Gloucester Saint

Huge difference between dickhead movie directors and the President of the United States. Or there should be, if they hadn’t elected a complete buffoon and moron.

Seemingly so https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-54034707 Said some dreadful things about John McCain’s funeral in 2018.

Trump miner voters getting their x-ray and treatment programmes removed Just not learning still

Suicide football, lack of DMs/refusing to use Shea Charles and Bazanu letting in anything aimed at his goal explains exactly the extra 20-25 conceded.

I totally share your concerns as a Lib Dem voter and your frustration at the direction the world is going in with the rule of law and science going out of the window with these populist morons. I agree with 95% of your post but I take slight issue that trying to fight Reform on its own ground is a good strategy for Lab-Lib-Green. Those parties have a natural majority. Let’s use it. The Tories over the last decade have fought Reform on their battlegrounds and look at them now, their organisation in seats defended this week was 10% of what it was. Protect the core of the country and let the Red Wall areas go pop. Starmer’s direction is a mystery to me as well. Brexit is a fucking disaster beyond argument - why are they sticking with it, get back in the Single Market and have 6% more of the pie to do Labour things with. Renationalise railways, get health waiting lists down further, train more dentists. It’s not as if being out of the EU has made the borders any more secure - far less so actually - and the freedom of movement is mainly white which might turn the volume down on the tabloids. A final point of hope - every time UKIP and Reform have won positions of responsibility, it’s fallen apart quicker than Saints in a 1-0 lead. Just look at Thanet, just this year in Derbyshire https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c0lz8xn8zd8o and the Lowe bust-up. At scale, the people they’ve elected are Tory cast-offs who were the awkward squad. They won’t magically improve under a light blue rosette.

As Badger said, most of them are Tory cast-offs who split from their party during the May/Boris years, and Sunak/Badenoch are or were the final straw. That’s certainly true of where my folks live but the ones elected were very difficult people in their local Tory party, they won’t magically become well disciplined and organised beyond an election campaign because the rosette is a lighter blue. You’ve only got to look at the recent councillor resignations in Reform with stinging criticism of Farage and the Lowe bust-up.

This is well worth a watch about how the main two parties can tackle Reform. The Lib Dem’s are the most distinct and carry on doing what we’re doing. I concur that tacking to the right to take on Reform ain’t working for the Tories or Labour, and there’s only 5% vote loss to Reform for Labour. The Oxford scholar is right to say that there’s more risk of ex-Corbyn supporters going to Reform to attack big business and Neo-liberalism, which Labour is continuing. What makes Reform dangerous for them is that there’s 80-odd seats where Reform is second because they’ve cleaned the Tories out and Lib Dem vote is holding up. Tactical voting is crucial to contain Farage. The Tories rebounding would help but Kemi has stop talking about transgender all of the time. We’ve had the Supreme Court judgement now - move on and put pressure on Reeves about the economy. Do your job as leader of opposition and put your own hobbies to one side about ‘woke’ etc away. If older working people in their 50s and 60s want anti-woke (she’s already got the over-70s sewn up and the average Tory voter age is 70) they’ll go to Reform, not the Tories post-Cameron, May and Boris. As the thread’s on Labour, Peston hits the nail on the head in his summing up. If Starmer wants a 10 year mandate, work with the Lib Dem’s, and the Greens becuase there is a natural FPTP majority there and a Remain majority. Daniel Finkenstein the Conservative and ex-SDP pundit has said this numerous times too.

I don’t think they need to go that far, a simple one would be re-nationalising the very worst railway franchises earlier. Consistent public support 65% and above for that. A much better trade deal and going back into the Single Market would turbo boost the economy and public support for that has grown strongly since the abject failure of Brexit. Not point competing with Farage on Brexit and actually more than 50% of the country hates it becuase it has failed abysmally. Hang it around his neck as a millstone. Movement of people but my sense is that if those people are white/European it’s ok (witness the lasting support for Ukraine). Some moderation on PIP, it has to be tackled but the severity in one go is alienating their core supporters from the outside looking in. Ok, some of the Red Wall seats will hate it but they aren’t reliable seats any longer for the main parties and Reform won’t have any more luck turning them around at local level. The Tories tried bribing them with the levelling up agenda and they bit them. Some of those seats will keep changing hands until the boomers pass away and a new generation can re-shape what innovative post-industrial areas can really be. Labour should target some of those seats showing younger energy with creative industries start-up funding to get that generation up and running.

The Thanet debacle is the hope I have that now they are under the microscope and have to deliver as a collection of individualists and oddballs, that they fall apart https://news.sky.com/story/ukip-to-lose-the-only-council-they-control-as-thanet-leader-resigns-11258103 Farage will say that was UKIP, and Reform UK is different, more professional. But Thanet was only 2015-18. Already tensions between Jenkyns and Farage over neurodiversity (I’m staggered she said something I strongly agree with, but Farage’s comments were vile).

With a better aim this time

They don’t care as it doesn’t suit a white supremacist narrative, as you say they were quite happy to delete inconvenient narratives about black military bravery and accomplishments https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/pentagon-restores-some-webpages-honoring-minority-service-members-but-defends-dei-purge

Took a picture of this at Bletchley Park. The quote is from Dwight Eisenhower. Trump is just symptomatic of how sick I’ve become of thick and ignorant people who misrepresent our histories and identities. Look of how many in this country last night voted for MAGA UK, whose leader kisses Trump’s arse.

Country’s become ungovernable since Brexit. Both UK but especially England. Boris’s 2019 electoral coalition wasn’t any more secure than Labour’s last year.

John Curtice is making this point a lot.

I think voters who are really appalled by Trump and MAGA have really got to be organised to see the populists off here. Reform/UKIP/BNP have done well in local and European elections (when we had them) before, but not quite to this extent. Long way to go but hard to see Labour getting to 326 seats next GE, as Hypo says knife edge on being too left/right wing. Lib Dem growth is encouraging and not just because I vote for them. Probably the best is Lab largest party with Lib Dem and Greens, who are starting to translate local results into national, vote by vote. Reform would do grave economic harm and the last thing we need is to swing back towards Brexit when public opinion clearly shows support for closer links with the EU. Economically it’s crucial. Would welcome a revival of One Nation Conservatism as the grown ups in their party but can’t see from where.

Wood had Spurs and Arsenal after him a couple of years back so he has the raw materials - height, pace, decent on the ball. He is genuinely quick for a CB. The worry is concentration, Stephens-level ball watching and then some. Is that something that can be fixed for the PL in the future?

Who is behind the retail hacks? https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crkx3vy54nzo Seems to be multinational and young, including British teenagers https://www.standard.co.uk/news/tech/who-scattered-spider-marks-spencer-hackers-b1225699.html Another ‘gift’ of generative AI.

OBS/Glasgow/Heisenberg/Barry Sanchez and dread to think how many other eg Love and Light when Victor played for us.

That would be seriously screwed up though, like a split personality. And would take a shedload of time.

Farage is copying the Trump playbook closely by attacking EDI. Will please the boomers who turned out for them yesterday but it won’t help Reform at national elections where ethnic minorities, the physically disabled and neurodiverse and more women tend to vote than local elections. Sciences, especially climate science, and R&D in general in all sectors will be next in the populist sights. Even tactically, if you voted Reform, the fact is that you voted Trump policy-wise.

Fair enough. You’d think it would encourage the Tories back to the centre ground but you just know it won’t after Boris’s purge of the One Nation group. Supporting Reform is still supporting Trump’s agenda though, let’s be clear about that. Despite the farmers (you’d think they had learned from Brexit wouldn’t you?) GCC very much yellow. No formal majority but with the Greens it will be. Used to be blue as a blue arsed fly here https://glostext.gloucestershire.gov.uk/mgElectionResults.aspx?ID=14&RPID=182116020

Serves the Tories right for their membership for a quid swizz, they’ve got infiltrated and unlike Momentum and Labour, still not cleared the stables out with the ERG crazy gang still leading them. Won’t win another election taking Reform on and RIP if they have a pact.

I wouldn’t be so sure, kites flown in the DT and Mail yesterday hinting Ed Miliband was on his bike in the near future.

I don’t vote Labour but he’s had a pretty full plate on foreign affairs - Ukraine, which has escalated since the GE, Trump, Vance et al and NATO, trying to sort out the pathetic mess left behind by Johnson and Frost on our relationship with the EU leaving a 6% hole in our economy. Trump’s tariff tantrums impact by another 0.8% GDP but the hard Brexit is the priority to fix with the new German Chancellor and others. Working more closely with France as adults will also help with curbing illegal migration, which the ERG were unable to do. Reeves is a clusterfuck but I don’t think Starmer has done that badly and if you’re being objective, there’s some good early performances there eg Streeting sorting out another horrific mess from Lansley. Jeremy Hunt agrees with what he’s doing.

Organ probably a better bat too. Let’s hope he can recapture that purple patch he had with his spin bowling later today.