[Bones McCoy]

[..] that cunt with the toasty stables and whose name mercifully escapes me.

Nadhim Zahawi

The warm horse chancellor.

[Tubby Isaacs]

How are the polls?

Challenging, Prime Minister. (part 902)

Let's add half the Reform voters on to Sunak. He's still fucked.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Not all the polls are quite that bad for Sunak, but average is still dreadful.

As an aside, I wonder, what on earth were the Greens thinking running so many candidates against Corbyn Labour?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Tactical voting could be a lot more efficient than in this model. The Lib Dems held North Devon till 2015 and are clear second place, but the model has Labour's vote going up by more and the Tories holding on by 1.9%. On the other hand, the Reform votes look a bit high.

[mattomac]

The reform vote in these by elections seems not to go anywhere, it potentially swung back to the Tories in Uxbridge but say in that west lancs by election, the Tory vote remained in line with polling and yet Reform didn’t appear, Selby and Somerton it was even worse and yet reforms vote is lower than their average.

There was also nothing in the local elections, it seems clear from LD and Lab voters that they understand where to vote tactically and they aren’t afraid to do so.

The two parties aren’t massively far from one another that someone who is a LD voter wouldn’t vote Labour and vice versa that’s more pronounced when Corbyn was there.

I assume the Reform vote is quite Tory on these polls but I expect they just won’t bother most of the time.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Some good news for Sunak. Not all that good, we should be growing faster than France and Germany with their demographic issues, and there seems very little doubt that Brexit has been a drag. But some Remainers who've been wanting Sir Keir to say "look how awful we're doing, Brexit! Why won't you say?" would have some egg on their faces right now. His team are smarter than those other people.

[Andy McDandy]

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfr ... ant-shapps

Marina Hyde on the concrete in schools fiasco.

You see, zombie knives have already been banned. As far back as 15 August 2016, news outlets including this one were reporting on the ban on zombie knives coming into force that week, with regular surplus banning announcements occurring with strange frequency ever since.

Zombie knife ban announcements simply refuse to die.

You may recall that in the run-up to the 2010 election that would usher in 13 years of Conservative rule, one of David Cameron’s strongest attack lines against the then Labour prime minister, Gordon Brown, was that he “didn’t fix the roof when the sun was shining”. It now emerges that the Conservatives didn’t fix the roof when they knew it was crumbling.

Even for a party that appears to despise investment in infrastructure, the missed chances tend towards the glaring. The construction industry was kept open during Covid, while schools were, famously, not, which might have presented the leadership of the Department for Education with an ideal opportunity to deal with the known concrete issue – until you remember that the aforementioned leadership was Gavin Williamson.

This is how the country has now long been run, to widely predictable – and indeed widely predicted – effect. And the longer it is mismanaged in this way, the less money there is to fix it.

[Tubby Isaacs]

That "fix the roof when the sun was shining" jibe hasn't aged well, Brown build up shedloads of capacity that the Coalition and Tories have proceeded to freeload off.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Rishi needs to head further to the splenetic right. Add all those SDP voters on and he gets within 60% of Labour.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Government micromanaging chess tables in public parks now.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Apologies for the source, who may have made it up.

But I like this Brent-esque image. "Get out! I'll open the door for you! If you don't want to make it, go now!" Shortly followed by a talk about endorphins and a session of forcing everyone to laugh.

[Youngian]

Apologies for the source, who may have made it up.

But I like this Brent-esque image. "Get out! I'll open the door for you! If you don't want to make it, go now!" Shortly followed by a talk about endorphins and a session of forcing everyone to laugh.

Are you an American or an American’t?

[Youngian]

Some good news for Sunak. Not all that good, we should be growing faster than France and Germany with their demographic issues, and there seems very little doubt that Brexit has been a drag. But some Remainers who've been wanting Sir Keir to say "look how awful we're doing, Brexit! Why won't you say?" would have some egg on their faces right now. His team are smarter than those other people.

Financial services has been buoyant for some time by circumnavigating Brexit arse ache. What is the health sector growth, taking out more private medical insurance? Wholesale sector figures need a closer look as inflation is bound to fuel a rise in revenue but good news if it is a win. Be interesting to see where the GDP rises have occurred, down in that there London I’d bet.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Financial services has been buoyant for some time by circumnavigating Brexit arse ache. What is the health sector growth, taking out more private medical insurance? Wholesale sector figures need a closer look as inflation is bound to fuel a rise in revenue but good news if it is a win. Be interesting to see where the GDP rises have occurred, down in that there London I’d bet.

Funny you should say that...

https://ifs.org.uk/articles/pay-growth- ... n-earnings

Good interactive map on wages by district and sector. It doesn't exactly scream "Red Wall proper jobs thrive after Brexit". Old Rishi might pull off quite the trick. Lots of target voters telling him to piss off because they're not doing well, despite promises. Another lot doing well, but think they'd be doing better without the government's populist twattery.

[davidjay]

Happy 1922 Day everyone.

[Youngian]

Follow for the very latest political news!

Comes as Sunak's comms director quit earlier today

One former minister said: “I’m afraid there has been no strategy at all, communications or otherwise. We are completely adrift.”

We knew that from Cameron’s resignation speech in 2016.

[Bones McCoy]

Happy 1922 Day everyone.

[kreuzberger]

Given the outlet, the Daily-fucking-Express, that piece appears to be rather measured. That can't make for comfortable reading in the one public building where the occupants are wishing that their own roof is made from reinforced autoclaved aerated concrete.

[Yug]

Another leadership contest can only be good for Labour. Ricky isn't well-liked, but who are they going to replace him with out of an increasingly insane bunch of fuckwits, liars and cunts?* it can only be someone more divisive and less competent (hah!) than Sunak. It's as if they really don't want to win the next GE.


*As in they're fuckwits and they're liars and they're cunts. Three for the price of one.

[Abernathy]

Maybe give Liz Truss another run out?