Morning music
Election news
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13477879/Only-one-four-voters-Tories-poll-Labour.html
“Rishi Sunak has been given a glimmer of hope as a major new poll by Lord Ashcroft suggests that more than half of voters have yet to definitively make up their minds.
With less than five weeks until the General Election, the research shared exclusively with the Daily Mail found only four in ten have ‘definitely decided’ how to vote.
But in a sign of the mountain the Tories still have to climb, the poll gives Labour a 23 point lead.
Overall, it puts Labour on a 47 per cent vote share, with the Tories on 24 per cent, and Reform UK on 11 per cent.”
Assuming honesty and relative accuracy of the poll, several points stand out for me.
Firstly, that this poll is not at all the “glimmer of hope” for Sunak and the Cons that the report accompanying it is spinning.
42% have “definitely decided” which way they are going to vote. Looking at recent polling elsewhere, that must greatly favour Labour. As for “...leaning towards a party” but “not definitely sure“, that could apply to any of the parties, but if most end up with Labour, then it is possible that Lab could end up, overall, topping 50%, leaving the Cons with a MP cadre in the single figures.
It might also mean, thinking of my previous speculation on the blog, that there are more people than polls suggest willing to vote Reform UK, if only as a protest, or as a method of giving the time-expired Conservative Party a kicking without having to vote Labour. “Secret” Reform UK voters. Do they even exist? We do not know. I think that they may exist, but in what numbers?
Anything up to 31% of eligible voters may not vote, it seems.
One big unanswered question is how many under-40s and especially under-25s will bother to vote, they being heavily pro-Labour.
On the other hand, the over-70s are the only age demographic more likely to vote Con than Lab. If significant numbers either vote Labour (unlikely) or Reform UK (much more likely) or simply abstain (not unlikely) then Sunak and the Cons really are in trouble.
Other takeaways include the fact (if it is a fact) that only 23% think that Sunak etc can do better than others at “running the economy” (Lab 37%; Don’t Know 39%, tellingly). For a Prime Minister with a banking and financial/business background, and who was, not so long ago, Chancellor of the Exchequer, that is very much a thumbs-down.
The voters’ assessments of the characters of Sunak and Starmer are not so very different.
Sunak is assessed by only 8% as being “up to the job“, while only 12% assess him as even being “competent“. That’s damning. (Starmer’s equivalent ratings were 18% and 21%, scarcely a ringing endorsement, but still far better than Sunak).
Ashford’s poll figures, fed into Electoral Calculus [https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html] suggest a result of Labour MPs 513, Cons 71, LibDems 31, SNP 12, Greens 2, Plaid 3, Reform 0, Northern Irish 18.
Very very bad for the Conservative Party, but not quite existentially so..
On that basis, there would still be a considerable Con bloc of 71 MPs, and the Cons would still be the official Opposition, however ineffective.
My own feeling, whether it be right or wrong, is still that the Cons may be reduced to below 50 MPs, and that the LibDems may exceed that by default (tactical voting), thus making the LibDems the Opposition in the Commons.
If that were to occur, the defeat would be existential for the Cons. No “bright young” (mostly idiot) careerists (think Liz Truss, once upon a time…) would want to join, and big donors would not bother to pump money into funding the Cons. A “death spiral”, as people say.
Election date— Thursday 4 July 2024. Less than 5 weeks to go.
Tweets seen
The American government seems to have lost, if not its mind, then any sense of perspective.
If Country A sells or, even worse, gives Country B arms and ammunition, and especially if that is with the express intent that Country B should attack the territory of Country C, then that is pretty close to being an act of war by Country A against Country C.
Stop this mad slide to a quite possible superpower nuclear war.
It is widely mooted that the combat-ready spearhead numbers no more than 30,000, if that. Maybe as low as 20,000. Plus about 5,000 Royal Marines under naval command. Plus 4,000 Gurkhas. Plus Reserves.
If UK society continues to slide, they may be used to control the situation in the “British” cities more than anything else.
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More tweets seen
An impressive show. Is it any more than that?
I do not have enough information to guess accurately at the likely outcome of the U.S. Presidential Election, but peace would be better served were Trump to be re-installed at the White House, no matter what his personal deficiencies.
“I publicly disagreed with the IHRA definition of antisemitism by reference to the arguments of Sir Stephen Sedley (on any view a hugely respected jurist) that it protects Israel from legitimate criticism.
That led to people publishing confidential and dangerously defamatory information about me. And lots more people publishing crude and dehumanising abuse of me. And grotesque accusations of antisemitism about me. And 4 years of litigation where a total wing-nut UK Lawyer for Israel tried to bankrupt me. And a trial where witnesses made untrue or wildly exaggerated statements to try to ruin my reputation.
In the end I won, but my experience confirms Lemoineās argument. It was awful and exhausting and no doubt intended to be so. Ending peopleās careers for agreeing with Lemoineās reasonable point of view is wrong and dangerous.”
[James Wilson]
Stephen Sedley. I remember him. I appeared in front of him as Counsel sometime around 1994 when he was a High Court judge (he was later a Lord Justice of Appeal). It was a matter involving the Angolan secret service. Sedley had had some previous experience in dealing with Angolan matters: see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Sedley#Career. He gave me a very courteous hearing before politely refusing my judicial review application…
“Perhaps there isnāt any such thing as the Israel lobby. Perhaps Israel is the only country on the planet without dedicated lobbyists. Perhaps organisations like We Believe in Israel, the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre, and both the Labour and Conservative Friends of Israel, simply donāt exist.
Perhaps itās simply untrue to say that people who are critical of Israel online, or supportive of Palestine, are bombarded by hostile replies from pro-Israel accounts.
Or perhaps, thereās a concerted effort by Israelās advocates to warp and distort the definition of antisemitism to make it impossible to describe their activities. Was Faiza Shaheen wrong to apologise? I can understand why she did it. But nobody should have to apologise for liking a plain statement of fact.“
“Perhaps I imagined the evidence which clearly showed supporters of Israel working together to get information on me.
Perhaps I imagined them publishing confidential and dangerously defamatory information about me.
Perhaps I imagined lots more people publishing crude and dehumanising abuse of me. Perhaps I imagined the accusations of antisemitism about me.
Perhaps I imagined 4 years of litigation and the total wing-nut UK Lawyer for Israel trying to bankrupt me.
Perhaps I imagined the trial where supporters of Israel gave wildly exaggerated evidence to try to ruin my reputation.
Perhaps I imagined the judgment: https://bailii.org/ew/cases/EWHC/KB/2024/821.html.“
[James Wilson].
One of the unreliable witnesses for the losing defendants in that case was Simon Myerson, a barrister and Recorder (p/t judge). Others (all Zionist Jews) were likewise not given much if any credence by the trial judge.
Laura Towler
I happened to see the announcement below.
https://www.patrioticalternative.org.uk/sam_melia_banned_access_children
It turns out that political prisoner Sam Melia is now being prevented from having access to his children. In fact, his wife cannot even tell him about them when she visits him. Disgraceful. These really are the tactics of a police state.
See also: https://www.givesendgo.com/sammelia
Incidentally, if anyone is in a generous mood, my own fundraiser is still running: https://www.givesendgo.com/GC14J.
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Ha. Horrible Jewish-lobby puppet. Useless too, it seems.
Late tweets seen
That should be Shai “Masot“, not “Mosat“, and certainly not “MOSSAD”. On the other hand…
Does that Israel-puppet get fed exactly what to say by some Israeli agency? Sounds like it.
This whole situation is mad.
If a nuclear war happens, most of us will not live through it. The only hope will be, in that terrible contingency, that at some later point, after the Wagnerian devastation of Europe, a new society can emerge, on a post-Aryan basis, and then create the basis for a later super-race and super-culture: see https://ianrobertmillard.org/2019/01/26/the-tide-is-coming-in-reflections-on-the-possible-end-of-our-present-civilization-and-what-might-follow/.
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 