Jeremy's Den: The Age Of Decay

All Gaul is divided into three parts, all of which differ from each other in language, customs and laws. Of all these, the Belgians are the bravest, because they are farthest from the civilisation and refinement of our Province, and merchants least frequently resort to them and import those things which tend to effeminate the mind. And they are the nearest to the Germans, who dwell beyond the Rhine, with whom they are continually waging war.

(Julius Caesar, Comentarii De Bello Gallico, Book I, 58 BC)

Remembrance of things past is not necessarily the remembrance of things as they were.

(Marcel Proust)

A detour to the country of my birth this time, with the work of Catherine Ribeiro, the greatest French progressive rock artist of the previous millennium, and her band Alpes. No full album this time, but a selection of their most representatively accessible songs, recorded all along the band's career between 1969 and 1980. If you think some of the stuff is hard to swallow for contemporary ears, bear in mind I avoided the harder stuff and just offered you the Burgundy, as some of their pieces are a wee smitch too experimentally avant-garde even for me. If you don't believe me, just try this one, and listen with your heart. If you want to actually understand what the fuck it's all about, the lyrics are here. In French. Trigger Warning: Catherine Ribeiro was a real dyed in the wool 1970s European-style leftist, some parsecs further to the left than snowflake poseurs like Owen Jones.

N'oublie pas de cliquer sur les images et tu les verras en plus grand...

I picked French rock this time because France is again in chaotic turmoil after the resignation of Prime Minister François Bayrou. Who actually asked for it when he requested a vote of confidence from the National Assembly, which he was sure to lose, and lost. His successor Sébastien Lecornu is the seventh Prime Minister of Emmanuel Macron's presidency, the fifth of Macron's second term, and the third in a year since the premeditated fiasco of the snap general election of 2024. I was ready to wage a tenner on Lecornu lasting a bit longer than Liz Truss, but it wasn't to be. One of the oddities of French politics is that a Prime Minister can take all the time he wants to appoint a government, and thusly not have one for days and weeks. That's how Lecornu set two records. The shortest-lived French PM since 1958, at 27 days. And the shortest-lived French government ever, at 14 hours. Aye, hours, not even a whole day. And you can make it worse by pointing out it was precisely 836 minutes, four short of the full 14 hours. Julius Caesar would have had enough material here for another book of De Bello Gallico. Before examining the current French polls, that are few and far between unlike British polls, let's have a look at French parliamentary history of the modern age.

I have quite arbitrarily started this sequence in 1981, when François Mitterrand became the first directly-elected left-wing President of France, His Socialist Party, which was then truly social-democratic with small hard-left and social-liberal factions at its fringes, won the subsequent parliamentary election in a landslide. Later elections swung from left to right and right to left for almost four decades, with the left in charge for four parliamentary terms and twenty years, and the right for another four terms and sixteen years, as two terms were cut short by a dissolution and a snap election. All this neat pattern of alternance became terribly passé in 2017 with the advent of Macronism. The graph coincidentally shows quite precisely where that came from, mostly from the social-liberal soft left with a few troops from the centrist right. Then this semblance of a new political order blew up when the 2022 election delivered a minority government, and even more so when the ill-advised snap election of 2024 resulted in a three-way split. The most recent polls say it may get far worse when the inevitable snap election is called in a few weeks. Emmanuel Macron may have thought that reappointing Sébastien Lecornu four days after he had given up without a fight was an ingenious finesse, but it instantly backfired. Macron can no longer escape the obvious, that another attempt to impose a government that suits only him will end in failure and only add more chaos to chaos.

French pollsters now survey three scenarios. One with a united left similar to the New Popular Front of 2024. The second with candidates from the hard left La France Insoumise on one side, and joint candidates of the Socialist Party, the Communist Party and the Greens on the other. The third puts is the other way round, with an isolated Socialist Party facing joint candidates of La France Insoumise, the Communist Party and the Greens. These hypothetical scenarios show an interesting paradox. The left would actually bag more votes with two rival candidates, but this would harm their chances as the French two-round majority system favours the larger parties who have better odds of qualifying for the second round. But the main common trait of these few polls is of course the continued rise of the far-right National Rally and their close allies of the Union of the Rights. Seat projections from French polls are notoriously difficult because of two-round system and the sometimes odd and unpredictable alliances it triggers at the second round. I nevertheless gave it a shot, with strong caveats applying, based on an extrapolation from the 2024 results and changes of strategies.

The main evolution I factored in between 2024 and a hypothetical 2026 snap election is the final demise of the firewall against the far-right and its replacement by powerful anti-Macronist reflexes. I thusly estimate a 60% probability of a far-right majority if the Left stand united, rising to 80% if the Left stand divided. The majority is 289 seats out of 577, and you have to add the predicted seats for the National Rally and the Union of the Rights. If the Left somehow manage to stay united, despite very deep disagreements on the economy and foreign policy, they have a fair chance of losing just a few seats. In this scenario, the Macronist coalition would be crushed into irrelevance between a resilient Left and a rising far-right, which would probably lead to its implosion and dissolution. The more likely scenario of a divided Left would be lethal for La France Insoumise and far less damaging for the Socialist Party and the Greens. It would also help the Macronists as they would qualify for the second round in many more constituencies, basically sneaking through the cracks ahead of weakened left-wing candidates. But it nevertheless looks like a victory for the far-right is the inevitable outcome, no matter which strategy the other parties choose. And there goes Macron's Brave New World.

Those who forget where they come from do not know where they are going and condemn themselves to having no future.

(Jean-Baptiste Moreau, 21 September 2025)

The French people are eagerly awaiting 2027 to turn a page, that of chaos, that of the old recipes of the past, of the old patterns, of the old reflexes.

(Gabriel Attal, 21 September 2025)

The history of the most recent French presidential elections also shows quite an appetite for change. First came Nicolas Sarkozy from the Union for a Popular Movement, the umbrella party of the right, now a convicted felon on various items of campaign finance malpractice. Then came François Hollande from the Socialist Party, which is not socialist in the British sense but a big tent party of the soft left, now an MP since 2024. Finally came Emmanuel Macron, summat of a social liberal at first and now more of a neo-liberal, who is barred by law from standing in 2027. But he can hypothetically stand again in 2032, as the French law is not an American-style ban for life, but a Russian-style system allowing non-consecutive terms after a hiatus. The most enlightening part of these past election results is who got what at the first round. You can see the the rise of both Marine Le Pen on the far right and Jean-Luc Mélenchon on the far-left, which paved the way for the upsets at the legislative elections of 2022 and 2024, and the current instability.

One of the key reasons for the ongoing omnishambolic clusterfuck in France is Emmanuel Macron's obsession with his legacy. In his Weltanschauung, it is pretty much limited to unquestioning opinionated support for supply-side economics, which he has in practice tweaked into summat of a fashionable costume for the hugely discredited neo-liberal myth of trickle-down economics, inspiring his obsessive taxphobia. Macron's basics are less and less popular with the French public, hugely unpopular actually, so the presidential election of 2027 looks like the perfect window of opportunity for a reset. The race is on and the knives out already within the charred ruins of the once high and mighty Macronist coalition. Three likely candidates have emerged from the rubble so far. Former Prime Ministers Edouard Philippe and Gabriel Attal, and former Home Secretary and current Justice Secretary Gérald Darmanin. The most recent presidential poll is just days old, and shows that all three would face solid and serious challenges from all corners of the political compass, while Bayrou would be totally crushed and ridiculed. The one major upset from this poll is that all Macronists candidates, except Philippe, would be beaten for a spot at the second round by Raphaël Glucksmann, the leader of the centre-left nano-party Place Publique, standing as summat of a substitute for the Socialist Party. The names of all possibly plausible candidates are in the chart's legend if you want to look up all of them on Wokopedia.

In the absence of actually declared candidates, and almost two years before the election, French pollsters have tested all four plausible Macronist candidates against different opposition candidates, outsiders and also-ran. They assume that Mélenchon, who will be 76, will again stand for La France Insoumise. The former Home Secretary Bruno Retailleau is also considered a likely candidate for The Republicans, the rebranded main right-wing party that is juggling between being part of Macron's current government coalition and opposing part of his policies from positions closer to those of the far-right National Rally. There is a huge question mark hanging over that side of the spectrum, as Le Pen is embroiled in a long running case of embezzlement of European Parliament funds. A final guilty verdict would bar her from standing, so the fall-back option is her juvenile hare-brained body-builder sidekick Jordan Bardella. He is summat of a weak ersatz, like Richard Tice to Nigel Farage, but polls see him doing as well as her solely on the party's name, and having a fair shot at winning the Presidency. Which would put France in fucking deep shit, Mariana Trench grade.

The most recent poll did not include voting intentions for the second round, so nobody has a fucking scoobie how Glucksmann would do against Le Pen or Bardella. All we have are a few second round polls from months ago, that have triggered the same kind of moral panic as the prospect of a Reform victory in the UK. The Front Républicain, French for the firewall against the far-right, was already weaker in 2022 than it had been at the previous election in 2017. Now it is widely predicted to totally break apart in 2027 as the French political divides have widened considerably. Only Edouard Philippe was predicted to stand a chance against the National Rally, albeit a slim one. The worst, though unlikely, case would be Mélenchon qualifying for the second round, as he is even more hated than Le Pen and would lose in a landslide. So France could get a Trumpist-Putinist President long before the UK falls for a Trumpist-Putinist Prime Minister. Incidentally, that scenario should be a warning for British voters too, as Mélenchon is promoting an agenda quite similar to a mix of the English Greens and Your Party. The political traditions may differ vastly on both sides of the Sleeve, which is French for the Channel, but the loopy far-lefts are strikingly similar. And the deranged far-rights too, by the way.

The year 2026 will be a major year of preparation for the presidential election. There is no point in starting too early.

(Gérald Darmanin, 21 September 2025)

Russia is not a tiger, but a bear, and there’s no such thing as a paper bear.

(Dmitry Peskov, 24 September 2025)

These are very strange times indeed. After a totally deranged speech that made Hitler's rants at Nuremberg sound focused and well thought out, the Orange Baboon has posted on his Fake News Social that Ukraine can win the fucking war and that the USA will help. On the Day Of The Rapture, no less, what-the-fuck-ever that was about. It is certainly no coincidence that this happened just a few days after his over-hyped state visit to the UK, But who convinced him to steer reverse course? Many surely wish Keir Starmer did it, but Ukrainian sources talking to The Torygraph say it was the King, in a rare foray into political issues which we surely forgive. But the Great British Public were not impressed, and a YouGov speed-poll shows us split four ways about whom we think Trump really wants to win the war. He still has a lot to do to convince us his U-turn is sincere, and delivering Tomahawk cruise missiles, as Volodia Zelenskyy has reportedly very respectfully requested, would be a good way to achieve that.

The Russian Reich seem still safe in the belief that Trump will do nothing too meaningful against them, as they have multiplied provocations against European Union countries, who also happen to be members of NATO. It started with a violation of Estonian airspace, then Polish airspace and, as we did not retaliate, escalated to a fly-over of a Danish military base by "unidentified" drones. Of course, official Kremlin sources have denied everything, which is conclusive evidence that they did it. The British public are not fooled, as another of YouGov's speed-polls found that a majority opine that Russian planes invading the airspace of our allies should be shot down. Which may seem a wee smitch radical, but is actually perfectly rational if you bear in mind that the Kremlin's Nosferatu understands and respects only brute force, and did jack shit when Turkey shot down a Russian plane invading their airspace from Syria in 2015.

The President of Czechia openly called for any intruders to be shot down on sight, while the UK and Poland indicated a willingness to "confront" them, which may just be far less than needed. The European Union is advancing towards constructing a "drone wall", as these seem to be the clearest and presentest threat, and Germany is now ready to amend its laws to allow the shooting down of drones on sight. Sadly, there is still a widespread misconception in Western society that repelling Russian provocations would lead to war. It’s a narrative fuelled by the Russian Reich’s propaganda and propagated by the FSB’s bribed minions in the far-right and far-left across Europe. In real life, the opposite is true. Russia will continue escalating its aggression and provocations until it is stopped. We just cannot stand back and watch, pretending nothing has happened, until all Hell breaks lose because Estonia or Poland fired the first shot. When you think of it, it would probably be safer if a plane belonging to a stronger military power, say France or the UK, was the first to shoot down an intruding Russian plane. Which is what we will have to do if we want Nosferatu to take us seriously at last.

If another missile or aircraft enters our space without permission, deliberately or by mistake, and gets shot down and the wreckage falls on NATO territory, please don't come here to whine about it. You have been warned.

(Radek Sikorski, United Nations, 22 September 2025)

We know you don’t give a damn about international law. You can’t live in peace with anyone. Your sick nationalism is just a thirst for domination. But let this burn in your head, the era of empires is over. Yours isn’t coming back.

(Radek Sikorski, United Nations, 22 September 2025)

Just like YouGov, Ipsos has kept trackers of the British public's stance about Ukraine and Russia, but less frequently and with a different choice of questions. Their most recent update was fielded in late August, but made public only in mid-September. Don't ask me why. Among other issues, Ipsos surveys the level of concern we feel for both the people of Ukraine and for ourselves. It brings a more humane dimension into the spotlight, which YouGov misses as they focus on hard dry facts. Which are important because they capture the practicalities of what we must do to help our ally, but will always miss the human and emotional sides of the conflict. Our level of concern is also a valid measure of our level of solidarity.

It is really reassuring that we feel more concerned, more worried, about the fate and well being of the people of Ukraine than about our own. Of course, we have had our share of hardships, mostly through the rising cost of living and energy prices, with also the legitimate concern that a wider conflict might someday erupt because of Putin's megalomania. But what Ukraine has endured is far worse, with mass murders and the larger cities submitted to a continuous Blitz for three years and change. I just wish we would grant the same level of concern and solidarity to the people of Palestine, which we sadly don't. And I also always have a hard time understanding people who sincerely support both Ukraine and Israel, when Israel is waging the same savage criminal war and committing the same atrocities in Gaza as Russia in Ukraine. But that's another story for another chapter, innit? Ipsos also do not forget the impact the war may have on other more concrete aspects of our lives.

It is really natural to feel concerned about the war's impact on our economy and our national security, as we have seen quite clear examples of both over the last three years. We must never forget that Russia is an aggressive power and has warned us repeatedly that they will not stop at Ukraine, but endeavour to subjugate European democracies and erase our heritage of Enlightenment. In that respect, Putinist Russia is no different from Nazi Germany, and always ready to prove it. This is why it matters that our concern for Ukraine and for our own nations translates into support for the role our government plays in these events. Fortunately, the Ipsos poll say it does, albeit with many cautiously sitting on the fence. This can be the most uncomfortable position in times like these, which demand resolution and unequivocally taking a stand.

Our role, in Ipsos' terms, is a wide-ranging umbrella concept covering military aid, economic aid, political initiatives and all the diverse ways we try and counter Russian interventionism and influence. YouGov goes into more detail, as we may and do have different views on different aspects of our involvement, but a global indicator is also a good clue to how we really feel, all things considered. It is really comforting to see that our support for Ukraine remains strong. It is actually the one positive thing we can keep from Boris Johnson's legacy, his resolute and unwavering pro-Ukrainian stance right from the first day of the criminal aggression. After him and the way his attitude helped shape British public opinion, no Prime Minister could possibly change course. That's also why we must consider ourselves lucky that Jeremy Corbyn never became Prime Minister, and do our best to make sure Nigel Farage never does. Under either of these clowns, the UK would become an ally of Russia, and that's the last thing any true freedom-loving supporter of democracy wants.

Every drone that hits you, launched by the heroes of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, may God bless them, brings that day closer.

(Radek Sikorski, United Nations, 22 September 2025)

The Russian representatives are here, but not the one who makes the real decisions. Putin wants only war. When he appears abroad, it is only to buy more time pretending he seeks diplomacy.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, United Nations, 23 September 2025)

"Aid to Ukraine is useless and a waste of our resources because Russia has already won the war" is one of the favourite routines of the bribed FSB-owned Putinist influencers in the West. Nothing could be further from the truth, and it's getting further and further away by the day. None of Nosferatu's war goals has been reached in three and a half years. The frontline has been pretty much stabilised for two and a half of these years. Russia's economy is crumbling under the combined weight of punitive interest rates and the planned destruction of its oil industry. Ukraine has acquired the capability to strike wherever they want without asking anybody's permission. Saying that Russia is winning the war in October 2025 is just as cretinous and delusional as saying that Germany was winning the war in October 1918. Ipsos has also polled and tracked how the British public feel about the amount of aid we have granted to Ukraine, and it's fairly positive.

We could wish that more of us supported increasing aid to Ukraine as long as needed for a decisive victory, but it's reassuring that only a small fringe want it decreased. 18% doesn't even match the current combined voting intentions for the Putinist far-right and the Putinist far-left, a welcome sign that their propaganda is ineffective even with their own voters. Now the military part of our aid should probably more selective, as Ukraine has proved their mastery of drone warfare, routinely destroying Nosferatu's prized miracle weapons of mass genocide. They are even ready to share their technology with the EU, to help them build their Drone Wall against Russia's repeated violations of their airspace. This is a clear priority as intelligence agencies have reported that the Russians are using tankers to control drones launched against European countries. This is further evidence that the Baltic Sea and other seas must be closed to Russian tankers. Creating a watertight hostile environment for Nosferatu's Shadow Fleet is one of the key components of our sanctions against the Russian Reich, which Ipsos has also polled.

Ipsos have stuck with the original wording of the question, though the impact on the cost of living and energy prices has decreased over time. It is relevant, though, as it is the wording most likely to elicit negative replies, so it is comforting to see that a majority of us are still supporting the sanctions. The Ipsos poll also found that the British public have a clear idea about which plausibly possible outcomes of the war they would support. Outcomes that favour Ukraine and imply that the Russian Reich would admit defeat and back down are clearly favoured. Options that could be sold by Putin and his bribed flying monkeys in the West as a victory for Russia and a defeat for Ukraine are discarded.

Even the "compromise" solution, allowing Russia to keep the illegally annexed Crimea, receives a very lukewarm response. It is also very reassuring that majorities support forcing Russia to pay reparations, that would probably amount to tens, if not hundreds, of billion dollars, and extending the same security guarantees to Ukraine as to our allies in NATO. It is obvious that we must make Russia pay for the reconstruction of Ukraine, with the added bonus that it would force a massive reduction of their military spending, unless Putin, or his successor, wants to risk massive civil rebellion and a 1905-like spontaneous revolution. Enforcing an "Ukrainian Article 5" is also an obvious necessity, but we must also revamp the British defence doctrine, just as France is already doing. In the post-Putin Brave New World, our definition of "strategic interests" or "vital interests" must be extended beyond direct and exclusively British concerns. The interests of the European Union, and of European nations individually, must also be covered. Ukraine's resilience and resolution are showing the way, we must not fail them, and must get ready to make further Russian aggression so risky for them it will become unthinkable.

If the Russians threaten a blackout in Kyiv, they should know that there will also be a blackout in Moscow.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, 27 September 2025)

We are not losing. This is important. Vladimir Putin lied to Trump so many times. That's the difference with us.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Fox News, 23 September 2025)

Beyond our wishes for the peace settlement, which remain massively supportive of Ukraine's interests, Survation also polled which outcome we think more likely. As you can expect, the results are far from being as optimistic as our wishes. We think the most likely outcome is now a "frozen frontline" situation, pretty similar to the situation on the Western Front in the summer of 1918. This would be a political disaster, as it would allow Putin to make the same claims as the German nationalists back then, that Russia can be defeated only through treason and an international conspiracy, or summat close to that. Or we could end up with a neverending war, like a mash-up of 1984 and Starship Troopers. This is probably the option Putin prioritises even now, despite massive evidence that Russia cannot win it. Russia has more to lose than Ukraine in a long war of attrition, especially now that Ukraine has proved they can strike as far North as Lake Onega, further away from their borders than Moscow and Saint Petersburg. It can only get even worse if the United States actually provide Ukraine with intelligence on targets within the Russian oil industry, which would be a major policy shift fro Donald Trump. Wait and see, then.

A renewed and stronger involvement of the United States on the side of Ukraine will probably not be enough to result in the most optimistic outcomes, Ukraine gaining back all or most of the occupied and illegally annexed territories. Putin has every reason to believe that Trump will perform another handbrake U-turn long before Ukraine can even dream of such reconquista, and again switch to a business-friendly strategy of striking a deal with Russia in return for juicy contracts for his court of MAGAligarchs. This brings us back to the "frozen front" option, and the involvement of a European peacekeeping force to shield Ukraine from further Russian aggression through violations of the ceasefire. The recent Ipsos and Survation polls show that the British public are no longer supporting this as strongly as we used to. We're actually back to where we were in February, when this option started being seriously considered. It seems it is now Keir Starmer's responsibility, as Emmanuel Macron has probably lost all shreds of authority on the European diplomatic scene, to overcome the obstacles, first and foremost the reluctance of several EU nations to be part of such a force. That would be a good way to expand his own remaining capital.

Amidst all the darkness, the Russian Reich's genocidal aggression of Ukraine does provide some brief glimpses of comic relief. One such moment was the atrocious George Galloway and his young-enough-to-be-his-daughter wife being detained at Gatwick under anti-terrorism legislation. Catman was returning from a briefing with his handlers in Moscow, and thought he could outfox the Met by taking a detour through Abu Dhabi on the way home, which predictably didn't work. There was instant squealing of political intimidation from George's Wankers Party, which is totally fine by me. There is nothing wrong with intimidating the FSB-controlled Putinist agents in the UK, quite the opposite. The more they feel intimated and unsafe, the safer we are. Now George has made the very stupid decision to take legal action, so I can't wait for him explaining in court what the fuck he was doing in Moscow. Other than collecting blood money from a fascist genocidal terrorist state, that is. The government should extend that intimidation to Nigel Farage next, as he has more influence than the loopy faux pacifists and is more of a threat to our democracy and well-being. Let's be as merciless to the tankies as the Ukrainians are to the vatniks. Democratically, kindly and metaphorically, of course.

It's not about territories. It's about the position of Putin. If we give him what he wants, he will continue. So the question of how to stop the war, is just to stop Putin's ambitions.

(Volodymyr Zelenskyy, Fox News, 23 September 2025)

The pace of oppression outstrips our ability to understand it. And that is the real trick of the Imperial thought machine. It's easier to hide behind forty atrocities than a single incident.

(Karis Nemik, Andor, 2025)

The United Kingdom has recognised the State of Palestine, jointly with Canada and Australia. At last, and plausibly under some pressure and with summat of an opportunistic motivation. Did Keir Starmer make the announcement on a Sunday because he wanted to beat Emmanuel Macron to it, who had already announced France would recognise Palestine the next Monday? Whatever the motivations, and we have every reason to suspect ulterior motives linked to domestic politics, it is a very welcome decision that should have happened months ago already, as soon as Labour came back to power. Let's rewind a bit to when the current wide movement to recognise Palestine started. It was the 12th of September, that day I'll always remember. IYKYK, again. The United Nations' General Assembly approved the New York Declaration, drafted by France and Saudi Arabia, combining renewed support for the two-state solution with harsh criticism of Hamas, and ruling out their participation in a future Palestinian government. It passed 142-10 despite aggressive opposition from Israel and the United States. It is interesting to remember who voted what that day, per the United Nations' vote board.

The details of the vote show how isolated Israel is now. Their support, despite Trump's pressure on some countries, is weaker than support for Russia in the Ukraine War, and mostly from less significant nations. And there is nothing the United States can do about it. There is no veto at the General Assembly, unlike the Security Council, so the declaration stood and support for recognition blossomed. It did not gain traction just at the United Nations, but also among the British public, which must also have been a factor in Starmer's Damascene conversion, pun fully intended. Various pollsters surveyed it since the middle of summer, with or without conditions attached. YouGov tested two options once, with the conditions being broadly Hamas withdrawing from Palestinian public life, and it did not change the big picture. And, before you ask, I did not get the numbers from the JL Partners poll upside down, more on that below the fold.

JL Partners surveyed British attitudes to Israel and Palestine, and in a shamelessly yet shamefully biased way. They did not reveal on whose behalf they fielded their poll, but the overall tone of the questions was so loaded you may have thought they were written by the British branch of Likud. One clear sign was their constant reference to Hamas, where other pollsters would have referred to Palestine, thusly creating and solidifying a hostile environment before the key question. Then they totally reversed the common approach when asking about the recognition of Palestine. The asked if the UK should or should not do it if Hamas did not fulfill a hat trick of conditions. Renounced control of Gaza, released all the hostages, fully disarmed. All you needed to tip the scales heavily against recognition, against the trend of all honestly worded polls. But the real key question is what effect recognition will have on the ongoing conflict, whether it will make its end more or less likely. It was polled twice, by Ipsos before Starmer's declaration, and by YouGov on the day after, with pretty similar results. The Great British Public think that it, like all the fresh air in the world, won't make a fucking difference.

It's a shite state of affairs to be in, really. Especially when we know there is basically fuck all we can do about it. This is sadly the realistic point of view so long as Benjamin Netanyahu has the full backing of the United States, and thinks this entitles him to give the finger to the rest of the world. To the 157 out of 193 members states of the United Nations, 4 out of 5 permanent members of the Security Council, and 14 out of 19 member nations of the G20, who have already recognised the State of Palestine. Netanyahu proved this again with his extremely arrogant and aggressive response to the recognition of Palestine by the UK, relying on the usual Israeli propaganda conflating Hamas and Palestine. It must be repeated again and again, Palestine is not Hamas and Hamas is not Palestine. Those in the British far-left who also conflate the two are just stupidly playing into Netanyahu's hands. There is no contradiction between denouncing Israel's actions in Gaza as genocidal imperialism and denouncing Hamas as an Islamo-Nazi terrorist militia. Quite the opposite, actually. This is the only way to credibly fight Netanyahu's plan to "finish the job", which means only ethnic cleansing and more atrocious crimes against the civilian population of Gaza, both elements of genocide according to the United Nations' Convention of 1948.

The sentiment among Israelis that we should show those countries that took this stupid decision that the consequences will be very different from those they had in their minds.

(Yaakov Amidror, 22 September 2025)

Why the fuck am I doing this? The question that always precedes something worthwhile.

(Brian Eno, 17 September 2025, just before the Together For Palestine concert)

The recognition of Palestine did not come out of nowhere. It is set against the background of growing support for Palestine in the UK, Which, I will never tire of stressing it, is not support for Hamas, except in the loopy fringes of the fanatical ultra-woke Butlerjugend. We have a tracker from the ubiquitous YouGov to prove it, with its Point Zero conveniently set in May 2023, predating the current crisis by several months. Support for Israel grew and support for Palestine dropped after the 7 October terrorist pogrom, but the tide had turned by the end of the year. The only surprise is that it took several months, when Israel's instant response was obviously massively excessive, more like systematic revenge killing than proportionate retaliation to an atrocious unforgivable massacre.

The crosstabs of the latest update of YouGov's tracker also highlight along which lines British society is divided about Israel and Palestine. I guess none or their findings will surprise you. To cut a long story short, the Right support Israel and the Left support Palestine. Support for Israel increases and support for Palestine goes down with age. Scotland is the most Palestine-friendly of the Three Nations. We probably all knew that already, so there is nothing new here, but it is still useful to have our intuitions confirmed by a poll. Or, in that case, a sequence of polls. Even if YouGov have never clarified what supporting "both sides equally" actually means.

Prior to the official recognition, and after it had been made public that it was going to happen, Survation also surveyed various aspects of the British public's attitudes towards Israel and Palestine. Oddly, their poll did not include crosstabs with the respondents' political affiliation, whether based on past vote or current voting intentions. This is inconvenient as political leanings are clearly a massive factor in this case. The closest Survation came to YouGov's line of inquiry was with a question about support or opposition to Israel's actions in Gaza. Which is a total fucking no-brainer from where I'm sat, but apparently not for quite a number of Brits.

The main surprise is not that one out of seven Brits support repeated breaches of international law, defiance and disregard for the international community, colonialism and genocide. After all, that's bound to happen when too many are still indulging in the nostalgia of Ghosts Of Empire Past, which includes all of the above in its legacy. It's that four out of ten can't be arsed to have a fucking opinion one fucking way of the other. You don't need to be a fucking far-left Hamas appeaser to condemn Israel, even "reasonable centrists" do, which we would know for sure if Survation had crosstabbed political leanings. It is even more surprising as the overall climate is massively in favour of Palestine, so nobody has any reason to fear being chastised for opposing Israel. The Israeli government, rather than the Israeli people, actually. Then I guess we have to live with this paradox, where far fewer of us condemn Israel's actions in Gaza than Russia's actions in Ukraine, when both have the same motivations and are of the same nature.

Force breeds an at least equal reaction and, on a practical level, is therefore ineffective, ethical considerations aside.

(Robert Fripp, Musician, December 1980)

You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is an ocean. If a few drops are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.

(Mahatma Gandhi)

It is quite obvious that the Great British Public are quite confused about Israel, Palestine and Gaza. Nothing proves it more conclusively than polls surveying our assessment of Israel's reactions, or response, to the 7 October terrorist pogrom. The very use of words like reaction or responses is already quite confusing. A reaction is kicking a dog in the arse, who has just bitten your ankle. Which of course never happens, as dogs are perfect sweet angels. A response would be Poland shooting down a Russian plane invading their airspace. Which would be legitimate, if not fully proportionate. Israel's strategy does not fit either. Even the United Nations, after much procrastination and pressure from Israel's unquestioning allies, has had to publicly define it as genocide. Even if you are willing to dissect the fine print of the Genocide Convention of 1948, there is no way you can deny it was at the very least repeated war crimes. Yet we seem to have a hard time making up our minds, and I have three polls to prove it. The first one from More In Common.

We don't see a clear condemnation of Israel's clearly disproportionate retaliation here. There are even hints of understanding, and also some of us thinking that it wasn't that bad after all, even if it was a bit harsh. There is some alarming denial of the true nature of Israel's actions here, as nobody can in good faith consider that 60,000 deaths was even "for the most part" proportionate. Like the huge majority of us, I felt only compassion and solidarity for the people of Israel on 7 October 2023. For the people, not their government, as we all knew too well how this government would respond. With massive brute force that goes way beyond "an eye for an eye", as it has now reached fifty lives for a life. With a clear genocidal intent right from the beginning, as ethnic cleansing and mass deportation were explicit goals, even before Donald Trump endorsed them with his initial plan for a Gaza Riviera in the hands of American businesses. Then we have had another recent poll from Survation, that went in a totally different direction from More In Common.

In that poll, we massively agreed that Israel went too far. I only regret that Survation did not include crosstabs with political affiliations, as it would have been interesting to see how many Reform voters thought that Israel had not gone far enough, not fully done the job. To make matters even less clear, we finally had the ever present YouGov, who surveyed the same situation with different options, including the quite unexpected one that Israel should not have intervened in Gaza at all, which I guess would be a bit too much to ask. It is quite revealing that this unlikely choice has its biggest support among Green voters and the TikTok Generation, the ones most likely to be aligned on Green Party politics, which does not mean green politics. You do not need to be a Netanyahu zealot, and in denial about the savagery of Israel's retaliation, to admit that expecting a complete absence of retaliation is total bollocks. But we are accustomed to the Greens living on a different plane of reality to the rest of us, aren't we?

There is a lot to unpack from these three polls. We see again how the wording of the questions, what they stress and what they ignore, can shape the public's response. Though one thing stands out, unconditional and unquestioning support for Israel's actions since October 2023 is extremely low in the UK, 10% at most no matter how the pollster asks. But, depending on how the pollster chooses to "contextualise", to use familiar owenjonesian jargon, opposition varies wildly from less than half to more than two thirds. I have a hunch that the pollster who came closest to the real state of our public opinion is the one who asked the simplest and most direct question. Survation, when they shrunk the debate to the very basic notion of Israel having or not having gone too far. Which they undoubtedly have, visibly and deliberately. You don't have to be a radical Hamas appeaser to see there was a massive succession of premeditated war crimes, the accumulation of which over a long period of time fits the United Nations's criteria for genocide. Denial will lead us nowhere, especially not to a just settlement and a lasting peace.

Let the people be fully informed and convinced as to the evil. Let them earnestly seek the remedy and it will be found. Fully to know the evil is the first step towards reaching its eradication.

(Rutherford B. Hayes, 1887)

One day, when it’s safe, when there’s no personal downside to calling a thing what it is, when it’s too late to hold anyone accountable, everyone will have always been against this.

(Omar El Akkad)

Another aspect of the current situation was also surveyed by our beloved pollsters. What should be the British government's attitude? True to the essence of Starmerism, there is a lot of ambiguity and unfinished business right now. We have recognised Palestine, but without going to the obvious conclusion, that it makes little sense without serious and meaningful actions against Israel. The Survation poll found that 57% of Brits think our government should be more critical of Israel and 12% that it should be less critical. But that's still just words, words, between the lines of age, when we have the means to subject Israel to actual pressure. Revoking all arms export licences to Israel is one lever we did not pull. We should have, especially after supporters of Palestine revealed that some of these licences cover components and spare parts for the F-35s Israel has been using in bombardments of residential areas in Gaza. The More In Common poll dealt with that, again offering options and nuances that dilute the key result. A plurality of us oppose the delivery of any kind of weaponry to Israel.

I absolutely do not buy the distinction between defensive and offensive weaponry. A ten-foot thick wall is defensive, a slingshot and a crossbow are both offensive, we know that since the Hundred Years War and the principle still applies to Third Millennium stuff. Of course, the most strategic and controversial items, the spare components for the F-35s, can be bought directly from the USA, who would be only too happy to oblige. Not that it excuses our refusal to stop delivering them, even after we had evidence of their use for genocidal purposes. With their straightforward black-and-white yes-or-no approach, Survation found that 52% of us want all arms exports to be suspended and only 24% want them to go on. Survation also tested another oft-mentioned action, the cessation of all trade with Israel. They clearly mean it as a government-level decision, Russia-like sanctions, which will never happen. The way around that would be a massive popular boycott, which many of us already enforce individually and spontaneously. Survation did not test that one, just the option of governmental action, which receives only lukewarm support even in Scotland. But would either be truly effective? Probably not if we consider the hard facts of our trade relations with Israel.

In 2024, Israel was the UK's 36th trade partner, and it is highly unlikely to change this year. We exported £3.2bn to Israel and imported £2.7bn from Israel. That was 0.31% of our imports and 0.38% of our exports, 0.34% of our global trade. In lame man's terms, it means that a complete boycott would have exactly jack shit impact on the British economy. Everything we buy from them, like electronics and chemicals, can be obtained from a multiplicity of sources, let's say the European Union. Everything we sell them, like jet engines and pharmaceuticals, can easily find multiple customers elsewhere. Of course the percentages are higher the other way round as the UK accounts for 6% of Israel's exports and 7% of their imports. But it doesn't mean a total boycott would massively hurt them, as the same reasoning as for the UK applies. They wouldn't even have to look very far for alternatives as, believe it or not, Israel's second biggest customer, just after the USA, is Ireland. And their third biggest supplier, after the USA and China, is Germany. Both trade the same products with Israel as the UK, so it is likely that a short period of adjustment would be enough to make up for a complete British boycott and make it invisible. Sorry to piss on your parade, mates, but we will have to find something better.

Nobody in the world, nobody in history, has ever gotten their freedom by appealing to the moral sense of the people who were oppressing them.

(Assata Shakur)

You cannot build a riviera on the bones of the dead. And you cannot build an occupation on the aspirations of the living.

(Josh Paul, The Guardian, 30 September 2025)

The final chapter, so far, is now Donald Trump's peace plan, or rather the Trump-Netanyahu peace plan, revealed to the world on 29 September. The BBC has published the full text, which is useful to get the real gist of it. It is painfully obvious that it owes very little to the expertise of professional diplomats, as whole parts of it are written in typical Trumpese gobbledygook more suited to his posts on Fake News Social than to an official legally binding document. There is even a "buy weapons off the streets" clause, that probably works in Los Angeles' South Central, but may not be the best way to bring peace to Gaza. If you're willing to see the bright side of life, it does say that Israel will withdraw from Gaza, albeit under conditions that are far from totally clear. If you choose to be more cynically pragmatic, it does say that "New Gaza" will be turned into some sort of free-for-all investment zone for American business interests. With Tony Blair as one of the supervisors, for fuck's sake, because the last time a Brit was in charge of Palestine went really well, didn't it?

But the initial reaction of shocked disbelief is just a tiny part of the story, as most of us surely needed more time to digest all of the plan's details, verbatim or as transcribed into real English by The Islington Gazette. There are obviously ulterior motives in drafting a 20-point plan, like drowning the readers in so much gibberish that they lose sight of the real goals. Because the Kushner-Blair Plan, as one of The Guardian's columnists dubbed it, definitely reeks of White Saviour Syndrome, basically telling the Palestinians we will protect them from themselves and their bad instincts, and neo-colonialism, telling Palestinians that they will be better off if they let us run their economy. The plan has failed to gather the level of international support Trump surely expected, and has even missed its main goal, to distract Americans from the Trump-engineered shutdown of the United States government at midnight on 30 September. A few days later, Opinium polled the Great British Public, asking if we think the Trumplan is a good or bad idea, and their findings are not quite what I expected.

I suspect that the reason for such significant support is the way Opinium phased the question. They assumed, obviously rightly, that very few people would have read the actual twenty points, so they summed up the whole thing into four points, simplified and translated into intelligible English. Hamas releasing hostages and withdrawing from power, a new administration with mediation support from Tony Blair, Israel eventually pulling its forces out of Gaza is the verbatim of what the respondents were actually asked about. Such a simpler version, without all the convoluted gobbledygook that screams lousy work, is obviously more likely to elicit support. I can even easily picture some sighs of relief, from people who hadn't really paid attention to the actual content of the plan in the first place, at the mention of the last 7 October hostages being released and Israel's crimes of mass destruction ending. But optimism didn't last long, as Opinium then asked how likely the Trumplan is to bring peace, and we don't believe it will.

The world held its breath and then celebrated when, after just four days of intense soul searching, Israel and Hamas both agreed to the Trumplan. Err... wait... checks notes... well, nobody celebrated because everybody thinks the plan is fucking shite, even the three countries who reportedly pressured Hamas to show some goodwill. Egypt, Qatar and Turkey, if you haven't read is elsewhere already. Then Israel actually agreed to one half of the plan and Hamas to the other half, though that probably counts as agreement on the whole plan in the Orange Baboon's fungified brain. But his mind had already drifted in another direction, looking up whom he should pressure to get his Nobel Piss Prize for ending the war between Azerbaijan and Albania. At least, that one had brought some well deserved comic relief to the European Summit that met a few days after the release of the Trumplan. In the end, the Nobel Committee knew better and the Orange Baboon did not get the Prize, which is good news and evidence of sanity in a world that has given up on it. Greta Thunberg did not get it either, despite intense last minute lobbying from the loopy far-left on social media, and that is good news too.

This is a very special day. Perhaps unprecedented in many ways. It is unprecedented. But thank you all, and thank you to these great countries that have helped. Thank you all, and everyone will be treated fairly.

(Donald Trump, 3 October 2025)

Think about it. When was the last time Nigel Farage said something positive about Britain’s future? He can’t. He doesn’t like Britain. he wants to turn our proud country into a competition of victims.

(Keir Starmer, Labour Party Conference, 30 September 2025)

This time, I will not waste time on doom and gloom, discussing Nigel Farage's British Union of Fascists reboot, even if there have been a shitload of polls about them around the time of their Conference. Instead let's turn our attention to those who not so long ago looked like the Paddington Bears of British politics, but have since transitioned into a pack of Twelve Angry Dobermen. Aye, you guessed it, our new BFFs the Liberal Democrats, who also had their Conference last month. Bear in mind that the LibDems have become an essential part of the global British consciousness since Labour pretty much assigned them the arduous task of being at the vanguard of the Barrage Against Farage. Labour would have gladly smashed the family vases on the Clacton Goebbels's head themselves, but they were too feart it might hurt the feelings of five loopy voters in Lincolnshire, so it was safer to delegate. Until Mister Ed's relentless broadsides convinced Sly Keir to give it a go. At last. But being the No Pasarán party has not made the Great British Public confident in the LibDems' fitness to govern.

The Conference was the perfect pretext for some extensive polling, not all of which was Kuenssberg-style shallow jokes, and some was even really fucking serious. We have had two polls focusing on the LibDems, one from BMG Research and one from More In Common, and I will give you bits from both as they probed the public's feelings from different, and sometimes complementary, angles. Now we have already established that We, The People, don't think that the Liberal Democrats are ready to be part of a government, even as a junior partner in a coalition. The poll did not define which coalition, but I guess it was obviously meant to be a coalition with Labour, as Ed Davey has done everything in his power to make even the distant prospect of a coalition with the Conservatives totally untenable. But it wouldn't save the LibDems from further deep introspection, as we don't even credit them of having a plan for government.

Now there is a lot to say about the pollstertariat's and punditariat's obsessive fixation on politicos having magically come up with The Plan. Nigel Farage has one, and the Cylons had one, so we know that having one is not necessarily a good thing. I am not saying that politicos should leave everything to improvisation, though they often do just that, but do we really need to have the whole five years of a full parliamentary term carved in stone with no margin for flexibility? That's what manifestos usually do, and it never works. Who was the last Prime Minister who did have a plan and made good all of it? Don' even say Blair, he clearly did not. Thatcher maybe, and we know that sticking to The Plan led her to a crash into a brick wall before all of it was fulfilled, even if she still left considerable damage behind her. So it wouldn't be that bad if the LibDems did not have a full plan on the table in the run-up to the next general, even if the punditariat would decry that as amateurish. But the polls hint that their real problem may be elsewhere.

We know what kind of country Farage wants. We just have to look across to Trump’s America. We mustn’t let it become Farage’s Britain.

(Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Conference, 23 September 2025)

What a time we’ve had here in Bournemouth. And we’ve managed to get through it all without bringing someone up onto the stage to argue that it was Covid vaccines that caused cancer in the Royal Family. See, Nigel? It can be done.

(Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Conference, 23 September 2025)

You must have noticed that our beloved and sacrosanct parliamentary system has gradually been contaminated with surreptitious presidentialism. And, if you haven't, that doesn't make you the reincarnation of Plato, just more like Ringo Starr's worst movie ever. Anyway, the punditariat encourage us to focus more end more on the personal traits of the party leaders, and we can surely blame Thatcher and Blair for having started that. We have now reached the stage where Labour clearly have a Starmer problem and the Conservatives a Badenoch problem. The Reformed British Union of Fascists should also have a Farage problem, but the punditariat love him too much to allow that to happen, even to a Kremlin-bribed stamp duty fraudster. So they fall back on convincing us that the Liberal Democrats have a Mister Ed problem, and it works. A majority of us are still waiting for him to look like a Prime Minister, and only a few look at him as a Prime Minister in waiting.

That bleak vision of Mister Ed is surprisingly consensual, as even his own voters don't see him as PM material. So you may ask why that is, though we have known since 1968 that this is the most dangerous question to ask. And you would have the answer delivered to you in a Macmillanesque drawl. The stunts, dear boy, the stunts. A majority of Brits think that the stunts were inappropriate, and even LibDem voters don't support Mister Ed. I find it quite hilarious that Conservative and Reform voters are the most disapproving, when you remember the number of awful tricks their own leaders have performed for the benefit of the most gullible in the electorate. How can sailboarding in a river of shit be worse than reviving the hate-mongering discourse about rivers of blood? Or wannabe leader Robert Jenrick ranting about a "new order"? Which was definitely not a reference to Joy Division's successor band, but deliberate dogwhistling about a very Nazi slogan. That, or Underground Vigilante Bob is a fucking moron who has no fucking clue what he is talking about. Of course, the two are not mutually exclusive.

Actually, that majority opinion is a bit odd and a bit at odds with the actual real facts. As Mister Ed reminded the ecstatic crowd at the Conference, the LibDems have never had as many MPs as right now, had never controlled more Councils than the Conservatives until this year, had never gained Council seats for seven years in a row before, have never bagged more seats than both Labour and the Conservatives at Council elections before this year. So, if this is inappropriate and making the party look less serious, I guess they're gonna ask for more of it and keep Mister Ed in charge longer than Russia keeps Vladimir Putin. I would even argue that the stunts actually helped, because they kept Mister Ed in the public's eye, and then more people wanted to know more about what the LibDems are really made of. And, unlike pretty much all the other parties, the more they saw of them, the more they liked them. Or people really thought that Mister Ed is a fucking clown but, as the saying goes, even bad publicity is good publicity. So the end result was the same.

Let me tell you this, in the immortal words of Frank Sinatra, the best is yet to come! And yes, friends, I will keep doing it my way. So get the bungee harness ready. Because my ambition has no ceiling.

(Ed Davey, Liberal Democrat Conference, 23 September 2025)

There are three things you should never see being made: sausages, politics and music.

(Brian Eno)

There is another way to assess what the LibDems can bring to today's British politics, from a wider philosophical perspective. Basically, what is their purpose? More In Common asked their panel about it, and they came back with a vision that sounds quite dated, if not totally passé. that the LibDems' purpose is to be the voice of moderation. This may have been true in 1996 or in 2009, but it didn't work really well back then, did it? Blair slammed the door to their face when polls predicted that he would not need them in a coalition. The Coalition wiped out most of them, and they needed nine years and three elections to recover. And Mister Ed, of course. He has already outlasted four of the seven previous LibDem leaders and, from where I'm sat, he is more Charles Kennedy than Nick Clegg. Which is a compliment, by the way. More like the leader who made them challenge New Labour from the left after the Iraq War than like the one who made them the Conservatives's doormat.

Mister Ed may actually have found the best of both worlds. First trouncing the Conservatives in the English South by offering a reasonably middle-of-the-road alternative. Then resisting the turquoise tsunami by making the LibDems the heralds of progressiveness on a less batshit-crazy manifesto than the Che Guevara Greens. But is it really what the Great British Public are expecting? We reportedly want sweeping change across the board, rather than baby-steps gradualism. Which is fine by me, but can also be a fucking double-edged chainsaw. After all, embodying and delivering change is Reform's USP, innit? When you think of it, Hitler did just that and Trump is really trying, so there is also precedent proving that no change at all can be your best option. Anyway, we collectively don't believe that the LibDems represent the kind of change The Realm needs. Even their own voters see them as gradualists, not radical resetters. Mister Ed should welcome that verdict, as it is certainly closer to his true nature, a reformer and not a revolutionary firebrand.

Of course, the LibDems' newfound appeal brings us back to the eternal dilemma embedded in current British politics. Is it a smart move to side with a party that is contaminated from the top down by the toxic regressive gender ideology, and owes a lot of its funding to Big Pharma firms that manufacture puberty blockers, but is determined to fight born-again British fascism costumed as British Trumpism, and living off Russian blood money? Or should we feel safer with a party that "knows what a woman is"™, but is the hate-mongering incarnation of born-again British fascism costumed as British Trumpism, and living off Russian blood money? I guess you already know where I stand here, fingers crossed behind my back and nose pinched, garlic necklace and all. Of course, we would be safer and saner under PM Davey than under PM Farage. It's a fucking no-brainer, mates. And I don't give a flying fuck if anybody disapproves from their moral high horse.

You don't have to be ashamed of using your own ideas.

(Brian Eno)

We must leave the ECHR and repeal the Human Rights Act. I want you to know that the next Conservative manifesto will contain our commitment to leave.

(Kemi Badenoch, Conservative Conference, 3 October 2025)

The Conference Season has also put another bone of contention between British political parties back in the spotlight, the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR). It is one of the far-right's pet hates and obsessions, and also demonised by most of the Conservative Party. Their mantra, shared with Nigel Farage's British Union of Fascists 2.0, is that the ECHR prevents the UK from efficiently fighting illegal immigration and enforcing Trump-inspired mass deportation of "undesirables". So leaving the ECHR would be a Second Brexit, allowing us to Take Back Control. Which is bollocks, as the European Court of Human Rights has heard only 29 British immigration cases in the last 45 years, not even one per year, so withdrawing from the Convention would have jack shit influence on future immigration. The Right, most prominently the unhinged Turquoiseshirts, clearly believe that fomenting mass hysteria about immigration is a winning strategy. Polls sadly seem to support this, as "concern" about immigration is rising parallel to the Reform UK vote. But the arguments for leaving the ECHR haven't convinced the Great British Public that we should do it. Two polls conducted by Opinium this year show that we are back to the level of support for staying in it that YouGov found nine years ago, even a wee smitch better.

The problem with the hysterical anti-immigration line of argument is that it does not hold water if we look at the actual facts, not the revisionist fabrication the far-right want us to believe, and what really happened after Brexit. The first "small boats" crossed the Channel in January 2018, a year-and-a-half after the Brexit vote. In April 2020, three months after we officially divorced from the European Union, as many boats crossed the Channel in one month as had in the whole year 2018. Then crossings skyrocketed in 2021 after we left the EU's Dublin Regulation, and have stayed at a massive level since. These are the facts Badenoch, Jenrick and Farage are in denial about. Brexit did not allow us to Take Back Control. Brexit created the small boats. Brexit deprived us of the only tool we had to legally control illegal immigration, which Keir Starmer has been forced to reinvent with his unconvincing "one in, one out" deal with France. At the Labour Conference, Starmer rightly blamed Brexit for creating the "Farage boats" problem, but also wandered dangerously close to suggesting re-interpretation of some key articles of the ECHR to make them fit purely British political goals. Sadly, that's something the Great British Public support.

Now, if we let that genie out of the bottle, there is no way we can put his leash back on. Because there is a darker reality behind the obsessive fixation on getting rid of the ECHR. It is the Trojan elephant in the room for the thin edge of the wedge to the slippery slope into the black hole, the implementation of the British translation of Trump's ultra-reactionary Project 2025. What it actually means is unfolding in the USA right now with the death of the rule of law and its replacement by unchecked authoritarianism. Exactly Nigel Farage's wet dream, as it would put the UK in the same league as his two idols and role models, Trumpistan and the Russian Reich. Alarmingly, the Council of Europe, who are the guardians of the ECHR, are showing some signs of weakness and readiness to amend the ECHR under pressure from a few member states. I must admit that tighter control of migration is a more legitimate concern in the Eastern Marches of the Civilised World than in the UK because Russia and Belarus, both kicked out of the Council of Europe, have weaponised it to destabilise democratic regimes. Opinium also asked their panel if the Council of Europe should amend its own rules, embedded in the ECHR, and we agree, unsurprisingly. Starmer would surely love that happening, as he could argue he didn't do it, the Poles ate his homework.

The Conservatives have covered themselves in the ashes of shame by reneging on the legacy of Winston Churchill, the main architect of both the Council of Europe and the ECHR, and betraying their very own Greatest Briton Of All Time to appease Lord Haw-Haw 2.0. Conference Time has not restored their credibility with Kemi Badenoch saying, live on national TV, that it's OK to leave the ECHR because the USA, Canada and Australia are not in it either. That was both badass comedy gold and fucking tragic shit, especially when the news are full of human rights and civil liberties being trumpled underfoot on the Orange Baboon's orders. She did not shine either when she mentioned Northern Ireland in her conference speech, pretty much as an afterthought. Her spads should have told her not to admit "particular challenges" there because the ECHR is embedded in the Good Friday Agreement, as it could only show she has no fucking clue how to solve them, and hasn't even thought about it. There is a way, though. Irish Reunification. That would instantly solve all the "particular challenges" facing Northern Ireland. Thank Dog for Kemi Badenough, the first woman in the world who makes Lawrence Fox look like a fucking Nobel-grade genius.

If there are other treaties and laws we need to revise or revisit, then we will do so. And we will do so in the same calm and responsible way, working out the detail before we rush to announce.

(Kemi Badenoch, Conservative Conference, 3 October 2025)

Why does everybody get their knickers in a twist about identity cards? I mean, during the war... I can give you my identity number now. CJFQ29/4. We all had to learn it. I know there was a war on, but there's a war on now, mate.

(Sheila Hancock, Have I Got News For You?, 3 October 2025)

As someone having dual citizenship with a country that has been using digital ID for years, I must confess I find the current moral panic about digital ID being made compulsory in the UK hugely entertaining. Even fucking hilarious when it is backed with such hyperbolically asinine arguments as the forever cretinous Shitweasel in The Scottish Pravda. For the record, 25 out of 27 member states of the European Union issue ID cards, a fact which the British public are blissfully ignorant of, 17 have made it compulsory, and all will switch to some variant of digital ID before the end of 2026. Last time I checked, none had turned into a fascist dictatorship. Well, there's Hungary... Ironically, the former SNP MP for MI5 Little Shit McDonald supports it, even if he doesn't like the allegedly proposed name. Bear in mind too that the British Deep State already has access to our darkest secrets, through our National Insurance number and all the systems it interconnects. And don't even get me started on all the sites to which you have given away your name, address, credit card number and probably even the PIN, to make online shopping easier and quicker. So what the fuck? YouGov obviously speed-polled it, and the Great British Public are actually not up in arms against it, except Reform voters.

Public opinion has changed quite dramatically over just a few days. I totally blame that on a combination of coordinated scripted media hysteria and a tendency to consider everything Starmer does as evil, without even giving an intelligent thought to the pros and cons. As expected, the Clacton Mussolini, who was strongly supportive of mandatory digital ID until last month, has spontaneously U-turned on it, as on so many issues, now that polls tell him that his voters massively oppose it. Like his minion Darren #CraftyWank Grimes instantly did. When you are nothing but an opportunistic con-man, always lead from the back of the herd. But remember we have the receipts. Anyway, I've been told by reliable sources, the aforementioned Shitweasel, Gaby Hinsliff, John Swinney and Liz Truss, that digital ID will cost Labour six trillion votes and the next eleven elections. Which is the last thing they need if you consider the already dismal trends of voting intentions. But that's probably why the loopy far-left are so eager to jump on that bandwagon, hand in hand with the Rump Tories and the Trumpist faux libertarians.

There is no visible effect of the Conference Season in the polls yet, but there has been a very slight shift in the media, where some have started asking Nigel Farage the awkward questions. The ones the BBC and Channel 4 should ask if they were willing to do their job properly, but are now asked by the likes of The Mirror and The Telegraph. Surely the story of the Clacton flat is bound to take on a new life soon along two dimensions. Where did the dosh come from, and can Farage prove it didn't come straight from Moscow? Can Farage cone clean about his premeditated stamp duty fraud, when he crucified Angela Rayner for her temporary lapse of attention to stamp duty detail? But, until all of the mediatariat start doing their job and stop appeasing the Bargain Bin Blackshirts, the toxic turquoise infection is bound to stay alive and kicking and on the top rung of voting intentions polls.

My current snapshot is based on the last five polls, conducted between 3 and 10 October by Freshwater Strategy, More In Common, YouGov, Find Out Now and Opinium, with a super-sample of 10,270. Apart from the usual, "Fuck me sideways, Labour are truly fucked", Pavlovian reaction, the salient result here is that the Liberal Democrats are predicted to lose seats. My model did not say that very often, only three times out of twelve published predictions over last six months. For full disclosure, Electoral Calculus, the punditariat's usual pet prognosticator, see it differently and their monthly projections have almost always predicted the LibDems losing seats. One question mark remains, though. What will the Rump Tories do next? What kind of future do they foresee for themselves when polls keep saying that they would be demoted down the pecking order to fifth place and fuck all influence on future policies? Should they just take the money and run like their disgraced peer who is now a convicted felon? Maybe there is an alternative, and we'll see more of that below the fold.

The Times revealed Baroness Mone has recently taken her luxury yacht to the South of France, the Caribbean and the Maldives. Two of those to escape the stress and one to visit her money,

(Victoria Coren-Mitchell, Have I Got News For You?, 3 October 2025)

If I said to you that swans were being eaten in Royal Parks in this country, that carp were being taken out of ponds and eaten in this country by people who come from cultures that are different, would you agree it’s happening here?

(Nigel Farage, LBC, 24 September 2025)

Now, you may ask, what is wrong with eating swans? Does Nigel Farage think that only the Royals should have that privilege? After all, Henry VIII had one for breakfast on the morning Ann Boleyn was beheaded. Must be true, I have seen it in The Tudors, or maybe it was Wolf Hall. And what is wrong with eating fucking carp, other than it tastes like shit? Has Nigel forgotten that the Christmas Carp is a traditional treat across several European countries including the one he has got his second passport from, Germany? Or that gefilte fish, most often made of carp, is a traditional Passover delicacy in many Jewish households? And that's how you lose thousands of votes for failing to check that you're not going to talk out of your arse. Again. Undeterred by that, Lord Ashcroft doubled his most recent voting intentions poll with an alternative timeline where the Conservatives and Reform UK merge and field joint candidates. Surely Nadine Dorries', the Bargain Bin Fascists' Bargain Bin Jane Austen, wet dream, but it didn't go really as planned.

So the Conservatives and Reform UK joining forces would be far less successful than both parties standing as they are now. But not because the other parties would attract more voters. The raw data from the Ashcroft poll, before undecideds and abstainers are counted out, show Labour and the LibDems gaining just 1% each, and the Greens even losing 1%. It doesn't look that way in the charts because the alternative scenario sees a big increase in the number of abstainers and undecideds, which automatically makes the remaining competitors' vote shares look bigger. 27% of potential Conservative voters and 34% of potential Reform voters would switch to undecided if there were joint candidates. At the end of the fair, that's a loss of 11.5% GB-wide, -9% in Scotland, -10% in Wales, -8% to -15% in the regions of England.

Yorkshire would be the most reluctant to support the alliance, with London and the West Midlands joint second, while the South East would be the most amenable. Oddly, the Liberal Democrats would suffer the most from the hypothetical merger, despite gaining votes. It's the magic of first-past-the-post again. Coming first against a divided field does not mean you would survive the fusion of the two main runner-ups. Unless, of course, a Fusion Of The Rights would trigger some sort of election pact between Labour and the Liberal Democrats. That would be another story for another chapter in Nadine Dorries' next novel, but I am pretty sure some creative brains in both parties are already thinking along those lines. Because that could be more than a damage control scenario, but a real disaster avoidance scenario. Mostly for Labour, but the LibDems could pretty much ask for whatever they want, and get it.

In real life, I seriously doubt that a Con-Ref alliance will ever happen. Kemi Badenoch and a few others would surely cling to their True Blue seats and end up making the Rump Conservatives Party look like The Raft Of The Medusa 2.0. The most likely scenario is a reboot of what happened to the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada after three Doomsday elections in 1993, 1997 and 2000. It took ten years but, defection after defection and setback after setback, they were absorbed by a more successful and more right-wing emergent party. Which coincidentally also self-identified as Reform for several years. In the end, the fusion of the two parties, actually the absorption and digestion of the vestigial remains of the old PCPC, gave birth to the current Conservative Party of Canada that failed to defeat the Liberals even after ten years of Justin Trudeau's dismal leadership, thanks to a change of Liberal leader from Trudeau to Mark Carney. Which might give some Labour activists a hunch of what to do to avoid a 2029 crash-landing. Full disclosure below the fold, though you have probably guessed already where that's leading us.

The secret of life is to have no fear.

(Fela Kuti)

I think the Conservative Party is basically dead. So, Reform versus Labour is the fight.

(Keir Starmer, 25 September 2025)

Reform versus Labour, really? Or will the fight be Starmer versus Burnham first? The very prospect of that fight is giving Shitweasel a boner, and he basically comes out as supporting Burnham for proposing the same policies Starmer proposed during his 2020 leadership campaign and later reneged on, despite an initial trigger warning that Burnham is a Blairite, which is worse than being a cannibal paedophile in Shitweasel's warped Weltanschauung. Go figure. Now Talcum X is gambling all his street cred, don't laugh, on one poll conducted by More In Common with an alternative timeline where Andy Burnham is Leader of the Labour Party at the time of the next general election. This was not a special one-off, but twinned with their regular voting intentions poll. So it was the same people answering at the same time and in the same state of mind, which increases its credibility and gives some weight to their rather extraordinary findings.

Andy Burnham would resurrect Labour by snatching back lost votes from all over the place, but mostly from the Liberal Democrats, the Greens and the SNP. All the parties that have been a refuge for disgruntled Labour voters, the lost orphans of Starmerism. With Starmer at the helm, we get Labour losing 200+ seats, Reform as the first party but needing a coalition with the Tories for a paper-thin majority. With Burnham, we get Labour losing "only" 100+ seats, emerging as the first party, and needing a coalition with the LibDems for a Johnson-like majority. Electoral Calculus is more Reform-friendly as usual, but the conclusions are pretty much in the same dogpark. Not bad for a bloke who still insists that his only career plan is the Mayoralty of Manchester in perpetuum. But maybe this will never happen, because the New Model Prince Of Darkness Morgan McSweeney will have Burnham daleked first. Which would be manna from Heaven for Reform UK, left to roam free across the wild plains of the North.

Of course, the biggest shock here is Reform UK confirmed as the second party in Scotland, and growing. Will the anaemic SNP be able to block them, or will we need a miracle? Reform UK are still doing well in Wales too. But will it last? The last story about the New Model British Union of Fascists has a very familiar flavour. Reform's former branch manager in Wales, who had followed Führer Nigel since the day of UKIP, has pleaded guilty to eight charges of bribery. Specifically he took Russian blood money during his time as a MEP, in return for spreading propaganda and fake news supporting the Russian Reich after the illegal annexation of Crimea and the invasion of Donbas under cover of separatist terrorist militias. Of course, this received far less media coverage than Angela Rayner's stamp duty story, though being 1,000 times more important and politically significant. But the English mediatariat have chosen their side, haven't they?

Today's predicted vote shares as just as calamitous as ever for Labour in the Midlands and the South, just like in the North and the Other Two Nations. Even London has spectacularly fallen out of love with its native son Keir Starmer, with a lower predicted vote share than in 1983 under Michael Foot and triumphant Thatcherism. Who'd have thunk that an uncontrolled lurch to the right would produce the same effects as an uncontrolled lurch to the left? And yet, here we are. These predicted vote shares also offer some hints about why the Liberal Democrats are now in a more challenging situation than ever. Factoring in the regional crosstabs of the polls shows that they are gaining votes as a Labour-ersatz in parts of England where it does not matter, as they have close to jack shit odds of gaining seats there. Then they are losing votes where they need them most, to hold all the marginals they snatched from the Tories by sheer serendipity. But maybe it is too early to conclude they should brace themselves for a less stellar performance at the next general. Maybe the Conference will have boosted them again. Only the next batch of polls can tell us.

The "new world" may well be the "old world" but with a subtle difference involving not much more than a charge in perception.

(Robert Fripp, Musician, December 1980)

This great party is proud of our flags. Yet if they’re painted alongside graffiti telling a Chinese takeaway owner to go home, that’s not pride. That’s racism.

(Keir Starmer, Labour Party Conference, 30 September 2025)

The updated projection of seats by nation and region is even more painful to watch than the predicted vote shares, thanks to the magnifying effect of first-past-the post. Though, technically speaking, that wouldn't be magnifying, that just makes things look bigger, but amplifying, that makes things actually bigger. It's a bit like watching the start of a cockroach infestation. You look away just one second and there are thousands of them everywhere, even in the dog's bowl. Reform are even doing alarmingly well in Scotland, snatching six seats off Labour, one off the Conservatives and one off the SNP. They also come second in another six seats that are predicted to go to the SNP, in all cases displacing the Conservatives as the main right-wing party. Basic maths says that a 2% swing from the SNP to Reform UK would make the two parties level in number of seats or, if you don't want to contemplate the painful picture of direct switches, any combination of voters' movements that would take down the SNP's share by 2% and increase Reform's by the same amount. Like some yellow-to-green combined with some more blue-to-turquoise. It sure looks better when told that way, but that would deliver the same result, 24 seats each.

I think the people of the North, and very specifically the good people of Manchester, are not really thinking about the next election right now, but are still in shock after the terrorist attack on a synagogue on Yom Kippur. It was reassuring to see condemnation of this abomination across the political spectrum, but three reactions deserve to be singled out, not just for the words spoken, but also for what they reveal. Nigel Farage, pretty much the standard thoughts-and-prayers stuff, not really full of compassion. Jeremy Corbyn, a much more heartfelt expression of compassion and solidarity, in my opinion shamefully attacked by right-wingers when we should all have forgotten political squabbles for one day. Owen Jones, spontaneously just two dry words meaning jack shit to the victims and their families, before returning to his obsessive Labour-bashing binge-tweeting. Just what we can expect from the wanker who earned his nickname, Shitweasel, by casting doubt on the reality of the 7 October terrorist pogrom. Once a creep, always a creep.

Labour don't fare as badly in London as you may have expected from the dismal predicted vote share. That's a textbook case of a fragmented opposition disproportionately helping the diminished first party. Losing a quarter of their seats in the Imperial Capital is still a tremendous blow, but it takes them back only to 2005 and is not even their worst result ever. They suffered much worse, and often with larger vote shares, when the Conservatives were the only opposition instead of the current split. We also see that the Liberal Democrats' losses are concentrated in the South West, with eight of their 2014 seats switching straight to Reform UK. They are also predicted to lose one to Reform, but gain one from the Conservatives in the South East. Then they only have one gain from Labour in Yorkshire, and another one from Labour in London, to show as evidence of their good health. Amusingly, their predicted London gain is Bermondsey and Old Southwark, which covers the neighbourhood where Keir Starmer was born, a month before The Beatles released "Love Me Do". Thank Dog for small ironies.

Controlling migration is a reasonable goal. But if you throw bricks and smash up private property that is thuggery. If you incite violence that’s criminal.

(Keir Starmer, Labour Party Conference, 30 September 2025)

The way to kill a man or a nation is to cut off his dreams.

(William S. Burroughs)

I have kept the best for last, which is a wee smitch like Yes playing Siberian Khatru as the encore. IYKYK, as they say. Never mind, we got three brand new Full Scottish in quick succession. It's like the 22b to Kelty. None comes for a month, and then you get three the same week. By order of publication, we first got one conducted by Find Out Now on behalf of The Scottish Pravda, who managed to make its reveal a fucking serial. But in a quite cretinous way, as they published all four episodes on the same day, instead of spreading them through a whole working week. Then only The National could squeal in jubilation over the SNP's predicted gains of Westminster seats on the same vote share that saw them take a massive drubbing in 2024, and only thanks to Reform UK outvoting Labour. And only The National could have an orgasm at the thought of a pro-independence, nominally, majority at Holyrood next year, without mentioning that this last poll is the SNP's worst performance in any Full Scottish ever fielded by Find Out Now, and also far weaker than the More In Common poll conducted a month ago. The trends of voting intentions for the hypothetical second Independence referendum haven't changed dramatically with that poll, and still point to a tie.

Another one was conducted by Survation on behalf of the Unionist zealots at Scotland In Union. It was fielded before the Find Out Now poll, but revealed after it. As usual, I did not factor in their question about Independence, as it again used the manipulative and discredited Remain/Leave wording instead of the standard Yes/No question from the 2014 referendum. Survation should know better than to use that wording, even if the client insists on it. But I have of course included them in the updated trendlines of Westminster voting intentions. Then, and last for now, we have had one from Norstat that does qualify as a honest unbiased Full Scottish and is thusly included everywhere.

The SNP are now gaining back some ground, but not in a truly spectacular way. Survation credits them with 35% of the vote, but Find Out Now with just the same 30% as in 2024. Both confirm a debacle for Labour, and the plausibility of Reform UK becoming the second party in Scotland if nobody does anything serious about it. The question now is no longer if Reform can bag seats in Scotland, but how many. Scottish polls being what they are, highly volatile, I can't really say. But Labour seats of 2024 where the Conservatives also did well look like plausible first tier targets. And that should swing the spotlight towards South Scotland. I have added More In Common's and YouGov's new MRP polls to the sequence of recent polls, though I did not add them to the trendlines as they are technically not polls, but more like compilations coupled with an ex post facto reconstruction of possible votes in each constituency.

The two new MRPs. the most recent of a long line, are based on super-samples of 19,520 and 13,000 GB-wide, so that would be like a compilation of around 1,750 and 1,200 replies from Scotland. YouGov's was widely publicised by the whole British mediatariat, who love nothing more than making a big fuss about anything that supports their self-fulfilling prophecy that the Clacton Goebbels will be the next Gauleiter of Großbritannien. Even The Scottish Pravda fell for it, cretinous twats. So YouGov predicts that the British Union of Fascists' Reboot would bag five Scottish seats. three snatched from the Conservatives (Dumfries and Galloway, Dumfriesshire, Clydesdale and Tweeddale, Berwickshire, Roxburgh and Selkirk) and two from Labour (Ayr, Carrick and Cumnock, Central Ayrshire). So pretty much all of the South Scotland region bar the Kilmarnock area. There is some logic in this, though it also sounds too neat to be true, especially their finding that no SNP seat would be under threat despite scoring fewer votes than at the 2024 general. For lack of better expertise, we will take their word for it, won't we? For now.

Those who make peaceful revolution impossible, will make violent revolution inevitable.

(John Fitzgerald Kennedy)

When their walls come crumbling down into their moats, we climb across the wreckage with knives in our teeth.

(Robert J. Bennett)

The most important part of the last three polls is obviously what they have to say about the next Holyrood election, and obviously they disagree. They have one thing in common, though. They all see Labour in deep shit North of the Royal Border Bridge, and the Turquoise Flatpack Fascists gleefully rolling in that shit to unprecedented heights. What is most worrying for Scottish Labour is the very symmetric look of their trendlines and Reform's, like one was feeding the other. The Faragists may think it all looks fine to the naked eye, but it don't really happen that way at all. Crosstabs with earlier votes show that a direct switch from Labour to Reform is not the dominant factor, but different patterns of abstention definitely play a part. Labour voters of 2021 are more likely to abstain next year for lack of a more attractive choice, while people who didn't vote in 2021 are more likely to choose Reform. Which includes people who were dissatisfied with the political offer of four years ago, but also new voters in the younger age bracket. Not all of the TikTok Generation goes for the Greens, mates, common wisdom does not work here.

The Survation poll, which The Scottish Pravda did not find interesting enough to devote more than one short article to it, not even involving their usual guru, predated the Find Out Now poll, so I will give you the seat projections from it first. It is quite amusing to see that the SNP can lose 10% on both votes and still lose less than a handful of seats. Whoever designed the awful Additional Member System we have here clearly did not expect that its first-past-the-post component would have such a lopsided effect. In their day, the voting patterns were different, with only four parties competing and a smaller spread of the vote shares, so the impact of a fragmented opposition was less cataclysmic. Reform starting from scratch, with no grassroots organisation and basically zero voters from 2021 also helps the already established parties, and mostly the SNP. Reform's constituency votes are thusly pretty much all wasted votes, and their only hope is to maximise their share of list seats. It will be a different story in 2031. If Reform still exists, that is.

Then we have the seat projection from the Find Out Now poll, visibly different from the Survation poll in several cases. On pretty much everything, actually, except an SNP-Lab coalition being the safest route to a stable government. For full disclosure, I have amended my charts to show what polls would deliver on uniform national swing and according to a few other prognosticators. John Curtice's prediction, based on the Find Out Now poll, for The Scottish Pravda is so close to what Election Polling delivers that you might suspect he has just changed two numbers to hide that he has nicked it from them, just as he nicks his general election predictions from Electoral Calculus. Then we have Devolved Elections, a newcomer to the game, who stray totally off-piste by predicting three constituencies for the Greens on this poll's numbers, which is actually plausible, and seven for Reform UK, which does sound fucking far-fetched.

The weirdest part about the Find Out Now poll is The Scottish Pravda allowing their Bargain Bin Guru John Curtice to slam the poll they had commissioned and paid for themselves, because of a question referring to the list vote as the second vote. On the totally fabricated pretext that it might have skewed the vote because SNP voters would have picked their second choice and not their actual intended vote. So The Scottish Pravda is implying that SNP voters just fell from the last turnip cart to Galashiels, and are such eejits they can misunderstand a question about a voting system that has been in use for 26 years and six elections. Not to mention the wee facts that Find Out Now has always referred to the list vote as the second vote, and that all polls since the 2021 election, and indeed the 2021 election itself, have shown a visible gap between the SNP's constituency and list votes. The gap found by the Find Out Now poll, at 7.03%, is even just slightly smaller than the actual gap at that election, which was 7.36%. Then it's fucking hilarious to see John Curtice making a fucking eejit of himself, just to kowtow to his client's supposed pro-SNP zealotry, innit?

What's done we partly may compute, but know not what's resisted.

(Robert Burns, Address to the Unco Guid, 1786)

There is nothing wrong with Scotland that cannot be fixed by what is right with Scotland.

(Alex Salmond)

The SNP's new guide vocal, inaugurated at this year's Conference is that a majority at the next Scottish Parliament election is within reach. To contextualise, what happened half-a-generation ago under exceptional circumstances and the leadership of an exceptional man, will repeat itself under omnishambolic circumstances and the leadership of a mediocre man. In your fucking dreams, mates. And it's not even the loopiest we have heard from the Conference, as the anti-Swinney wing also pushed the idea of a 100-member "provisional government", which is what you usually do in a country emerging from a long dictatorship or a long foreign occupation. Cue Portugal 1974 or France 1944. Even the proponents of this absurdity have to admit it would have no legal standing, which is totally obvious, and that it could happen only if the notionally pro-Independence parties bagged a majority of the popular vote next May. Which current polls say will not happen, the recent Norstat poll being the third in three weeks to say so. Its findings and the seat projections you can deduce from them are somewhere between Survation and Find Out Now, not brilliant for the SNP and still leaving the option of an SNP-Lab coalition on the table to avoid having to accommodate the loopy Greens again.

We have also had the latest update of Ipsos' Scottish Political Pulse, which does not survey voting intentions, but our mood and our feelings towards a select array of politicians. Which does shape voting intentions, doesn't it? Ipsos polled 21 different people and organisations, including Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump who, last time I checked, are not candidates for First Minister of Scotland. Yet. Also included were a wide array of Scottish and English politicians, as well as the main Scottish political parties and the most significant branch offices of English parties in Scotland. Which are all labelled as "Scottish summat" as it is the most convenient way to describe them, and also how they self-identify, and we should totally respect, validate and affirm that, shouldn't we? To cut a long story short, the key point is that nobody will be happy bunnies with Ipsos' findings.

It definitely say something that the most popular party and politician, the SNP and Swinney, are actually just the least unpopular, with a double-digit net negative. It is also mildly amusing that Keir Starmer and Kemi Badenoch are both less popular in Scotland than Donald Trump. But it is genuinely fucking hilarious that the second most popular party and politician, based on their net ratings, are the Liberal Democrats and the insufferable twat Alex Cole-Hamilton. He has nothing of Mister Ed's goofy charm, and yet Scottish voters are ready to reward him for being part of the same party, plausibly doubling the number of LibDem seats at Holyrood and granting them a seat at the adults' table again. More worryingly, Reform UK and Nigel Farage are more popular than the Scottish Conservatives, and roughly level with Scottish Labour. So we won't have the option of faking outraged surprise if they do as well as polls predict at next year's election, and become a lasting presence in Scottish politics.

The next big question, though, is what will happen to the Alba Party now that Ash Regan, their sole MSP and the last truly faithful to Alex Salmond's legacy, has decided to leave the party. Interestingly, the party's official reaction was very civil and gracious, even praising Ash for her past work and contribution to Scottish politics. It is easy to understand why both parties wanted to avoid an acrimonious divorce just two days before the anniversary of Big Eck's untimely death. This is surely also why Ash was not really specific about her reasons for leaving, just mentioning that the party had "chosen a different path" from the one Alex and her advocated. It surely refers to their current Independence strategy, but I also can only speculate that Ash wasn't comfortable with the inordinate amount of influence Kenny MacAskill has granted to representatives of the Putinist Hamas-hugging loopy far-left like Tommy Sheridan and Craig Murray, who may also be at odds with Ash's chosen way to stand up for women's rights. Kenny has sent too many hints that his natural inclination is to kowtow to wokeism, rather than uphold Big Eck's social-democratic principles, so the divorce is not really surprising, even if it was quite unexpected for those who are not privy to Alba's internal debates. Dogspeed for now, Ash, hoping to see you back at Holyrood after the election.

Any house built on sand, big or small, will not survive the storm.

(Alex Salmond)

Prostitution is something that a lot of politicians do not want to engage with. They are more than happy for this to be in the shadows. I do not agree with that. What is the point of being in politics if you cannot be ambitious for your country?

(Ash Regan, The Herald, 1 June 2025)

In other Scottish news, a neverending debate was reopened last month when Ash Regan, in her last act as an Alba Party MSP, proposed a bill that would regulate prostitution in Scotland along the lines of the "Nordic Model" already enforced in several countries including France and, closer to home, Northern Ireland. The bill, which is supported by The Polis, aims at dispelling the myth of "sex work", as promoted by the woke metropolitan middle-class that has absolutely fuck all knowledge of the realities of atrocious exploitation of women through prostitution. except probably as occasional clients of high-profile "escorts". Which probably why they dislike so much the core provisions of the bill, criminalising buying sex while decriminalising selling sex. Amnesty International oppose the bill, which is a valid reason to support it, given their appalling recent record on women's rights in Western countries. Ash Regan even commissioned a poll from Find Out Now to assess the public's opinion on her proposals, and it found overwhelming support.

What will be the SNP's and the Scottish Government's position, seeing that their own voters are just as supportive as the rest of the Scottish public? After all, Ash's bill combines both best international practice, the SNP's proverbial excuse for promoting bills that do not have popular support, and popular support. Unless they choose to not take an actual stand, and cover their asses by following the Fiscal's negative assessment of the bill, which would also be typical of them. The poll also probed the public's view of the common woke position that "sex work is work" like any reasonable and informed career choice. Ash's chosen wording would probably be labelled a leading question in a court of law, as it reads, "Do you believe that prostitution can ever be considered as a career choice, advertised to school leavers and in DWP back to work schemes?", but I think it captures the essence of the debate quite well. And Scots also overwhelmingly reject that approach.

This part of the debate goes beyond ideology. It is more of a moral and philosophical approach of what is unacceptable because it is one of the most abhorrent forms of exploitation. The wide agreement across political divides is all the evidence we need. The oddity of the woke approach to "sex work" is that it is rooted in deep denial of the true nature of male violence against women, which is not uncommon in that corner of the political spectrum. They tend to ignore or downplay the part played by the irresistible urge for sex, usually more of an excuse for the far-right incels like Andrew Tate. Of course, Ash's poll couldn't let that stone unturned and dutifully asked "What impact does men's demand to buy sex have on the safety of women in society?", coming back full circle to the rationale behind the first line of questioning. Here again, the Scottish public's verdict is merciless, above and beyond generational and political differences.

Opining that prostitution, which is basically sex slave trade, makes women less safe should be obvious enough to be fully consensual. It is quite revealing that the most visible difference of opinion here is between men and women, not between Gen Z and their great-great-grandparents, nor between left-wingers and right-wingers. The usual point made by the proponents of "sex work" is that criminalisation of the purchase of sex would make prostitution more dangerous by driving it underground. As if it wasn't already mostly in the hands of organised crime relying on human trafficking networks. A textbook case is Germany, where prostitution is not only legal, but also subjected to income tax and VAT, which does sound fucking ridiculous but is just the full enforcement of the "sex work" model. "Sex work" is also legally confined to brothels, which is more like a specialised revival of Victorian workhouses than a progressive environment. An official assessment after five years of enforcement found that only a third of the women involved agreed it had improved their condition, and illegal brothels are flourishing to circumvent the legal provision that makes brothel owners responsible for collecting the income tax in cash on behalf of the government, which is pretty much the peak of absurdity. Surely this is not what anyone wants for Scotland, or will the woke absolutist contingent at Holyrood push that just to piss off Ash Regan?

There just is not any way to make prostitution safe, so this is why I am suggesting that we change the law in order to shrink the market down as much as possible and put the shame onto the punters.

(Ash Regan, The Herald, 1 June 2025)

Catherine Ribeiro

(Lyon, 22 September 1941 - Martigues, 23 August 2024)

Jeremy's Den

13/10/2025

The Age Of Decay

No comments:

Post a Comment

The Age Of Decay