UK General Discussion: Rishecession

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's this strange refusal to understand how FPTP works in practice that is just baffling. If a party drops, say, 15pts on the last election (and right now that figure would be flattering to the Conservatives as all polls show something worse, often a lot worse) and its main opponent even stays still, then that party loses a lot of seats. If its main opponent goes up a lot as well, then that party stands to get absolutely battered. It will be especially bad as electoral movement on that scale are cannot be uniform: there will be many constituencies where the party does not have 15% to lose and so will drop a lot less in those constituencies. This means that it will drop a lot more in other constituencies: if the drop is as bad as 15pts nationally then, yes, there will be a statistically significant number of constituencies where it drops by 30pts.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Just been struck by the observation that you can weave a few of this topics of discussion together: one drawback with relying on Australian political consultants is that for all the obvious cultural similarities between British and Australian politics, their electoral systems operate in a fundamentally different way in certain conditions as the combination of preferential voting and compulsory voting in Australia provides a cushion for large parties in deep trouble that does not exist in Britain. A degree of resilience and 'bounce' is a key feature of the Australian electoral system as a lot of unhappy supporters will turn up to vote because they'd rather not be fined and as a lot of (sometimes but not always) other unhappy supporters will cast their first preference for another party, but the vote will still count for their usual option all the same. Whereas here...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

King Brian has a very distinct form of politics; a mix of old school liberalism but talks in a way we haven’t really seen since Rowan Williams.

All indications are that his views are strikingly similar to Mountbatten's, which makes sense given everything.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I think it was the kimono detail.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Who could have foreseen etc.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It's funnier than that because King Brian takes a different line on these things and so is being very open - he has a grossly enlarged prostate and is having corrective surgery to fix it - whereas it's the usual tight-lipped euphemistic language about the 'planned abdominal surgery' for the Princess of Wales.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It remains unclear if the Reform figures are reflective of reality. So far we have seen no signs of this.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Unless you are very confident that opposition supporters are more demoralized than your own, a Winter election is always a rather courageous prospect. October is the last 'safe' month and March the first. The absolute worst month to hold an election would be January.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Especially high in YouGov surveys because people are taking them to hit an eventual cash reward.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The King has been diagnosed with cancer. Although not prostate cancer, it was discovered during his recent operation. It is rather more serious this time, but I note that, once again, he is being very open about a subject about which the Palace has tended to be rather closed and that, whatever one's constitutional position, this is to be commended.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Out of curiosity, why does the British press hate Megan Markle so much?

I wonder whether racism is at least a part of it. Or because she's not originally British?

I think it's pretty hard to dispute that racism plays a part, and that is what most people have honed in on, but there's little doubt in my mind that the overwhelming reason is that she's American, and, horror of horrors, a 'celebrity' in her own right.

'She is American and therefore vulgar' etc. I think some missteps of hers (which to an extent have to be seen as the Palace flunkies fault: they seem to have made assumptions that she must know certain things as her first language is English...) then contributed. Doesn't help that a very different American Woman is still remembered.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I hope he lives to see Poundbury finished. The mad kings of old built castles; the monarchs of today must have their surreal toytowns.

The Thuringian Quarter of Dorchester.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Don't worry everyone, 'BBC Verify' is here to explain that this is the 'mildest start' to a recession for fifty years, which apparently means everything is Actually Fine.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Liberty line isn't actually that bad a name.

It's a rather nice historical reference.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I get why the SNP are cross - 'they shot our fox!' and so on - but there is genuinely no coherent case for Conservative fury, or, rather, there is none that is actually coherently defensible. There is a case for annoyance of a sort: Hoyle ran for Speaker on a 'no innovations' ticket, just made one and it happens to be one that his pre-Speakership party wished for. But that's not grounds for fury, just a little grousing.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Whatever it is the people in question want, they quite literally haven't actually got it though, have they?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It has been suggested that she has been/is having 'lots of physio' which for those that know is more revealing than the Kensington Palace sources that briefed it the other week seem to realize. I.e. it will mean having to learn to walk again. That's quite normal after major surgery, but does indicate that.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It has been suggested that she has been/is having 'lots of physio' which for those that know is more revealing than the Kensington Palace sources that briefed it the other week seem to realize. I.e. it will mean having to learn to walk again. That's quite normal after major surgery, but does indicate that.

What about for those that don’t know about that

About? Oh. No, simply major surgery (or the sort of complications and follow-up ops that end up counting as the same thing). Just a slightly old-fashioned use of the language there; an habitual one.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Those of us interested in Edwardian politics have had another question answered. Why did Balfour go 'fuck it' and hand government over to the Liberals even before the 1906 GE?. Perhaps we now know.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Lisburn: the Rochdale of Ulster. Because of the mills. Clearly.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Parris has always hidden some quite unpleasant views behind that shit-eating grin.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Well, her politics *were* slightly different when she became an MP in 1989.

Quite. As you'll probably remember, there was surprise that Blair made her a minister in 1998 as she was seen as very much on the Left and not interested in compromising for the wider good in the manner of, say, Margaret Beckett. It is probably fair to say that she has been on A Journey. Of course she always had a few views that didn't quite 'fit', but for a long time people just put them down to her being from Northern Ireland. 'Concerns' only really started when she was appointed as the Chair of the Countryside Alliance in 2005...

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The Leader of the Conservative group on Leicester City Council (who was originally a Labour councillor who defected in 2022) has defected to Labour. This may or may not be related to a recent incident in a car park in which it is alleged that he was assaulted by another Conservative councillor (who has since been suspended).

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Not that it makes much of a difference at this point, but I suppose the Tories would also quite like to avoid what would surely be yet another by-election thrashing, given that Wragg only had a majority of 10% over the Lib Dems at the last election.

That would appear to be the calculation. Bit odd, as you say, given that this parliament has less than a year left to run no matter and that this... mess... is going to be a problem for whoever the new Conservative candidate is, whether in a by-election or at the General Election.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

I mean there are all sorts of conspiracy theories relating to child abuse here, but they relate to Operation Yewtree and so on rather than... all that.