsurprisingly, the more reluctant. Though I have a hunch that the standard crosstabs would show Wales closer to England here, and Scotland more resistant.

Then the actual political choice is surveyed in Part Three of the poll. Where we wander into an interrogation that would have got you hanged, drawn and quartered for treason in the days of yore, though probably nobody actually asked that question back then. Now, folks, what would we do if there was a referendum asking us to choose between a hereditary and hugely expensive monarch, and an elected Head of State who would be accountable to the people? Here, the swingometer moves towards an election, though the monarchy still wins. I guess it has a lot to do with the wording and the way people subconsciously react to it. Maybe "abolition" has too many negative overtones, like conjuring the ghosts of Charles I and Guy Fawkes. While "elected" sends back a positive message across nations that value their democratic institutions. But I suspect we will never have that referendum, as the English political establishment has too much deference to royalty. We were not supposed to ask that question "out of respect" for an ageing Elizabeth, and I suppose we're still not supposed to ask it "out of respect" for an ageing Charles. Too bad.

The aptly named Ruritania episode of the last series of The Crown reminds us that Tony Blair supported a widespread reform of the monarchy and its antics. Alas, poor Tony, you dared not push hard enough and all of it remains a quarter of a century later. From the State Opening Panto to hollow sinecures like the Lord High Admiral of the Wash. Now, if you treat this poll as a voting intentions poll and discard undecideds, we have 36% of Brits who oppose the monarchy, 32% who want to abolish it, and 40% who prefer an elected Head of State. That's not totally consistent, but we nevertheless have something of a pattern here. More and more Brits question the perennial "good value for money" narrative that protects the monarchy, as they realise how much of their taxes is actually poured into that bottomless pit every year. If successive future governments fail to rein in the massive waste of taxpayers' hard-earned money that is at the core of The Palace, support for a democratic alternative can only become dominant. Then the only question will be whether or not the Great British Public think that any of the Mountbatten-Windsors should be allowed to stand for President of England, or should be barred unto the seventieth generation. Unless it's Harry, because we should never miss an opportunity for him to make a fucking arse of himself.

The Crown doesn't ask existential questions of itself.

It suggests a loss of confidence. It's putting blood in the water.

(Robert Fellowes, The Crown: Ruritania, 2023)

Some of you sitting there with your cock in your hand

Don't get you nowhere, don't make you a man

(John Lennon, I Found Out, 1969)

On the Sixth Day Before Christmas, we were gifted another IndyRef poll, conducted by Focaldata on behalf on These Islands, who are pretty much a clone of Scotland In Union, only even worse. There is an upside, though, to the existence of these unhinged Unionist trolls. Read their stuff, including all the fake news and dogwhistling, and you get a taste of what a future Better Together 2.0 would look and feel like. There's also an oddity about this poll, as it was conducted between 6 and 18 October, but reached Focaldata's frontpage only on 19 December. Obviously, a two-month old poll does not alter the overall trend. Which is that we're still pretty much stuck on the perennial 48% Yes to 52% No results we already had weeks ago. We can just imagine where we would be now if anyone had taken the time to actually campaign on Independence over the last four years. Would we now pass Alister Jack's litmus test, 60% Yes over a sustained period? Dog only knows, and he won't tell.

The fun part of this poll is that it openly relies on highly manipulative wording and These Islands even bragged about it. They asked the referendum question four times. Once with the straightforward Yes/No wording used at the 2014 referendum. Once with manipulative Leave/Remain wording used earlier by Scotland In Union. Then twice with the Yes/No wording again, but with conspicuous strings attached. One being If Scottish independence would mean you would have to pay significantly higher taxes, how would you vote in a referendum asking: "Should Scotland be an independent country?". And the other If Scottish independence would result in significantly lower public spending in Scotland (on things like health, education, and social welfare), how would you vote in a referendum asking: "Should Scotland be an independent country?". I guess you can't get less subtle than that, and more openly manipulative, and the results are just what the wording led the respondents to.

There is one upside to this, though. It reveals what the Unionist strategy would be, in the unlikely event a referendum is actually held before the 22nd century. First they would try to change the question, knowing how Remain and Leave resonate for the Europhile Scottish electorate. Of course, this is a rather crude manipulation, but the poll's findings show that a lot of people would fall for it. But I believe a change of the wording would not pass the negotiation stage between the Scottish and UK governments, assuming the process would duplicate what happened before the Edinburgh Agreement in 2012. We can also assume that the Electoral Commission would veto it and insist on using the neutral 2014 question. The last two wordings would of course never be considered seriously, but reveal what the Unionist campaign would rely on. Just a variant of Better Together's scaremongering soundbites. The misrepresentation of the income tax updates in the next Scottish budget is just the beginning. Then we'll have the various reruns of "too daft, too wee, too poor", and I fear the Scottish Government and the SNP won't have the proper arguments to debunk this, because they are not prepared to fight this fight. Can't say they haven't been warned.

A warning alert for a great white shark was sent to a small town near Inverness, instead of its namesake in New Zealand. News of the shark sent the entire town of Fortrose into a panic as the locals desperately tried to gather together enough flour, eggs and milk to batter it.

(Kirsty Young, Have I Got News For You?, 15 December 2023)

If you put it in the fridge and you open the door, you think it's time to get the dog out of the house or something’s wrong with Grandpa.

(Rory Stone, maker of Asda’s Highland Minger cheese)

There hasn't been any new Holyrood polling this month, but I'm sure we can expect some early next year. What we have right now is not really looking good for the SNP and the perpetuation of the Yellow-Green Axis, save for the random outlier. The general trend has clearly swung towards a hung Parliament with the SNP and Labour competing for the top rung of the food chain, and a Traffic Light Coalition of Labour, the Liberal Democrats and the Greens plausibly replacing the current government coalition. But, beyond the raw polling data, Savanta's last Scottish Attitudes poll sheds some light on the reasons behind this change. And we always have The Scottish Pravda devoting precious space to the punditariat's guru John Curtice again stating the obvious, like he always does, and telling you nothing you haven't already read here. Instead of rehashing old polls, let's try and see what might explain the SNP's mediocre performance in most recent Holyrood polls, starting with the image of the party, as assessed by Savanta's last Scottish Trackers poll.

The public's choice of traits that apply or don't apply to the SNP might not look too bad at first glance, but there's a catch. If I had to sum it up in a one-liner, like teachers do, that would be "smart but inefficient". If you understand the people and the issues, but fail to deduce good policies from it, you're definitely not as good at the job as you think you are. Besides, if I believed a party to be divided and with weak leadership, they're the last ones I would want in charge of the nation. It doesn't really get better when the same panel are asked to pick which traits apply or don't apply to the First Minister. He's smart, can't take that away from him, but it's otherwise a full broadside of negatives. And I can't even decide which is the most damning. That, unlike the party collectively, the public think he does not understand ordinary people? Or that they find him weak and bland? In a way it's not that bad, as it's pretty much how the public also see Keir Starmer, and they're still going to make him Prime Minister anyway. But Yousaf's problem is that his opposition is perceived far more positively than Starmer's, and probably smart enough to make it last until the next Scottish Parliament election.

In one of these awkward moments that seem staged to confirm the public's dim view of the SNP and its leader, critics of the Scottish Government's Gender Recognition (GRR) Reform Bill had an early Christmas when Deputy First Minister Shona Robison confirmed what we already knew. The frivolous action against the UK Government's decision to invoke Section 35 of the Scotland Act to block the GRR Bill is canceled, after the Scottish Government reportedly spaffed a quarter of a million up the walls of the Court of Session for fuck all result, and is now taken to court by the UK Government to refund their legal costs. Actually it achieved worse than fuck all, as the wording of the ruling implies that gender self-identification is dead in the water, unless a future UK Government changes the definition of "sex" in reserved legislation. There is no doubt that a Labour government would be under intense pressure, from both within and without, to do just that, though I wouldn't risk a tenner on them actually doing it, given the more and more vocal backlash against gender ideology all across the UK. The funniest part of the shitshow is that the GRR Bill has transitioned overnight into a "minor administrative issue", and no longer is a brave and stunning transformative progressive life-changing reform. They can't even get the propaganda right.

The system makes no sense anymore to those outside it, nor to those of us inside it.

(Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, The Crown: Sleep Dearie Sleep, 2023)

No, you don't know. You think you know, but it's obvious you really don't know. I'll know when you know, and then I'll let you know.

(Camilla Parker-Bowles, The Crown: Willsmania, 2023)

YouGov conducted a poll of voting intentions by housing tenure recently, that found that renters are more likely to vote Labour and home owners to vote Conservative. Who'd have thunk? Anyway, my point is that they used a sample of 10,173 GB-wide, with a Scottish subsample of 885. Which is enough for me to include it in my sequence of Full Scottish polls, even if it's not the usual 1k-and-change sample. The trends of Scottish voting intentions for the snap general still show Labour boa-constrictoring the SNP, and now the Conservatives are losing ground too. It's becoming harder and harder to see how these trends can change significantly until mid-April, when Rishi Sunak will have to call the election if he wants it to be held on the 2nd of May. The key question now is whether or not the SNP have any idea what to campaign about, to avoid being cornered into debating devolved matters, as Nicola Sturgeon was in 2017. Labour probably have an easier tack ahead, as all they need is to repeat "Vote SNP, Get Tories" on every doorstep.

Oddly, this is the moment SNP HQ has chosen to defund the local branches of the money that was ringfenced for the incoming snap general, and use it to plug black holes at HQ instead. This is definitely the worst moment to do this, unless they have already conceded that the snap general will be a bloodbath, with repeats of the Rutherglen and Hamilton West by-election all across the Central Belt. The last five Full Scottish in my inventory clearly point to a disaster, save the lone IPSOS poll that looks more and more like an outlier, as more recent data enter the pool. The ironic part is that everything that could derail Labour in Scotland is the hands of Labour in England, and what finally appears, or does not, in their manifesto after Starmer's self-inflicted 18 February deadline. Keir Starmer's manifesto will obviously include options that Anas Sarwar does not approve of, and the SNP will have plenty of opportunities to stress the differences between the Head Office and the Branch Office. But it does not mean it will be enough to turn the tide of very unfavourable polls and seat projections.

What we get from the YouGov poll definitely affirms and validates Humza Yousaf's sincerely held belief that the SNP can "come out on top" at the next election. 25 seats to Labour's 24 is "on top", innit? After all, Humza did not quantify what defines "top", so any interpretation is fair. Is there still a way out of this downward spiral for the SNP? Obviously Humza's best electoral agents are the Labour Party and the Conservative Party in SW1. He will have to rely on their predictable blunders to overcome the fact that a massive number of Scottish voters are disillusioned with the SNP, their piss-poor performance in Commons and the vacuity of their commitment to Independence. Humza will surely reframe the old soundbites, that a vote for the SNP is a vote for whatever, but it's hard to dismiss the harsh reality that a lot of their votes will be out of fidelity to the cause, or by default because the other lot stink even more. Can't see now how 2024 can be a really Happy New Year for the SNP. Can you?

There are two ways to be fooled. One is to believe what isn’t true. The other is to refuse to believe what is true.

(Søren Kierkegaard)

Did you know that, in Wales, sheep outnumber people three to one?

So there is not much to do except…. well…. things with sheep.

(Jimmy Carr, 8 Out Of 10 Cats Does Countdown, 2015)

We have a new War Of The Roses on our hands now. In Wales, after Mark Drakeford announced he is standing down as First Minister of Wales and leader of Welsh Labour, effective as soon as his successor is elected. Welsh Labour's last leadership contest took place in 2018, and their was quite a lot of negative campaigning back then. Economy Minister Vaughan Gething is likely to be the top contender this year, unless Education Minister Jeremy Miles emerges as the perfect continuity candidate. Mark Drakeford deserves praise for keeping his promise to stand down after five years, as many politicians would have found a way to get around it. But some in Welsh Labour certainly think this does not happen at the best moment, when the government is targeted by an unfair controversy about the perfectly valid 20mph speed limit in town centres, but has also been forced into a humiliating retreat about its gender-quotas bill for the next Senedd election, that would have inevitably been struck down for the same reasons as the Scottish GRR bill. They also have every reason to be puzzled by the findings of YouGov's most recent Full Welsh and Redfield & Wilton's ritually monthly Full Welsh, that convey quite contradictory information about Welsh Labour's prospects at the next general election, even if the trends remain hugely favourable for them.

YouGov found a mediocre result for Labour, and blamed it on the ill-advised opposition to the 20mph speed limit, which has been turned by the Conservatives and Reform UK into something akin to the Welsh variant of a culture war. Of course, there are two sides to this polling, as always. The half-empty version is that Labour might now end up dangerously close to their 2019 result, the fourth worst since 1945. The half-full version is that they might not, that Labour's potentially lost voting intentions have gone to Plaid Cymru, not the Conservatives, and that Reform UK are very efficiently splitting the right-wing vote and wrecking the Conservatives' chances, most notably in the rural areas of Western and Central Wales. Thusly, even the least Labour-friendly poll still predicts a landslide for them and a trainwreckish crash-landing for the Conservatives. The only uncertainty seems to be whether or not the Liberal Democrats will snatch back the perennial Brecon, Radnor and Cwmyawe marginal.

But that does not mean everything is milk, roses and frankincense for Welsh Labour. There is evidence of that if you compare the last two Full Welsh to the previous poll by each pollster. YouGov says Labour are losing votes and seats while Plaid Cymru are gaining both. While Redfield & Wilton says Labour are gaining votes and Plaid Cymru losing some, albeit without a massive impact on the seat projection, unlike the YouGov findings. A lot now depends on the outcome of the Labour leadership race, the tone of the debates, and mostly whether or not the winner will have time to make an impression before the snap general election. Three months for the whole process looks like an awfully long time, when Rishi Sunak might decide to call the election at any moment now. Holding it on the same day as the local elections in England is a quite plausible scenario, if polls fail to get better for the Conservatives, and that would leave the new Welsh Labour leader just about a month to leave his mark before the campaign starts for good. This is surely not the best scenario for them.

Game Of Thrones is set in Westeros, a lawless country full of poverty, violence and dragons.

Like an upmarket Wales.

(Richard Osman, 8 Out Of 10 Cats, 2019)

They got stuck in North Islington having chai latte and avocado on toast. We don’t want the chai latte, avocado brigade arriving in our area any time soon! The avocado-eating chai-latte-drinking elite, drinking chai latte and scoffing down quinoa.

(Jonathan Gullis)

The Mayor of London Sadiq Khan again made headlines during Hanukkah, and again for all the wrong reasons. It is really pitiful and despicable to see a prominent politician blocking a gesture of solidarity to Ukraine, on the basis of a flimsy technicality in an Act that nobody has heard about, is subject to interpretation and would probably not survive detailed scrutiny. If Khan had turned a blind eye to the subtleties of the Greater London Act, and let the transfer proceed, everybody outwith the Loony Putinist Left bubble would be praising him. Instead, he appeared as an ideologue trapped within the confines of narrow-minded wokeism, motivated only by concerns that Ukraine does not tick the proper boxes in the hipstertariat's Articles Of Faith. Until he realised that this would be quite an albatross around his neck in an election year, and performed a screeching handbrake reverse ferret, and argued the exact opposite of what he was arguing two weeks before. But now he has been named and shamed, forced to change his tune, and even The Hipstershire Gazette has had to belatedly tell the story. Though just briefly and not 100% truthfully. But even the worst of Khan's shenanigans no longer seem to hurt Labour's electoral standing, as shown by the trends of Full London polls.

Now I can't wait for Keir Starmer's reaction to the UK government's decision to use money saved from the omnishambolic HS2 black hole to fix potholes in London. He'd better be careful what he says, when Labour's Northern Grandees are totally incensed and Redfield & Wilton's last poll of the Red Wall confirmed that the Labour vote is somewhat declining up there. But Labour HQ seem to think that an unwavering commitment to cleanse Oxford Street from tax-evading candy stores is a better way to enhance their electoral prospects. No shit, Sherlock! We haven't had any Full London polling this month, so our most recent snapshots are a wee smitch past their shelf life, but never mind. Lord Ashcroft's in a genuine standalone Full Londoner, while YouGov's is the London subsample of their massive survey of politics by house tenure I mentioned above. With a sample of 1,032 from Greater London, it does qualify as a Full Londoner. And both are massively favourable to Labour. Labour's vote share are not really spectacular in either, we've already seen higher ones more than once. It's the massive fall of the Conservative vote that does the trick.

Labour bagging that many seats in the Imperial Capital, including the ones where Margaret Thatcher and Boris Johnson once sat, is definitely not implausible. After all, both have had Labour MPs in the past, after what were good elections for Labour. Thatcher's Finchley, in its revamped form as Finchley and Golders Green, was even in Labour's hands throughout the New Labour era until 2010, and Labour missed it by only 3% in 2017. The voting intentions from my New Years Eve's selection of Full Londoners are probably over-optimitsic for Labour, but it is quite plausible that they could bag twice as many votes as the Conservatives when the time comes. The Uxbridge and South Ruislip by-election was a self-inflicted dismal failure for Labour, not because of ULEZ but for choosing the wrong candidate in the wrong constituency, but it still delivered a 7% swing from the Conservatives to Labour. Transpose that to the whole of London and you get the Conservatives' nightmare scenario, Labour bagging an outright majority and twice as many votes as them. It might have been a really mediocre performance by current standards, but it's still enough for a red landslide all across the Hipstershire Boroughs.

The City of London is a convenient term for a group of financial interests that can assert itself against the Government of the United Kingdom. Those who control money can pursue policies at home and abroad contrary to those decided by the people.

(Clement Attlee)

In 2007, the World Pie Eating Championship in Wigan was nearly called off, after a dog ate twenty competition pies while his owner was distracted by a pigeon flying up his chimney.

(Kirsty Young, Have I Got News For You?, 15 December 2023)

The current breakdown of voting intentions in the regions of England again proves that the Conservatives are in deep shit. And it can only get worse if Reform UK do go all the way and field candidates in every constituency, unlike 2019. All polls are implicitly based on just that scenario, and show how damaging this can be for the Conservatives in the Red Wall seats they snatched off Labour four years ago. We have even reached the point where Reform UK could be genuinely competitive in a number of Labour-held seats, relegating the Conservatives to a humiliating distant third place The English Government are now sowing very unsubtle hints that we might have a Spring snap election, in the wake of an early Spring Statement, but that certainly won't make polls any better for the Conservative Party. Right now, the inclusion of the polls' regional breakdowns again shows the Conservatives getting their arses skelped by Reform UK in the North and, more surprisingly, in East Anglia. But there are some novelties too. A lacklustre performance for Labour in Yorkshire and the East Midlands, and also an off-the-scale high for the Liberal Democrats in the South West.

The reliability of this polling will soon be tested in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, where the Conservatives will have to fight yet another by-election, probably in early February. It doesn't take some sort of Holmesian preternatural sagacity to see that this one will again be a challenge for the Conservatives. Their majority there in 2019 was 18,540, which would be huge and plausibly impregnable in any normal setting, but is smaller than in seven of the eight seats they have already lost during the current term. So all bets are off, and it can only get worse if Blackpool South is also in play some time next year, as that one is much closer to the profile of Labour's natural habitat in the North West. But Labour still must pay more attention to plausible weaknesses in the rural areas of the North West, Yorkshire and above all the East Midlands. Of course, a two-pronged assault from Labour and the LibDems is still predicted to take down most of the Blue Wall, and even proves to be unexpectedly solid when you compare it to the sequence of past elections since the 1960s. But it would still be a massive upset if a Labour landslide found its strongest roots across Leafy Blue Middle England.

I'm wondering now how English votes will be influenced by The Curious Incident Of The Bloke In A Green Dress who got chastised by a woman in a green pantsuit. And that was just the hors d'œuvre. Because the most extraordinary thing happened just before Commons shut down for the Sprouts Recess. The name calling match between Kate Osborne and Kemi Badenoch at the year's last meeting of the Women And Equalities Committee, which also has one lone man among its members, Stonewall Conservative Elliot Colburn. Just keeping an eye on those wummin, I guess. That was quite something, and especially well timed in that week when #BlokeInAWig was TwiXter's main attraction. Quite predictably, Committee Chair Caroline Nokes, quite aptly nicknamed Caroline Blokes, sided with Osborne on the use of "unparliamentary language" by Badenoch. That's the age-old Westminster stunt to avoid discussing the actual issue that triggered the use of blunt wording, and it did not quite work with Badenoch. The sad part is that Osborne felt she had to double down almost instantly with her not-the-truths, which clearly puts her credibility into question, and generally Labour's too. The sadder part is that Badenoch's strong standing is shifting some people towards voting for the Conservatives. I'm with Badenoch on the core issues here, you know that, but that will never switch my vote to the Nasty Party, you know that too. The cons outweigh the pros by too wide a margin. Which is sadly also true of Labour. We"re fucked.

The uncomplaining, hardworking countrywomen of Middle England, you underestimate them at your peril.

(Elizabeth II, The Crown: Ruritania, 2023)

That’s the thing about this Cerberus. It guarded the gates of Hell, but that begs the question, which side of those gates are we on? Are we trying to get in, or are we trying to get out?

(Malcolm Paxton, Secret City, 2016)

The war between Israel and Hamas, which has now become the war of Israel against the civilian population of Gaza, continues to be the source of much debate and many divisions in the UK. Sadly, this is unlikely to end soon as Benjamin Netanyahu is ready to go down the same road as Vladimir Putin, waging a criminal neverending war on civilians. Netanyahu has even more incentives to go down that road, as his allies are incredibly soft and silent about the consequences of this strategy. But also because Israel is still a functioning democracy despite Bibi's efforts to quash the rule of law. Ending the war would end the current national unity, and he would face the real prospect of a very damaging trial plausibly ending in a prison sentence. Even before the massacre and destruction have ended, YouGov started the blame game, asking their panel who they think is responsible for the current confrontation. A plurality says Hamas, which is true if you don't look beyond the 7th of October, but the crosstabs also reveal some major differences in approach.

Where you stand on that question depends on how much you "contextualise", meaning how far back in time you are ready to go to justify not calling Hamas terrorists, but freedom fighters. The political and generational divides in the YouGov poll quite clearly show it. But, as I have said repeatedly already, denouncing Hamas does not men unconditional support for Israel. Benjamin Netanyahu has not really fallen into a trap laid by Hamas, he knows what he is doing, and the horrendous war crimes we have been witnessing were always his plan. It's becoming quite clear that he will stop at nothing, even if that means destroying Gaza City just like Russia destroyed Mariupol. There is no moral dilemma for Bibi here, no matter how many civilians are murdered in what increasingly looks like a dismal failure to eliminate Hamas. It is thusly no surprise that YouGov have found that support has shifted from the Israeli side to the Palestinian side all across Europe, with majorities also supporting an immediate ceasefire. Earlier this month, More In Common chose to survey the multiple issues involved in more detail, They started with the usual question, about which side the Great British Public are on, and the results show the usual level of confusion.

Importantly, More In Common added an option that no pollster had included before, that of supporting neither side. Do the sums, and you find out that only a third of the Great British Public do choose a side, while half choose neither. These results don't show just some confusion, but also some unease over choosing a side, after all that we have seen from reliable sources. More In Common probably sensed this even before starting the survey, as their next question boldly reframed the debate in a way no other pollster had dared before. Substituting "Hamas" for "The Palestinian side". Interestingly, the replies to this one still show just one third of the panel choosing a side and half refusing to choose one, but with significant movement all across the board.

It's quite enlightening to see that the rephrasing of the question makes the support for Palestine drop by two thirds, and the support for Israel rise by two thirds, while the refusal to support either increases by half and equal support for both drops by half. My objection here is that the rewording is biased, one could almost say manipulative, in asking you to choose between a generic Israel and a specifically named terrorist crime syndicate. It's a shame they did not go all the way and asked about Netanyahu vs Hamas. That would have conjured the same kind of negative images on both sides, and surely delivered a more accurate picture of the public's feelings. This being said, it is still worrying to see that 6% of the British public support Hamas, knowing all we now know about them, and from which categories this support comes from. Scotland emerges as the wisest nation of the Realm here, with the highest proportion of people refusing to take sides in this competition of abominations.

My dear brethren, never forget, when you hear the progress of wisdom vaunted, that the cleverest ruse of the Devil is to persuade you he does not exist!

(Charles Baudelaire, The Generous Gambler, 1864)

History isn’t history anymore. Truth isn’t truth, and even facts are being replaced by alternative facts and driven by conspiracy theories and ugliness.

(Robert De Niro)

You can also want to see the bright side of the above results, that most Brits refuse to be dragged into a debate that has become increasingly polarised and toxic over time. Just remember it did not start with anyone on either side saying something outrageous, but with the BBC refusing to call Hamas "terrorists" in the days following the 7 October atrocities, and failing to convincingly justify that position. Quite naturally, More In Common singled out this issue, and asked their panel which word is most accurate to describe Hamas. It is quite worrying that fewer than half of Brits chose "terrorists", when it is quite clear that's what they factually are. You don't have to be a right-wing Zionist to see it and say it as it is, but it takes some specific kind of ideological baggage to deny it. And the crosstabs for this question again show it without the slightest doubt, there is definitely some sort of social or ideological contagion on this issue. The irony is that the governments of Arab countries massively agree that Hamas are terrorists, remote-controlled by Iran, a very obvious reality that the British Loony Woke Left are in denial about.

On the other side, many in Israel, and many supporters of Israel in the UK, consider that any retaliatory action is justified, even when it consists of massive premeditated war crimes against an unarmed civilian population. It has always been morally untenable to say that the ends justify the means, and it's even more so in the current conflict where the "means" include tens of thousands of deaths in disproportionate strikes on a densely populated area. This has become even worse than the Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, because the people of Mariupol could leave the city and seek refuge in other parts of the country. The people of Gaza can't, as Israel and Egypt have an evil deal to keep the border closed. More In Common dutifully asked their panel to assess the various ways Israel has chosen to respond to the 7 October terrorist raid. "Reasonable" is probably not the word I would have chosen, but never mind. The Great British Public clearly disapprove of the most obviously criminal acts of retaliation, but are surprisingly split, or even lenient, about some other responses that are just as unacceptable. And will inevitably become more widespread now that Netanyahu has announced that the war will be long and intense. Once again, his attitude is painfully similar to Putin's in Ukraine, and just as deliberately criminal.

To name just one, there is no such thing as targeted airstrikes in an urban landscape such as Gaza's. Every airstrike is indiscriminate, no matter how the Israeli authorities try to spin it. Likewise, a full invasion and occupation is unacceptable as it means military occupation, and we know what it has lead to in the West Bank. More repression, more murders, more suffering. Ending the conflict clearly requires outside intervention, be it the United Nations or the Arab League, bold solutions and a radical change of direction in Israeli politics. Not that it's really likely to happen soon. But Benjamin Netanyahu may be gone soon, sooner than anyone expected, including himself. Not because he intended to destroy the foundations of the rule of law. Not because he ordered or covered countless war crimes during his too many tenures. But because an overzealous IDF shot dead three Israeli hostages, who they had every reason to believe were not Hamas terrorists. But the soldiers were just following orders, or so it seems, and now the people of Israel can no longer ignore the reality of crimes committed in their name for so many years.

An evil man will burn his own nation to the ground to rule over the ashes.

(Sun Tzu)

I’ve sung from the hymn book about shared values and bonds of friendship, but friendship’s nothing if it’s in name only. It’s got to be backed, by action, by political will.

(Ewan Garrity, Secret City: Under The Eagle, 2019)

Daniel Hannan is probably not the man I would ask to walk my dog while my leg is still in a cast, but that does not mean he's always wrong. His column about Ukraine in The Telegraph is a case where he is definitely right, even if perhaps a wee smitch alarmist. But painting the picture darker than it actually is makes sense here and now. We have totally played into Putin's hands by taking our eyes off Ukraine since Hamas's murder spree across Southern Israel on the 7th of October. Putin counted on it, possibly sent coded messages to Hamas's puppet-masters in the Islamo-fascist Republic of Iran that they should go for it, and we fell for it. To put it bluntly, we have badly let Ukraine down, and nobody more than Joe Biden. This is no longer sustainable when Vladimir Putin is openly gambling on our "Ukraine fatigue" and confirming that his goal is to destroy Ukraine by any means in his power, but mostly by brute force. It is obvious that a strong American commitment to defend and support Ukraine is more necessary than ever, and a recent poll by Lord Ashcroft shows quite a change of mood among the American public, more supportive of Ukraine than earlier polls found.

Even if this is framed within the narrow confines of American interest, it's still a good thing to see a conclusive majority of Americans supporting Ukraine, and even giving "the right thing to do" a more meaningful meaning than the usual empty soundbite. Even a majority of Trump voters and registered Republicans agree that the USA should support Ukraine, which should be food for thought for Republicans in the US Congress. But supporting the principle of support is just an empty gesture if actions don't follow. So they next obvious question is what strategy the USA should now follow. Lord Mikey's panel's answer is less encouraging here, probably because the mention of a longer conflict is something of a deterrent. Nevertheless we still have a plurality agreeing to support Ukraine to the end. There is a noticeable change in here, as Trumpians and Republicans are split on the issue, and are no longer massively supporting capitulation. Which again should encourage the Republican Party to stop playing dangerous games to score cheap MAGA points.

Lord Mike of course asked his American pollster to probe deeper, down to the allegedly divisive issue of military aid to Ukraine. They asked the panel to rate the current level of American military aid to Ukraine from being too little to too much. Replies to this question have again moved in the right direction. In September, YouGov found that 35% of Americans wanted to decrease or suppress military aid, and now only 30% think that too much has been done. Similarly, 48% thought that military aid should either be maintained or increased in September, and now 59% rate it as about right or too little. The most significant change is again among registered Republicans, who opposed military aid 57-to-29 in September, and are now supporting it 53-to-39. Oddly, registered Democrats have slightly shifted in the other direction, with 20% now opposing military aid, when only 14% did in September.

Sadly, odds of a quick satisfactory ending are quite remote, now that Sloppy Joe Biden has cornered himself by linking aid to Ukraine and funding Trumpian immigration policies. At first, linking aid to Israel and aid to Ukraine in the same appropriations bill looked like a good idea, but the Republicans outfoxed Biden on it, and he is now facing an impossible choice. Which is the most awkward situation for someone who has made procrastination and the avoidance of tough decisions his second nature. The Loony Woke Left in the House of Representatives are threatening to split the Democratic vote over the restrictive immigration clauses, while the Loony Republican Right feel emboldened to never let go and score those points ahead of their primaries, that are scheduled to start just days after the final draft comes to a vote. Fortunately for Ukraine, they have more reliable friends in Europe, who will deliver them a first batch of F-16 fighters in a matter of weeks, if not days, now. The first delivery will likely be 18 from the Netherlands, and 42 overall are expected from the same source, with more coming from Denmark and Norway. All of which would have been delivered months earlier, and offered much better odds of success to the Ukrainian counter-offensive, if Sloppy Joe had not procrastinated for so long.

We’ve been there, ready to follow, whenever you asked. And where were you when we really needed you? Where are you now? Knifing us in the back with one hand, holding the other out for help at the same time? You want to be our friend, then fucking step up.

(Ewan Garrity, Secret City: Under The Eagle, 2019)

You are the most powerful country in the world. You are a great nation. It must be difficult, and sometimes irritating, to find yourself the recipient of every demand. To be called upon in every crisis. Yet those nations who have the power have the responsibility to use it wisely.

(Tony Blair, The Crown: Ruritania, 2023)

Any further American-inflicted setback would be devastating for Ukraine, and particularly for Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is now facing the Ukrainian variant of the Winter Of Discontent, that actually started in the autumn. The European Union's decision to open accession negotiations with Ukraine is a welcome step in the right direction, but can't hide the flip side. That Putin's ally Viktor Orban is blackmailing the rest of the EU about further financial support to Ukraine. Just like Putin's allies in the United States Congress are blackmailing Joe Biden. Admittedly, paying Hungary €10bn in EU subsidies, that were frozen due to breaches of the rule of law, or spending the same amount on Trump's Wall, might seem a small price to pay for getting five or ten times that amount to Ukraine. But it's also a sign of weakness in the neverending fight against the Kremlin-bribed far-right on both sides of the Atlantic. Even if the extraordinary scene of Zelenskyy cornering Orban in Buenos Aires might have convinced Orban to tone his rhetoric down a notch for a few hours. Coincidentally, Lord Mike's pollster also asked its panel if they think that withdrawing support from Ukraine would be a sign of weakness, and they agree that it would.

Even the Republican base agree that budging under pressure, and allowing the Russian criminal aggression to be rewarded, would send the wrong message. Which does not mean that American politicians, especially the Republican ones, will listen. The Republican Party is playing mind games with Biden, and relying of the open xenophobia of the MAGA base to make an untenable position look popular. The situation in the US Congress is evidence that Sloppy Joe has lost the plot, and especially his ability to broker bipartisan compromise. Because he doesn't get the obvious point. That the MAGA Republicans don't want any compromise, just total surrender. Which is why they don't even listen to what the people think outside their own echo chamber. Lord Mike's pollster made that point too, as they widened the scope of their probe, asking their panel if a Russian victory in Ukraine would make the world less stable and the USA less safe. And the panel again massively agreed that it would.

In my opinion, we must consider the mirror image of this question. The undeniable fact that a Ukrainian victory is necessary to make the world a stabler and safer place. The issue here is not just about Russia, but also the ripple effect a Russian success could have. In fact it has already started, as authoritarian regimes all across the four corners of the planet feel emboldened to be more and more illiberal and aggressive. India and China are obvious example, and the infection is spreading in Europe too. One key issue was not covered in Lord Mike's poll, but was by YouGov in one of their monthly "American Mood" polls for The Economist. It's about whether or not Russia should receive any reward for its aggression, as a condition for peace. A majority of Americans think they shouldn't, though there is some ambiguity about what should actually happen. The occupied territories are an obvious and constant red line for Zelenskyy. Even hinting that Crimea could possibly be an acceptable bargaining chip would surely end his political career here and now. The American public don't support it and want Ukrainian sovereignty restored to the borders of 1991, but that does not mean the Biden administration will never suggest putting Crimea on the table. Which would be another form of betrayal.

When assessing the current situation, we must also factor in the recent parliamentary election in Serbia, that returned a majority for an electoral alliance led by the Serbian Progressive Party, a populist neo-liberal and pro-Russian party. It will have no impact as Serbia is not a member of the European Union, but it is a reminder of the way Russian agents are always ready to help authoritarian parties that will stand up for Russian interests from within Western and Central Europe. There is little doubt that he same Russian influencers are now getting ready for next year's European Parliament elections, obviously aiming at getting a large number of Ukraine-hostile MEPs elected. With everything factored in, the pros and cons, the risks and opportunities, I have to agree with this column in The Hipstershire Gazette, that the UK should take a leading role in the coalition supporting Ukraine. If the Americans fail Ukraine, we have to step forward and take over. If the Conservatives really want Global Britain to be more than a vacuous soundbite, this is the place to start. Bringing forward the delivery of key air defence systems, after Russia's biggest terrorist strike on the civilian population, is just the first step.

We need you. We need America engaged. Never fall again for the doctrine of isolationism, because the world truly cannot afford it. Stay a country outward looking, with the vision and the imagination which is the very best of your nature.

(Tony Blair, The Crown: Ruritania, 2023)

One of the artifices of Satan is, to induce men to believe that he does not exist. Another, perhaps equally fatal, is to make them fancy that he is obliged to stand quietly by, and not to meddle with them, if they get into true silence.

(John Wilkinson, Quakerism Examined, 1836)

Next year, we will all witness an event for which the whole galaxy will be holding their breaths for the best part of the year. Or maybe not. The election of the next President of the United States, who will be either the 46th or the 47th. If Biden is re-elected, he will still be Number 46. If Trump is re-elected, he will be Number 47, despite already being Number 45. That's because it would be two non-consecutive terms, for the first time since Grover Cleveland, who was both Number 22 and Number 24 in the late 19th century. If you find that confusing, so did Barack Obama, who stated in his Inaugural Address that 43 men had preceded him in office when he became the 44th President, when it was only 42. But if even a superiorly intelligent man like Obama gets confused, you are absolved for being too. And I assume a Biden-Trump rematch as it is the most likely plotline so far, bar some unpredictable event that some are already predicting. And I'm not talking about Trump going to prison here because, as odd as it sounds, it does not disqualify you from running (which, as you surely remember, is American for "standing") for President. Unless a court rules that he's already disqualified, and the whole thing ends up in the Supreme Court, who will surely sort it out in time for the 2028 election. Whatever the final cast, the current nationwide polls are definitely not good for Joe Biden, even if the trendlines show some propensity for volatility.

What we have now is Trump coming within a hare's breadth of an outright majority of the popular vote, with Biden lagging almost 2% behind. Which is of course not the most important part of the story, because of the uniquely American oddity that is the Electoral College. Which is as relevant to the patterns of modern politics as the House of Lords, but nobody is in any hurry to suppress it, and switch to a genuinely directly-elected President. Here we have to rely on statewide polling, that tells us which side is predicted to bag the Electors in each state. Thirty-five states have been polled so far, which is quite a high number when we haven't yet entered Election Year. And also a sign of some concern on both sides, as even many reliably Republican states have already been polled, not the just the proverbial swing states. And the results are quite the catastrophe for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris.

There are actually 56 slots to fill here, not 50. Remember that the District of Columbia, which is neither a state nor represented in Congress, is entitled to three Electors. Besides, the states of Maine and Nebraska choose their Electors by Congressional District, which is American for constituency. That's two in Maine and three in Nebraska, with two in each state going to the statewide winner, mirroring the statewide-elected Senate seats. Current polling predicts a clear victory for Trump and whomever is the Hathaway to his Lewis this time, some may even call it a landslide because it would be a better result than 2016 and 2020, though not as massive as Obama's two victories. We have now six states predicted to switch from Biden to Trump. Five would indeed be switching back as they went for Trump in 2016. The odd one out is Nevada, that last went to a Republican presidential candidate in 2004. Biden would need to hold four of these six states for a majority in the Electoral College, which is of course not at all impossible. The Democrats have two levers to pull for this. The minority vote, counting on a strong turnout to hold Arizona, Georgia and Nevada. And abortion rights, that are still a hot issue since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, and have proved quite an efficient anti-Republican repellent at the 2022 midterms. The Republicans will of course counter that with their War On Woke, which could prove quite successful in some of the tossup (which, as you remember, is American for "marginal") states, especially those with a strong white blue-collar vote. It will be interesting to see how the Democrats deflect that one.

How could you ever understand that there isn't any way I could be disappointed since I no longer find anything worth looking forward to?

(Patrick Bateman, American Psycho, 1991)

They want to win. So do we. The only thing we want more is to be right. I wonder if you can’t do both.

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

On the same day as the presidential election, all 435 seats of the House of Representatives and 35 Senate seats will also be up for grabs. Plus a lot of other stuff that is basically irrelevant outwith the United States, because it has no impact on their foreign policy. It's safe to assume that the House and Senate elections will both bring their share of upsets. The last two, in 2020 and 2022, didn't quite go according to plan and predictions. In 2020, the Democrats bagged only a tiny majority in the House and a tie in the Senate, on the same day Joe Biden defeated Donald Trump by 7 million votes. In 2022, the midterms were expected to deliver a strong Trumpian majority in Congress, but the Republicans bagged only a tiny majority in the House while the Democrats took back control of the Senate. Current polling for the 2024 House election suggests that it will be a close call, but with better prospects for the Democrats than two years ago.

One of the keys to the 2024 election is that the 2022 election was extremely close and left behind a very large number of marginal seats. If you widen the scope a wee smitch, around 80 seats can be considered genuinely competitive, while the Democrats need only a net gain of six to take back control of the House of Representatives. The most obvious top targets are the nine districts the Republicans gained in 2022 on a margin of less than 3%. Then come the seven districts where Biden bagged a majority in 2020, but are currently represented by a Republican. The current rolling average of the most recent polls, as compiled by RealClearPolitics, has Republicans leading by 0.5%, compared to 3.1% in 2022. Which, quite ironically, would switch enough seats to give Democrats a teeny weeny majority of seats, possibly by just a handful, on a minority of the popular vote. Which is nothing extraordinary or unprecedented, but would leave the Republicans livid. But the last batch of polls for the Senate elections tell a different story, and that's one Democrats won't like.

The Senate projection obviously relies on state-level polls, as generic national polling is totally irrelevant here. The current headcount is 48 Democrats, 3 Independents who caucus with the Democrats, which is the American way of saying they take the Democratic whip, and 49 Republicans. Current polling predicts that the next Senate would be 51 Republicans, 47 Democrats and 2 Independents. Democrats are predicted to snatch the Arizona seat from Independent Kyrsten Sinema, who was first elected as a Democrat in 2018, and lose Wisconsin and West Virginia to Republicans. Losing West Virginia would be an upset because of the peculiar part plaid by the incumbent, conservative Democrat and former Governor Joe Manchin, in the overall architecture of the Senate. But hardly a surprise, as the state has turned quite conclusively Red in the 21st century, and that may be the one race too many for Manchin. On the other hand, Wisconsin is more of a split state, and the race will be hotly contested, especially if it is the key to a Senate majority. Bear in mind that, in case of a 50-50 result, the Senate majority goes to the party sitting in the White House, as the Vice-President casts the 101st and tie-breaking vote. And also that what we have now in the polls points pretty much to an unpredictable outcome, so we will have to wait for more polling closer to Election Day, to predict more accurately which party will have the best opportunities to spend billions on the proverbial American pork.

I’m sorry, but can we really justify spending $800,000 on “a bio-cultural approach to the study of female sexual fantasy and genital arousal”?

(Leo McGarry, The West Wing: Eppur Si Muove, 2004)

Jeremy's Den

31/12/2023

Power And Glory

We Must Be Dreaming