Chris Gallon

If you are going to do it then it has to be now. But I see no realistic way of it happening unless all parties agree.

To win elections in all those seats they are the opposition to the Tory Party. Opinion polls hide very significant geographical splits.

This is because the Tory Party is the opposition in most areas the Lib Dems compete. In a given seat they ruthlessly squeeze Labour as the third party but they still need to beat the Tories and they can't do that unless they can shift some of their vote.

Masterful set of statements, can't argue with any of them.

Surely the only problem she should have had answering the question was picking a word to describe him that wouldn't get her banned from pre-watershed TV permanently

The reality is tactical voting is key. Those polls don't reflect constituency votes, if the anti reform tactical vote stacks up they could lose everywhere, but if they can cannibalise more of the Tory vote than Labour/Lib/Green get from their bloc they could win everywhere. It is not predictable.

Drives me mad as well, I think the media and social media are mostly responsible. You have snake oil salesmen on the right and left promising ludicrous things and instead of the media just laughing at them they report it as though it was serious. Also way too many racists are tolerated.

That was not controversial, it was a very mild mannered and considered statement.

I think that is very harsh. A bigger issue is how you enjoy Pratchett while having a personality that opposes the basic goodness of all his characters.

The nudge stuff was ethically unacceptable. I come back to the undeniable basic point. If we had voted for Chaos with Ed Miliband in 2015 we would all be 20% richer and a shed load less racist. Also loads less people would have died from COVID.

Pin it, enhanced spell check working well.

Insert angry goose meme here. In fact you could limit to every Tory and Reform policy announcement.

I do not understand why Badenoch didn't sack him and withdraw the whip. He is coming for her anyway and she could save the Tory Party by ditching him. Farage wouldn't tolerate him in Reform.

Isn't a bigger issue a majority of 1 gives absolute power in the UK?

Fair point, the argument FPTP is highly problematic if polling stays as is valid. If you go for say the AMS version of PR (probably the closest match to UK) will it help? Probably if we have that sort of freakish result, but we probably won't. You will get further fragmentation, Ref/Con/Nazi govt?

Thanks Ipsos. Opinion poll Sept 1981

Con 28

Lab 42

Lib 11

Other 17

How did Michael Foot do in the subsequent GE ?

Big events can happen, and almost certainly will before 2029.

The UK media clutches it's pearls over donkey fields but happily ignores or justifies behaviour from the right that is either corrupt or in this case straight up fascism. Same dynamic with Trump. Keep pointing it out Ian, although you give Jenrick too much credit he knows it is rubbish.

Anybody seen how Reform councils are governing recently? Can't set budgets, can't perform basic tasks.

A decent Tory leader would sack him, and withdraw the whip from him permanently. She will never get a better opportunity, plus she could then resign triggering a snap leadership election just to spite him.

My suspicion is that most of these people left the Tories in 2024 for Lib-dem or Labour depending on who was best placed. They could be winnable back by the Tory Party, but not this one.

What you are talking about there is the political class / Twitter view of centralism that left use. In this world it is about triangulation. However centrists are different and they are a thing. Low risk quiet life voters who would like people to be mostly nice and things to get better.

How is that Canadian conservative government doing that was a nailed on cert a year ago?

Why are they, Farage is not inevitable, Badenoch won't last another year and the Tory ability to self correct may yet surprise. Trump will implode (whether that is good or bad is as yet unclear), and I think we will be in a shooting war with Russia before 2029.

No it isn't. This sort of divisive rubbish is worthy of Farage. They will get the people responsible for this and they are going to jail for a very long time.

The UK government has not done that. If people had held up banners saying I support Palestine nobody would have been arrested.

The stupidity of the rule is not in doubt.

The speed things are currently moving at the current point is mostly the EUs fault, although choice is a better word. The fact we are where we are is entirely down to bonkers UK choices that we are for now stuck with.

None of that is actually true. There are a host of things being worked through, slowly which is mostly down to the speed of EU process who have also other priorities to take their time.

It is the rule, it isn't hard to follow, if you break it you get a booking, top tip don't break the obvious rule everyone understands. If managers fined them a year's pay they wouldn't do it.

Starmer is leading the UK closer to the EU, but mainly due to the EU who are slow walking stuff there are limits as to how quickly anything can move. The idea that we can wave out hands and rejoin or become members of the SM quickly are just fantasy.