Jeremy's Den: April 2025

Constant lying is not aimed at making the people believe a lie, but at ensuring that no one believes anything anymore. A people that can no longer distinguish between truth and lies cannot distinguish between right and wrong. With such a people, you can do whatever you want.

(Hannah Arendt)

Trump's tariffs even extend to the Heard and McDonald Islands, which are completely uninhabited and have no buildings or human habitation whatsoever. Nonetheless, its economy is predicted to outgrow Britain's by 2026.

(Alexander Armstrong, Have I Got News For You?, 4 April 2025)

And now back home for today's soundtrack, the concatenation of Dire Straits' Making Movies and Love Over Gold. A great shot of great classic English soft rock. To my ears, and surely a lot of you will disagree with that, there is also a distinct flavour of Knopfler Does Springsteen here and there. No offence to Mark. If you never felt it, try this. Listen to "Telegraph Road" with your eyes closed and sing "The River" in your head at the same time. See it now? And have you noticed whom Mark invited to co-star on the revamped version of "Going Hone" last year? Between 4:10 and 4:50, and he even has his own silhouette featured. "Brothers In Arms", the live version from On The Night, concludes this chapter, for reasons that will become obvious when you read the last section.

Remember to click on the images for larger and easier to read versions, if you didn't know already.

Thank Dog for Donald Trump, says Mark Carney every morning, as polls continue to show his Liberal party ahead, and likely to do really well at next Monday's federal election. Though, to be honest, Justin Trudeau's early retirement helped too. The good people of Canada were obviously relieved to never ever have to see again Justin's sheepish grin when Trump called him the Governor of the 51st State, a jibe he never risked with Carney. National pride was restored when Carney told the Orange Baboon to shove his jokes up his fat arse, or summat, and his fucking tariffs too. That's the kind of diplomatic touch only a former Governor of the Bank of England can fully master. Keir Starmer was probably less impressed, as Marky Mark widely advertised that his first conversation with a foreign leader had been with Volodymyr Zelenskyy, his first trip abroad to France, so the stop in London on the way back home had all the traits of the mandatory pity visit to the once flourishing and now impoverished Nan. Nevertheless, Oor Keir may have wished that some of Carney's Midas Touch rubbed off on him, which it clearly didn't, as the trendlines of voting intentions polling show that the public still think he totally foozled it.

The discontent at the Spring Statement is still a factor here, which YouGov have probed deeper with a comparison between New Model Labour's spending cuts and those enacted by the Coalition a decade ago. The public's verdict is merciless, it's worse now than it was before. Which, by the way, is not true. It was much worse then, but sometimes memory fails us, doesn't it? Labour HQ are also terrified by the prospect of a revolt, not from their own backbenchers, as they can easily overcome that one with astute carrot-and-stick whipping. But from their voters, on top of all the other revolts already on their minds, which could potentially cost them a huge number of seats and the election. The amazing part being that they did not see it coming, or so they say, but nobody is forced to believe that. But there were better news in store for Keir Starmer when Scunthorpe started making headlines that were not blocked by shit filters. Two polls, from More In Common and YouGov, show that the Great British Public had some expectations about what may emerge from the British Steel fiasco, but not all were fulfilled. Just a thought, we should perhaps not poke China too hard when they are already cross over the whole Scunthorpe business.

Of course some may argue, and indeed have, that Keir Starmer and Jonathan Reynolds were a bit slow on the uptake, as Jingye Group's calamitous management of Scunthorpe Steelworks had been known for about four months. But both of them are genetically engineered to be averse to nationalisations, which may explain the long procrastination. Nevertheless, it was quite a lifeline for Starmer when he managed to get the Steel Industry (Special Measures) Act 2025 passed unopposed in less than a working day. Bear in mind that, despite Nigel Farage trying to outflank the government from the left, the Act does not nationalise British Steel, but only provides summat of a framework for nationalisation at a later date, under a specific list of conditions. Since there is no sunset clause in the Act, Reynolds now has all the time in the world to weigh his options. More in Common saw an opportunity to probe their panel about the nationalisation of a whole array of sectors. Some were obviously included as jokes, but ful ofte in game a sooth I have herd saye, to coin a phrase. Especially when sone of the joke items generate quite significant support for their nationalisation.

Of course, the government's intentions are a total mystery, and it is safe to bet that any significant nationalisation is not their preferred option. For once, Talcum X has a point, though I would have put it more concisely and without the gratuitous jibes at Keir Starmer. Or the convoluted lecture about the backstory of Attlee's nationalisations. There is an appetite for nationalisations. Aye, that's it, and you've been spared the self-inflicted ordeal of reading Shitweasel's column. There is already intense pressure to deal with the water companies in England. Surely Keir can't leave that fight to the LibDems. I'd say that the serious option has to be nationalisation without compensation, as they have been profiteering and racketeering for far too long, 35 years and counting. Technically this would be a straightforward transfer of assets, and it has already been done, for the first time in 1858 when the Palmerston government liquidated the East India Company. There is definitely a credible scenario where Starmer does that with Thames Water, as a test run for full nationalisation of the water sector, no matter how loudly the shareholders squeal about "spoliation". There are two political upsides to it. Gain back voters by delivering them clean water at last after a generation of suffering. Appease the rumoured 60-80 Labour MPs who have been plotting a rebellion from the left for months. Win-win for Keir.

Ah, you call them rebels. I thought it was merely a few turnips, sodden with drink.

(Eustace Chapuys, Wolf Hall: Defiance, 2024)

It's really frustrating for us as well, because we kissed his arse before anyone else did. That was all we had to brag, that we were on 10%. Now everyone's on 10%. He could have at least put us on, like, 9.5.

(Ian Smith, Have I Got News For You?, 11 April 2025)

To add to the fun, YouGov recently polled a diverse and inclusive sample of MPs, a transpartisan selection of 100, about their vision of Whitehall's Civil Service. Which, in proportion of the overall population, is roughly 35 times as many as the regular voting intentions polls, so it has to be representative. And it sends back a very familiar picture of the Civil Service at SW1. Either lazy incompetent Bernards or manipulative obstructionist Humphreys. No wonder Jim... oops, sorry... Keir wants to sack 1,200 of them in his most immediate vicinity, and pressure the rest into massive savings. Keir is ready to act against the best advice of his former Chief of Staff, who is surely not totally impartial as she is herself a pure product of the Club, and fails to mention that Civil Service staff has increased by about 75,000 from its pre-Covid level, according to the Committee of Public Accounts. I'm not sure how many votes can be gained or lost by headbutting the Civil Service's unions, but the government surely expect it would be lots of gains. Which they need when you look at the current snapshot of voting intentions and projected seats, which are again a fucking disaster for Labour. This comes from the last five published polls, covering all of last week with a supersample of 10,534. As usual, all votes and seats are Great Britain only, as we don't have anything about Northern Ireland thus far.

Survation drove the point home with a sur mesure poll of the North and Midlands, which only confirmed what we already knew. Labour are in the danger zone everywhere between the Severn-Wash Line and Vallum Hadriani. The poll surveyed both a general election and local elections, and looks reasonably realistic about the latter as it left room for independent candidates and small local parties, which the very rare polls of locals usually leave out. Reform UK were already on double digits in all five regions in 2024, and what we have here shows massive surges. like more than doubling in Yorkshire. There is no basis for comparison for the locals, as Reform UK did not exist in 2021, when the seats in the same cycle were last up. But reaching levels broadly similar to the general election should be cause of alarm for Labour, and encourage them to take the locals seriously and throw everything they have at Farage, including guilt-by-association with Trump and Putin.

Thank Dog for Angela Rayner. She has channelled her inner Winston Churchill, or maybe it was her inner Margaret Thatcher, and sent The Boys to Birmingham. Not to clear the 17,000 tons of rubbish, which may even be 23,000, that have accumulated in the streets since the beginning of the binmen's strike. But just to answer the phones, while scabs... oops, sorry... agency staff take care of the binbags, and maybe on their own time they will help hunt down the rats, which have grown from big-as-cats to big-as-baby-monkeys, depending on which citizen journalist you choose to believe. It was clearly a matter of the utmost national urgency, as it even has its own bespoke poll. Sadly for Angela, the binmen have pulled a Putin on her and asked for more, which, unlike Trump, she will not concede. Angie, Angie, where will it lead us from here? She still has a nuclear option though, threatening to cancel the Black Sabbath Farewell Reunion at Villa Park if the streets are not pristine by then, and inflict all Brummies a whole day of non-stop Joe Lycett instead. Or she might choose the road to a fair and peaceful settlement, as Labour needs to gain back votes, especially in the Midlands, not lose more to the poundshop Trump. We will have one test on the Glorious First Of May, with the Runcorn and Helsby by-election. And a second one on the same day, with the local elections in England. I will not bore you with all the gory details this year, but just go straight to the big picture.

Elections will be held for 23 Councils, with a much cleaner situation than usual in England. All 23 had all seats up in 2021, and again have all seats up this year. No staggered terms, no partial elections, no exceptional elections in full because of boundary changes, just a standard clean election cycle as we have in Scotland. The one and only prediction, or more appropriately 'simulation', was made by Electoral Calculus six weeks ago on behalf of The Telegraph. It predicts an unprecedented number of upsets, and quite a chaotic situation at the tail end, with an exceptionally high number of the dreaded 'No Overall Control' Councils due to the influx of Reform UK councillors. Of the 16 NOC Councils, seven would have the Conservatives as the first party, five the Liberal Democrats, which is certainly below their expectations, and four Reform UK. Reform UK would also take control of Derbyshire and Kent from the Conservatives, Doncaster from Labour, and Durham from NOC with a Con-Lib-Ind coalition administration. Kemi Badenoch may have thought it was smart politics to openly endorse post-elections alliances with the far-right, probably not expecting that Nigel Farage would tell her to shove it as he doesn't want to share his thunder with losers. Why would he, honestly, when the results could plausibly be even better for him than the lone prediction?

The bloody penguins are on 10%, and they didn't even offer up their king.

(Helen Lewis, Have I Got News For You?, 11 April 2025)

I don’t need to watch Casualty to know what's going on in the NHS.

(Kemi Badenoch, 10 April 2025)

You may have missed it if you blinked, but The Realm celebrated the fifth anniversary of Keir Starmer's election as Leader of the Labour Party at the beginning of this month. Did we really? Naw, we didn't, unless you count awful polls as some perversely ironic anniversary gift. Even the punditariat mostly ignored it as a complete non-event. But we still had some polling about it, or some comment without polling from Ipsos, who realised that the existing backlog of polls was more than enough to prove that we really don't like Starmer. Which can only make the Loony Protest Left rejoice, until they realise that we still like Keir more than we liked Corbyn at the end of his tenure. YouGov also pontificated at length, but they had at least polled their panel first, twice even, so they had fresh flowers to bring to the funeral. We already know that Starmer's ratings as Prime Minister are really low and not improving, so YouGov did not need to ask. Instead, they asked about his abilities as Leader of the Labour Party, and the verdict is not really better.

The highway to hell is not paved with milk and roses for Starmer, when even Labour voters are not really convinced by his leadership skills. Of course today's political landscape does not favour the eclosion of exceptional leaders like Clement Attlee or, arguably, even Tony Blair in his own special way. But it is safe to assume that neither would have been considered just average. For different reasons, both were kind of Marmite politicians, something Starmer obviously isn't. Too bland. Beige Keith, as he was quite cruelly dubbed, whose jokes fall flat even at a Labour Conference. But lack of charisma can be forgiven if the electorate feel there is some substance behind the lacklustre persona. YouGov probed that too, asking their panel if they think Starmer has done well or badly with setting a vision for Labour. Again the replies are merciless, and have even degraded since the last time the same question was asked, two years ago.

The most hurtful is that even Labour voters don't credit Starmer with having set a vision for the party, albeit by a tiny margin. Let's agree that Keir didn't bring a vision to Number Ten in his briefcase, then. But let's consider this from another angle. Do we really need visions? Do we even need visionaries? All things considered, Hitler had a vison. Putin certainly has one too. Trump would have one too if his brain was still functioning properly. I'm not talking about the soundness of the vision here, obviously, just its existence. Should we be concerned that the enforcement of a vision usually involves some sort of totalitarianism? Not that I suspect Starmer of having totalitarian leanings, he doesn't have the baws for that. That was just my drop in the ocean of endless pointless philosophical debates. But that's not the British people's main concern right now. What we need is not really a vision per se, it's clarity about what the government is doing and where this is leading us. Which assumes that the government themselves know, which seems to be quite a big ask. YouGov found just that, a general feeling that there is a lack of clarity about Labour's policies.

It doesn't start well, with only a third of Brits having a clear idea what Starmer stands for. I would even risk a hunch that Starmer himself is not among these. It doesn't get better with the assessment of the level of clarity of the government's intentions in a number of key sectors. On every issue without exception, the unclears outnumber the clears, and we have majorities who think the government's position is unclear on six out of nine selected topics. Broadly, we have no fucking clue where they're taking us, but Thank Dog they're getting there slowly. The most worrying part is that there is a clear, for once, feeling of unpreparedness in everything this government is doing. They react rather than lead, and get away with it only because the Conservatives are in even worse shape. But this does not lead you to optimism, as the real adversary Keir Starmer has to face is not Kemi Badenoch, but Donald Trump. And we will all really feel sorry if we find out Starmer is clearly punching above his weight, an option most of his past dealings with the Orange Baboon make very plausible.

The UK is now considering putting tariffs on US products, including American toilet seats. Apparently, their Number Two export.

(Martin Clunes, Have I Got News For You?, 11 April 2025)

In twenty or thirty years, I want people to say that it was this Labour government that made the NHS last for decades to come.

(Keir Starmer)

Right now, there's a bit of grit in life's lube for Starmer. We can see that in the other half of YouGov's Fifth Anniversary polling, which probes deeper into the ideological foundations of Starmerism. But is there such a thing as Starmerism, like there undoubtedly was Thatcherism or Blairism? And, if we stipulate there is, does it really have ideological foundations? With all the evidence we have, it is tempting to answer a big fat "No" to both questions. Is there more to Starmerism than just lipstick-on-a-pigging all the recipes of social liberalism? Probably not, and I guess Starmer himself would find it hard to define his policies in genuinely ideological terms. Then we could probably get that answer if we asked Wes Streeting, though I'm not sure everyone would like what he has to say. YouGov first tried to remain factual, assessing what the British make of Labour's change of direction under Starmer.

At first, we were tempted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but the current verdict is harsher. Starmer has taken Labour in the wrong direction and moved it to the right. I think we can safely assume that the real meaning here is that Starmer has taken Labour in the wrong direction because he moved it to the right. Labour voters of 2024 are obviously struggling with that more than the rest of the electorate, though it doesn't provide an oven-ready explanation for Labour's current debacle in the polls. Admittedly, it probably covers part of it, but just the less significant part. If you loathe Labour for having become Tory-lite, and the Conservatives for having become Reform-lite, you just don't switch straight to Reform UK. You may be tempted by the Greens, despite them being faux progressives ready to accommodate any fashionable fad for votes, or the Liberal Democrats, who sound more convincing as the bold progressive alternative to New Model Labour. Then we have to look for other factors, like the way the public see Labour's relationship with significant subsets of British society.

YouGov's findings here are pretty much a general lose-lose situation for Labour. There is little hope of a repeat landslide when the public think that you have drifted away from pretty much every component of the electorate. I could stress that there are multiple contradictions in here, including some replies that are probably mutually exclusive. Unless you assume that people did not answer the question that was actually asked, as is often the case in polls, but instead reframed it as, "Have they drifted away from me and my personal interests?". In that case, and assuming that the replies reflect peoples' feelings and not necessarily the reality of what happened, then the poll is probably right. There are definitely echoes of this general feeling of abandonment in a column by Luke Tryl, More In Common's UK director, in The Islington Gazette some weeks ago. There is an underlying unifying theme in there, the massive rejection of the mythical Big Business and the very real corporate greed. If we assume this is a key motivation for the electorate, it may also explain, at least partly, the public's views on how far Starmer has distanced himself from Jeremy Corbyn's politics.

Three and a half years ago, the public were still urging Starmer to drift further away from Corbynism that he had already done. Today it's the exact opposite, more markedly among Labour voters. But how can we define Corbynism, if there ever was such a thing? From where I'm sat, it definitely looked like a revival of the Radical Left of the 1980s, with a heavy coat of metropolitan middle-class wokeism on top. Looking at the events that reshaped the world in the 2020s, we are probably very fortunate that Corbyn never became Prime Minister. I won't even try and identify everything that could have gone horribly wrong under a Corbyn government, but there is a lot. The worst of it would probably have been further estrangement from the EU, coupled with alignment on Russia's position on Ukraine. That does not mean that Corbyn got absolutely everything wrong, just most of it, or that Starmer should not be chastised for choosing a lurch to the right. But, if Starmer wants to restore his credentials with a swing back to the left before the next general, Corbyn is definitely not the reference he should choose. Try Attlee instead, even if that ruffles Wes Streeting's feathers or, if you really can't go that far, try Harold Wilson.

Keir Starmer dealing with EU leaders in Brussels was reminiscent of the Brit abroad who talks loudly in English so that the silly foreigner can understand.

(Diane Abbott)

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these. It might have been.

(John Greenleaf Whittier, Maud Muller, 1856)

As if the picture of the general population's perception of Keir Starmer, as painted by YouGov, wasn't bad enough already, Survation plugged another dimension into the puzzle with a poll on behalf of Labour List, surveying only members of the Labour Party. It is far less Starmer-friendly than you might have expected, supporting the commonly-held view that there are lots of discontent within the ruling party too, with the seeds of rebellion already sowed. Even Labour members are not unequivocally praising Starmer, and the most revealing differences are shown by the crosstab with which candidate the respondents supported for the 2020 leadership election. Remember that Starmer basically lied through his teeth to gain votes, openly pretending he would uphold most of Corbyn's legacy. By contrast Lisa Nandy, who is considered of the "soft left", was labelled as the candidate of the right wing of the party. Rebecca Long-Bailey was clearly the candidate of the left wing with, quite ironically in hindsight, the endorsement of Angela Rayner, who was simultaneously standing for Deputy Leader.

So, even at Easter, the Labour grassroots are not happy bunnies with the way Keir Starmer is handling his jobs as Party Leader and Prime Minister. But the disenchantment does not extend to all government figures to the same extent. There is definitely more than a beauty pageant in the way the party members rate the most prominent personalities in the party, it is a real political statement. There is definitely a message in Angela Rayner and Ed Miliband being the two most popular with the memberships, as both have this image of being the "real left", embodying true progressive politics and true Labour values within a government that is widely seen as betraying them. At the other end of the spectrum of popularity, it is also no surprise that Rachel Reeves and Liz Kendall have the most atrocious ratings, as they have become the figureheads of New Model Labour's continuation of the infamous politics of austerity.

There are also some interesting results in between these two extremes. Some day, some pollster will have to explore the real reasons why Wes Streeting manages to be as popular as Keir Starmer. But also tell us how the fuck David Lammy and Yvette Cooper manage to be more popular than the Great Leader, when there is not really much to write home about in their ministerial record. YouGov submitted their panel of Labour members to a wide array of questioning, on a diverse and inclusive range of topics. One of the most significant, in the current context, is how Labour members reacted to the Spring Statement. It is quite an understatement to say that "It's fucking awful, but it could have been so fucking worse" is not the kind of endorsement any Chancellor would hope for. But was Rachel Reeves expecting anything better? I think not, as clear signs of unrest were seen already before the Spring Statement was delivered. Starmer does not even have tight control of the Parliamentary Party, even after widespread purges and interference in the selections, so how could he hope to control the obviously more left-leaning grassroots?

The party members have a really bleak view of the Spring Statement, and also of the incoming "welfare reform", in real English the £5bn cut to benefits, because they consider them vote killers. 81% think the Spring Statement will cost them support, 79% think the benefits cuts will, 89% anticipate Labour losing seats at the English locals because of it. But they also have the solution, stop being "fiscally responsible" and do something in line with true Labour policies. 89% support introducing a wealth tax, and 87% support hiking the capital gains tax to the same level as the income tax. Simples. Liz Kendall is now facing a real backbench rebellion of epic proportions over the massive cuts, much bigger than was visible just a month ago. As the saying goes, something's got to give, and very quickly. When The Islington Gazette mentions dozens of MPs ready to break ranks, I read this as many more than the 60 they alluded to earlier, probably more like a quarter of the Parliamentary Party who will never accept the trade-offs of misery Kendall is proposing. Could it reach the tipping point, where Kendall would need Conservative votes to pass the cuts? Probably not, but it could be close enough to convince Starmer and Reeves that they have no choice but backing down on their taxphobic stance. Said it earlier and saying it again, there will be tax hikes in the Autumn Statement, and it won't be the income tax. Mark my words, mates.

If, of all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are, “It might have been”, more sad are these we daily see, “It is, but hadn’t ought to be”.

(Bret Harte, Mrs. Judge Jenkins, 1871)

The problem with the world is that the intelligent people are full of doubts, while the stupid ones are full of confidence.

(Charles Bukowski)

Earlier this month, The Scottish Pravda published a column by former SNP MP Tommy Shephard, who has shitloads of time on his hands since the good people of Edinburgh East forcibly retired him, supposedly devoted to the constitutional issues at hand, and some that aren't. I fail to see how his meandering ramblings help in any way, especially the bizarre claim that Westminster is to blame for the SNP diving head first into the cesspool of identity politics. The SNP will have to do better than that if the want to boost the Great Scottish Public's appetite for independence, or even for a second referendum, which is amazingly low right now. We may have had a really good poll this month, but we all know that one swallow doth not a spring roll make, as Aristotle put it. That's the clear message we get from the trendlines of Indyref polls since 2014.

What shall we do now? Or, more realistically, is there anything to be done? What is the strong case for Scottish Independence in a world that has changed beyond recognition since the first referendum? Is stuff like "we could be as rich and happy as Denmark" still valid and convincing? What is the case for independence when the United States are deliberately wrecking the world's economy and treating the whole of Europe as pawns in their New Model World Order? How do we counter the narrative that we are safer as part of the United Kingdom? How do we manage the North Sea becoming the likely theatre of operations of the next Russian aggression? Many questions, and I honestly don't have the answers. But the SNP doesn't either. They will have to come up with these answers and a real strategy soon, as the weighted average of the five polls conducted in 2025 shows that support for Yes has actually eroded in the last few months.

It's a tie now, when the polls fielded in the last quarter of 2024 hinted at a Yes lead, albeit a weak one. Some months ago, we were split about the idea to have the referendum within the next year, but willing to have it within the next five years. There is significantly less appetite now for an early referendum, and the deadline has moved to some time during the next parliamentary term. The Westminster one. Just what Jeremy Corbyn promised if he had been elected in 2019. A referendum in the second half of his second term. Keir Starmer won't have a referendum at any time, and we have absolutely no way to force him to. Then you have to wonder what the fuck John Swinney is doing playing Prophet Of Doom for the benefit of the English electorate and referring to "the values of the United Kingdom". Which, as we well know, are rum, sodomy, the lash and colonialism. This is as puzzling as his reaction to the Supreme Court ruling about sex and gender, which I interpret as a willingness to obfuscate and procrastinate to avoid a direct clash with the gender ideology lobby within the SNP. How does that serve the cause of Independence? Your guess is as good as mine. If you still think that Independence is still a priority for the SNP, that is. I don't.

A great deal of intelligence can be invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep.

(Saul Bellow)

There's this guy, he's called President Trump. He's messing with our trade and it's hurting us. Liberal Democrats say, fight back. Buy British. So I'm here in the Highlands in Scotland, and I'm saying, buy square sausage.

(Ed Davey)

You probably did not know that Lord Ashcroft has focus groups in Scotland, but he has three. And was thusly able to offer us a deep dive into the collective psyche of Glasgow, Edinburgh and Aberdeen. Nobody gets out of here alive, as they say, not even the SNP. The key point, election-wise, is that the focus groups confirm something we already suspected. The switch from the SNP to Labour in 2024 was tactical to get the Tories the fuck out, and it will swing back the other way in 2026. Quite coincidentally, the aforementioned poll from Find Out Now also included voting intentions for Holyrood, with some unexpectedly spectacular results in it, and The Scottish Pravda obviously couldn't resist the urge to rub our nose in it at length with a bouquet of comments from the Scottish politicariat. Let's see first where the addition of this new poll takes the trends of voting intentions for the Scottish Parliament. There hasn't been much change, actually, as Labour continue to dive deep down into an electoral Mariana Trench while Reform UK are slowly but surely crawling up to third place, making it plausible they could be Scotland's second party a year out.

I still don't understand why The Scottish Pravda need the hugely overhyped John Curtice to do the seat projection for them, when even my dog could do it online all by himself. Test it with the vote shares mentioned in the article and you will see. It predicts the exact sane number of seats as the old geezer came up with for a fee. Never mind, Johnny must live up to the standards of train de vie of a Professor at Strathclyde University, and it's just their subscribers who pay for it anyway. The claim that this poll delivers a massive pro-Independence majority is somewhere between delusional and cretinous. Nobody will ever get Alba and the Greenies in the same majority, and probably not even in the same room unless you want a bar brawl at Bute House. Also, if the SNP have any shred of sentience left, which is still not proven, they will never bring back toxic wankers like Beaker Greer or Mad Mags Chapman anywhere near government. I therefore stick to my earlier point, that the most likely scenario is a deal between the neo-devolutionist SNP and Labour. This would even be easier if Labour actually lose a third of their seats, as it would force Anas Sarwar to resign as manager of the Branch Office and remove an obstacle to a coalition. Mark my words again, mates.

But Scotland's Great Matter this month is obviously Jamie Greene MSP leaving the Scottish Conservative and Unionist Party, as they self-identify as, and joining the Liberal Democrats. Or is it really? Well, it matters for the LibDems as it pushes their MSP headcount to five, thusly gaining back their Big Boy status per Scottish Parliament rules, that they had lost in the ballot box in 2021. There is a lot to unpack in Greene's explanation of his motivations for The Islington Gazette, though the short version, that the Tories have become a Reform-lite Trumpesque caricature of their former self, is good enough for me. Because it's true. Or maybe the real event was Kenny MacAskill becoming leader of the Alba Party, or was it Chris McEleny suing that same party for whatever grievance he had that week? Honestly, I couldn't give fewer fucks, as I don't see Kenny willing or able to rein in the vocal pro-Hamas and pro-Putin factions within the party. To be fair, Ash Regan wouldn't have been up to it either, given the influence of such figureheads as Hamas supporter Craig Murray or Putin propagandist Tommy Sheridan. That's me done, then. No vote for an FSB asset in Holyrood.

The art of losing isn't hard to master, so many things seem filled with the intent to be lost that their loss is no disaster.

(Elizabeth Bishop)

The history of Wales is the story of people fighting for a better future for every person. That is exactly what my government is determined to do.

(Keir Starmer, 4 March 2025)

We got a new Full Welsh from Survation, four months after the last one from YouGov that was a devastating blow for Welsh Labour. The Westminster part is integrated into my Westminster snapshot, so I will deal with the Senedd part only. The trendlines are definitely not reassuring for Labour, and The Islington Gazette mentioned, without all the details, an internal Labour poll of unknown origin that is reportedly even worse. Honestly, it does look a bit weird that a quarter of the Welsh electorate believe that "a better future for every person" means supporting Reform UK, when they can witness first hand the amount of damage inflicted by Brexit on the most deprived communities. The clear implication of the trendlines of voting intentions is that the dominant factor is a significant transfer of votes from Labour to Reform UK. Labour will definitely need to do better than references to Welsh history if they want to avoid being pushed to second place by Reform UK, which would really be a massive earthquake and a very damaging scenario for Labour Central. Sloganeering and wishful thinking won't make it.

We now also have the final proposal for the new six-member constituencies, which will undoubtedly be approved by the Senedd. Labour have no reason to oppose it because, if available voting intentions data can be trusted, it effectively dilutes the Liberal Democrat vote in Cardiff and the Green vote around Caerphilly and Pontypridd into more Labour-leaning constituencies. It's brute maths. With six seats at stake, the electoral quota is 14.3% of votes cast. Depending on how the votes are split, the actual threshold can be as low as 11-12% on very favourable winds. Which nevertheless remains quite a challenge for any party that bags less than 10% nationally and has its votes spread roughly evenly. This is the case for the Greens and, to a lesser extent, for the Liberal Democrats, who still have summat of a stronghold in Powys and much weaker positions elsewhere. The impact is visible if you compare the seat projection with a hypothetical 96-seat national list with what my model predicts for the sixteen 6-seat constituencies.

Taking into account the final make-up of the constituencies, I have refurbished my model from the baseline of voting intentions by Council area provided by an earlier Survation poll. There is still some margin of uncertainty, as some constituencies overlap two Councils and sone Councils are split between two constituencies. Nevertheless, the seat projection looks credible. The Greens are definitely disadvantaged by the choice of multiple constituencies instead of a national list, as they don't have any real stronghold and little support outwith Cardiff's metropolitan area. The Liberal Democrats are in a better place, salvaging one seat each in Gwynedd Maldwyn and Brycheiniog Tawe Nedd, the two new constituencies between which the Powys County Council area is split. The new electoral law favours Labour and Reform UK, and this is again just brute maths. The highest averages method is designed to favour the largest parties, when the largest remainders favours the smaller parties. So there is definitely no surprise that it delivers just that in my seat projection, as the small number of seats per constituency means that you can get half the seats on a third of the popular vote. What remains to be seen now is whether or not Welsh Labour can come up with really convincing campaign themes at the beginning of next year, which may involve distancing themselves more visibly from Labour Central. Or will Potholes For Votes be a good enough strategy?

£25m to fix 100 kilometres of roads, fixing thousands of potholes and preventing up to 30,000 more. That's how your Welsh Labour Government is delivering for you.

(Welsh Labour press release, 4 March 2025)

We have a deficit with the EU of $350 billion. And it's gonna disappear fast. And one of the reasons and one of the ways that can disappear easily and quickly is they're gonna have to buy their energy from us.

(Donald Trump, 7 April 2025)

A lot has been said about the Trump Tariffs, and how he repeatedly name-dropped William McKinley as his inspiration, with his Tariff Act of 1890. There is a subplot to this story, which Trump never mentions for obvious reasons. Mid-term elections were held one month after the Act passed, and were a humiliating defeat for the Republican Party, who lost half their seats in the House of Representatives and gave way to a very comfortable majority for the Democrats, who had campaigned heavily on denouncing the tariffs. McKinley himself lost his seat in Ohio and never again stood for a House seat. I'm not implying this could happen again at the 2026 mid-terms, but there is a reason this is left out of Trump's narrative, innit? Since the advent of the Trump Tariffs, YouGov have extended their polling to their usual international panel of seven select countries, the United Kingdom and six members of the European Union. It is quite an understatement to say that public opinions are far less cautious than their governments, and far less ready to choose appeasement of the United States. The whole of Europe see red when asked about the impact of the tariffs.

Even if it's not explicitly said in the wording of the options offered, we are obviously talking of a negative impact. There is a widespread sense of concern here. Even the countries that are less worried about the impact on themselves, because they don't have much direct trade with the USA, are alarmed at the impact on the EU as a whole. For obvious reasons, the British panel were not asked about that second part, because that's none of our fucking business. That's us telt, and that's not a Brexit benefit. But where do we go from here? YouGov asked, and the consensus was that we should retaliate in kind. Even the usually more accommodating Italy had a majority supporting retaliatory tariffs, just like China did to hit back at American 'bullying'. Interestingly, the British panel were among the most bellicosely vengeful here, more than the French and Germans, while our government was still tightrope-walking between showing a modicum of European solidarity and not poking the Orange Baboon too hard.

The European Union are in a better position than the United Kingdom, as they have agreed on anti-coercion measures since October 2023, specifically aimed at fighting off economic blackmail from non-EU states. Exactly what they need right now, even if it looks like a weapon of mass destruction that would pretty much exclude American firms from doing business in the EU. Quite smartly, the EU has also rules that decisions on counter-measures or retaliation need only a qualified majority, not unanimity of all 27 member states. US-friendly tax havens, read Ireland here, thusly have no way to block a majority agreement to hit back. Of course, that doesn't mean they will hit back tremendously hard, especially now that Trump is willing to go to mutual assured destruction mode with China. YouGov and More In Common then had another fun question, to what extent the 'diplomatic' efforts of our government should be credited for the Thirteen Colonies granting us a 'preferential' treatment. The Great British Public appear confused about that too. In one poll they credit our Great Leader with some influence, and in the other they don't show much faith in him.

I agree with the YouGov panel, actually. I'm convinced Trump did not grant us 'only' 10% because he was impressed with Starmer's negotiating skills. It was a cunning plan to separate us from the European Union, basic divide-and-conquer tactics. At face value, it totally rewards Starmer's appeasing mood, but it won't do us any good in the long run if we don't show a united front with our closest neighbours and partners. In the meanwhile, Reuters published an apocalyptic estimate of the tariff's impact on the financial markets, $9.5tn wiped out in three days. Which is roughly the UK's annual GDP vaporised every day. Then Nigel Farage reassured us that his BFF Trump was using tariffs just as a 'big negotiating tool'. By which he of course meant a blackmail-and-extortion tool, because that's what they are. But we must always see the bright side of life, mustn't we? There is actually an upside to this madness. Oil prices on the international markets fell by 25% in the first week of the Tariff War. Which means that Russia saw their oil revenues fall by billions of dollars, which translates into trillions of rubles that didn't go to funding the genocide of Ukraine. Thank Dog for unintended consequences.

Nobody in the Commission thought that the US government would be this stupid and self-destructive, that they would blow up their own country by letting ChatGPT make their trade policy.

(Anonymous EU official, 7 April 2025)

I’m telling you, these countries are calling us up, kissing my ass. They are dying to make a deal. ‘Please, please, Sir, make a deal. I’ll do anything. I’ll do anything, Sir.

(Donald Trump, 8 April 2025)

More In Common also chose to explore the fun side of Trump's Seven Days Tariff War, because there was indeed one before the Orange Baboon chose to retreat with his tail between his legs. We'll be back to that later, let's just say for now he was desperately seeking allies in the face of Chinese inflexibility. But one of the oddities in the many British reactions to the opening salvo of the Tariff War did not go unnoticed. That's of course the asinine claim that Trump's 10% tariff was a Brexit benefit, oddly supported by the Chief Secretary to the Treasury Darren Jones. This looked so much like a desperate attempt to put lipstick on a pig that it had to be polled. More In Common even added some semblance of nuance to the wording of the question, but it did not make the results any less jaw-dropping. I genuinely wasn't expecting the usually sensible British public to fall for that.

So a majority of the Great British Public are ready to call Trump's very transparent stunt a Brexit benefit, even if it has nothing to do with Brexit. I'm not even sure that Trump knows what Brexit is, or remembers as his symptoms of memory loss are quite visible by now. Of course Reform UK voters would say that, as it is the party's one reason to exist. But it is quite flabbergasting that Labour and LibDem voters would be that gullible, even if they still massively believe that Brexit was no better than a smoking turd. But More In Common have obviously become experts on the in-built ability of the Great British Public to contradict themselves, so they craftily baited them into doing just that about the perceived positive effects of the Trump Tariffs. And it worked. Did you really think it wouldn't?

So we had 23% of Brits seeing the tariffs as a Brexit benefit, but only 15% at most credit them with a positive impact. So much for a benefit, mates. A majority correctly identify a negative impact on everything but national security. I'm not sure I agree with that last one, or only if we agree on a broader definition of national security than just our ability to face classic military threats. Part of it is weakening us through the expected economic impact of the tariffs. Trump has made it clear that the ultimate goal is to extort billions from Europe, and that includes the UK, don't be daft enough to pretend it does not or will not in the very near future. Trump is not less of a threat or a predator because he understands jack shit to the basics of economy and trade. It's quite the opposite in fact, the combination of illiteracy, stupidity, pig-headedness, hubris and dementia makes him more dangerous. Fortunately, More In Common also found that the Great British Public are dead set against submitting to the Orange Baboon's whims.

Well, there is a grey zone of doubt though, about the use of social media. To put it in the same way The Last Leg reframes serious debate, "Is it OK to let pre-pubescent brats wank to TikTok videos of non-binary dachshunds in drag dancing to Sam Smith' songs?", or summat. Then we have to consider if it is a violation of free speech to censor Facebook posts by abusive neo-Nazis supported by Elton Muck, or if it is the end of Civilisation As We Know It™ to lock up a violent woman-hating homophobic thug who is held in contempt of court every time he appears in court? Or should we refrain from that because Donald Trump has the exact same record? Because that's what it boils down to, doesn't it? Substituting a fanatical ultra-libertarian set of rules, that even a majority of USians reject, for the European legacy of enlightenment, that we share with our continental brethren. Just so the MAGAligarchs who bought Trump the presidency can make more dosh off their tax-evading activities on our soil. Methinks not, no fucking way.

It is a turning point with the United States. We will never go back any more to the status quo.

(Ursula von der Leyen, 14 April 2025)

There is no tariff policy. It's just all chaos and corruption. That's all we have going on. And how can you believe any of these guys?

(Elizabeth Warren, 13 April 2025)

Find Out Now has also offered us some insights into how the Great British Public feel about the Trump Tariffs. They conducted their survey hot on the heels of the Orange Baboon's clownish announcement, which I have to remind you was based on totally bogus math, before it became totally obvious that the real intent is a worldwide extortion racket that would make Don Corleone livid with jealousy. So the whole thing was really hot off the press, which might explain why the replies to some questions reveal some confusion as to what is happening. This is probably what Trump is aiming at, seeding the sows of confusion so public opinions will hammer their governments with contradictory injunctions that will only deliver more confusion. He just forgets that the US public opinion may well react the same way and trap him in a double bind. As an example of this confusion, Find Out Now asked their panel if they believe that the US tariffs will lead to changes in prices of goods and services here. And, quite flabbergastingly, the answer is that we believe they will.

That's where you have to hit pause and rewind to the basics. US tariffs will increase prices in the US, not in the UK. I know that the Orange Baboon has been telling the opposite for months, that tariffs are paid by the countries who are targeted because that's how the USA get 'refunds' on their trade deficits. But it doesn't work that way, unless you believe Josef Goebbels, that repeating bullshit a thousand times will make it true. I guess Trump believes that, and also Goebbels' conclusion, that you will end up believing it yourself. The only way this could happen in the UK too is if the Trade War™ lasts long enough to trigger a global commodities crisis and shortages. But that's the possible long-term domino-and-ricochet effect, not the instant direct effect. The poll then surveyed the public's feelings about retaliatory tariffing, and also if we should or should not react in some ways that are not all retaliation. The Great British Public agree with almost everything, including options that contradict each other, but don't want us to just sit back and watch in the hope that it will just go away if we do jack shit.

It is reassuring to see that there is complete consistency between the public's view of the generic principle of retaliation, which is summat like USAF-style carpet bombing, and the action of tit-for-tat retaliating, that is more like RAF-style precision bombing. Though a combination of the two has merits too, like a 10% blanket tariff on all US products, and 100% on bourbon and Teslas. Infusing some strategic ambiguity into it, just to keep the White House off balance, should be part of the mix too. Just don't copy the European Union, whose first response to the Orange Baboon's Tariff War was as credible as taking a used condom to a dogging party. Be like Comrade Xi, who is not afraid to give the Orange Baboon the finger and go tit-for-tat, as he knows that Trump will blink first when inflation strikes. Or just be like Mark Carney and escalate by taking the piss while strengthening the internal market. Interestingly, the Great British Public's favourite option is deals with other countries than the United States. We just have to decide whom with. Find Out Now dutifully asked that too and the USA fittingly come dead last on our wish list. That's them telt.

For an informed approach, I have added the shares of the UK's trade with each of the countries or group of countries mentioned by Find Out Now. That's the sum of imports from and exports to each, relative to the total of our imports and exports in 2024. Reassuringly, the first priority is more deals with the European Union, who are already our largest trading partner by far. Then comes the Asia-Pacific, which is the bundling of everything East of Kolkata except China. I guess we should start with the most obvious partners, Australia and New Zealand, and then talk to Japan and South Korea too. South Korea makes special sense also as a partner in military industries, in case Trump does trigger the kill switch in our F-35s. Non-USA North America realistically covers just Canada, who also have the added bonus of military cooperation to build the post-NATO New Model Security Alliance. My gut feeling is that it would be unwise to seek deeper ties with China, as that would be trading an abusive partner for another, but surely Keir Starmer is aware of that already. Then why not take the easy shortcut to rejoining the EU without actually rejoining the EU, that is rejoining EFTA? Of course, the Brexiteers would see through it and go totally berserk, but should Starmer give a shit given the obvious and massive advantages?

I wouldn’t be calling Trump. My advice to them is to hang up the phone, stop calling him, and let this thing ride itself out, because he’s going to be forced to capitulate. The market and the American people are going to force him to capitulate. Think like Prime Minister Carney, don’t let the guy bully you, hang up the phone.

(Anthony Scaramucci, 8 April 2025)

President Xi is a very smart man, he loves his country, I know that for a fact. I know him very well, and I think he's going to want to get to a deal.

(Donald Trump, 9 April 2025)

As was totally predictable, and I predicted just hours before it happened, Trump blinked first and farcically backed down from the Tariff War with the civilised world, while begging China to sit at the negotiating table. But not before he had publicly aided and abetted insider trading from his Fake News Social platform, triggering calls for a full-blown investigation. The tariffs have clearly achieved jack shit so far, except total chaos. And also constant changes of narrative from the Orange Baboon and his sycophants, to try and convince the gullible that what he made up off the muff ten seconds ago was the plan all along. This is pathetic and would be laughable if it hadn't caused so much damage already. YouGov USA have polled their panel about it, so we have an updated insight into what people think on the other side of the Scottish Ocean. Aye, if the Orange Baboon can rename a body of water, so can I. YouGov first tested how the US public opinion feel about some of the Orange Baboon's pet policies.

There is a clear feeling that the whole fucking circus has gone too far. Even the suppression of DEI, the illegal deportations and the cancellation of most foreign aid are not the popular hits the White House obviously expected. It is also quite revealing that the Trumpariffs are the second least popular of his policies, just behind his deranged whim of annexing bits of foreign countries by brute force. It looks like the average USian is smarter than their President, or anyone in the herd of assorted misfits he has assembled as his court. There is a healthy level of scepticism about the actual impact of the tariffs, whom they will hurt and help. in clear contrast with the White House's insane narrative about a new Golden Age.

Part of the fairy tale was that foreign countries would pay for the tariffs, which never made any fucking sense even in the most delirious alternative reality. The American public have quickly realised this was complete bullshit, and that tariffs will actually hurt their financial situation through higher inflation. Majorities also agree that tariffs are doomed to hurt both the USA's economy and their standing in the world. This has a direct impact on the American public's appraisal of Trump's policies. The last time YouGov surveyed the whole range of issues, two weeks ago, 38% supported Trump's foreign trade policy generally and 50% opposed it. 36% supported the tariffs and 52% opposed them. More importantly for a President who is always keen on pleasing voters, 36% approved of his handling of cost of living issues and 53% disapproved. YouGov also surveyed their panel's view of a possible incoming trade war and its impact, and there was quite a bad feeling about it.

There is nevertheless some contradiction in the replies, but we are used to this in all sorts of polls. It sounds quite realistic to assume that a hypothetical full-blown trade war would hurt the USA more than the rest of the world. It's not just the volume of trade that matters here, but the nature of the trade, more significantly which products each country imports. There lie the USA's weaknesses. They depend on cheap low technology products to keep the cost of living as low as possible, just as Donald Trump himself proved when he was importing shirts from China and selling them as his brand on the US market. But they also depend on more expensive high technology products that are massively imported from China. Trump totally admitted it when he lifted tariffs on just this range of products, a clear admission of defeat. Surprisingly, the American public are split about who would win a trade war, though this is clearly fuelled by wishful thinking among Republican voters. Reality is surely bleaker as past occurrences prove it is a lose-lose situation for everyone, which offers clear incentives for compromise. But will Trump seize the opportunity, or keep indulging in high-testosterone bluster, at the risk of proving he is all hat and no cattle, as they say in the Wild Wild West?

We're in the same boat with our trading partners. If one partner shoots a hole in the boat, does it make sense for the other one to shoot another hole in the boat? Some say yes, and call that getting tough. Well, I call it stupid.

(Ronald Reagan)

I think it was terrible. And I was told they made a mistake. But I think it’s a horrible thing. They made a mistake. I believe it was, look, you’re gonna ask them. This is Biden’s war. This is not my war. This is a war that was under Biden. I’m just trying to get it stopped so that we can save a lot of lives.

(Donald Trump, 14 April 2025)

Of all the monstrosities told by the Orange Baboon over the last three months, his answer to the press about the Palm Sunday Massacre at Sumy is the most abjectly disgusting. Because this was the most atrocious war crime committed by the Russian Reich this year, and there have been many since the United States basically gave them the green light for more terrorist attacks on the civilian population of Ukraine. Never forget that Trump is driven by three motivations: power, greed and ego. Mostly ego. And, specifically, his notorious long-held grudge against Zelenskyy that seems to be the sole compass of his Ukraine strategy. As we are approaching the end of the Orange Baboon's mythical First Hundred Days, the US branch of YouGov have surveyed their panel about his achievements, or what he wants to pass as achievements. One question focused on the peace settlement in Ukraine, and if Trump had accomplished or was likely to accomplish anything. It is quite an understatement to say that the American public don't really buy the White House's talking points.

Did Trump really think he could solve the Ukraine war in two shakes of a lamb's tail? It is safe to assume that he never did, because otherwise we would have to conclude he is really totally deranged. Which he probably is anyway. YouGov fielded this poll before Trump lost interest in the "negotiations" because it wasn't progressing fast enough and he got bored. Or because he realised his envoys were totally unfit for the task. But, already then, only a third of the panel thought that a peace deal would be accomplished. The unbelievable part is that a tiny fraction of Americans proved gullible or brainwashed enough to believe peace had already come, when the only thing Trump achieved was to embolden Russia to become more savage in their genocidal war on civilians. There is absolutely no method to this madness, it's all performative improvisation and the American public are starting to awaken to it. As of mid-April, 54% have an unfavourable opinion of Trump, 53% disapprove of the way he is handling his job as POTUS, and 52% think the USA are going in the wrong direction. And the First Hundred Days aren't over yet. Trump also has net negatives about his handling of foreign policy generally, and specifically about his handling of the war in Ukraine.

Of course it doesn't really matter that 60% of Americans consider Ukraine a friend or ally, while 70% consider Russia unfriendly or an enemy. Appeasing Russia is in Trump's genes for whatever reasons, from the big kompromat the FSB have on him to the urge to reward the MAGAligarchs who bought him the Presidency with juicy business deals with the Russian Reich. The very predictable next step is the cancellation of military aid to Ukraine, even the parts that have been approved by Congress but not yet delivered, despite public opinion being in favour of continuing it. The way Americans have changed their minds about military aid to Ukraine is quite interesting, and also revealing of the impact of Trump's own position. Support was at its highest on Inauguration Day, when all that was on the table was the infamous "24-hour peace" narrative, fell sharply after the pre-scripted assault on Zelenskyy at the White House, and then rose again. Only a tiny minority support ending all aid, and it will be interesting to see how Trump's popularity is impacted when he actually does it. Because he will, have no doubt.

Trump himself has clearly made the point that Europe now must take responsibility for Ukraine, and that obviously includes the UK, even if Keir Starmer is still seeking appeasement of the USA. Wrong policy, mate, you don't try and make deals with an extortionist. You need to send very different messages, especially about Ukraine. The UK has finally decided to establish a no-fly zone, but not at the right place. What is needed now is complete independence from the USA, politically and operationally. The only path is obviously to sign up for a security and defence partnership with the EU, as several non-EU countries have already done. And then push resolutely for a stronger European defence industry, taking care of our needs without any participation of the USA. It will probably be especially difficult for Poland and the United Kingdom, the two European nations that depend the most on the United States for their military equipment. There will be painful and costly adjustments down that road, but we have to do it, and do it fast. Not just because it's the right decision on which to build a truly independent Europe, but because it is the only way we can respond to the United States' abandoning Europe because the effort needed has exceeded the Orange Baboon's attention span. We owe it to ourselves, for our security and our dignity. We owe it to the murdered children of Kryvyi Rih and Sumy.

This was not a mistake. A mistake is something like imposing tariffs on penguins. What we saw in Sumy is a deliberate continuation of a genocidal invasion. Our real mistake is not helping Ukraine enough. The appropriate response would be to admit our mistake and stop making it.

(Gabrielius Landsbergis, 14 April 2025)

Jeremy's Den

20/04/2025

Then There Was The Hard Times, Then There Was A War

The Bullshit Never Stops