Morning music
Saturday quiz
Well, this week brought only 5/10, same as political journalist John Rentoul. I knew the answers to questions 1, 2, 3, 8, and 10; was a few years out on question 7, could not bring to mind the answer to question 4, and had no idea about questions 5, 6, and 9.
Tweets seen
Alpine Switzerland. A rather wet day.
“I am a market researcher. I spoke to Sunak about Polls at the leadership hustings. I don’t think he believes them and to some extent he is right to do so. But we’ve been out campaigning in Bexhill and Battle and have yet to meet anyone whose said they’ll vote Tory in a 26k majority seat.”
We read newspapers, watch TV commentary, see opinion polls, look at (often biased) Twitter/X comment. All contribute to our belief as to what might happen on Election Day. Beyond that, there is mere personal experience of one’s own local area; anecdotal, subjective.
I myself live in an area of coastal Hampshire known for being traditionally “safe” Conservative. The local MP is someone with some of whose views (eg on the Covid scamdemic/panicdemic) I can agree, but with whom I would not agree on other topics. He is also a very poor constituency MP— lazy, uncaring, and totally useless in fact, as a few people have told me after not having received help or even a polite acknowledgment from him.
In previous general elections, I have seen almost exclusively Conservative Party posters around, and one huge banner on a house in the nearby small town. This time, I think only one Conservative poster, and three or four LibDem ones. Unscientific, but is that a straw in the wind? Hard to say, but interesting all the same.
The incumbent MP has been there since the constituency was created in 1997. He has never scored below 50%, and received well over 60% in both 2017 and 2019. Labour usually come third (second in 2017) here, and the LibDems (usually second-placed, though fourth behind Con, UKIP and Labour in 2015) had their best result in 1997 (27.8%).
In other words, it would take a political earthquake, maybe a political meteorite strike, to displace the Conservative here…and yet…and yet…
I may be reading too much into the presence or otherwise of political posters put up locally, but it occurred to me that the Conservative Party in the constituency has (perhaps) few volunteers now. The average age of Con Party members in this constituency must be around 80 if not 90. Does the presence of a few LibDem posters indicate a local upsurge, or just a single diligent volunteer?
I cannot see the LibDem candidate displacing the Con candidate this time, even if Reform UK do well, but who knows? Con, Lab and LibDem are all standing for election, but so also is a double-barrelled (in both senses, probably) Reform UK fellow, a Green, an Animal Welfare candidate [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Welfare_Party], and one for the SDP, which I am surprised to see claims 2,000 members nationally [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Democratic_Party_(UK,_1990%E2%80%93present)].
How big the Reform UK vote here will be on 4 July 2024 is uncertain. UKIP scored 16.9% in 2015, though far less prior to that. Since 2015, there has been no broadly “national” party standing, and no social-national party has ever stood here.
If the staff had been Palestinian Arabs, they would have stood no chance. Having said that, Arabs would probably not have been employed anyway, for reasons of security.
Farage and Reform UK to merge with the Cons within 14 days? That sounds ludicrous. If it were to happen, in the 12 days left, it would just be a replay of 2019, when Farage stabbed his own party in the back; with one big difference, though— in 2019, Farage’s back-stab meant that instead of a likely hung Parliament, “Boris”-idiot was able to get an 80-seat Commons majority. In this General Election, the surrounding situation is very different.
Were the predicted merger to occur, and if Farage then urged voters to vote Con in many constituencies, all that would happen would be that Labour would still win overall, but with a majority of maybe 100+ instead of maybe 300. Of course, that would save perhaps 100 or 150 Con Party seats. It would also destroy whatever credibility Farage still seems to have with many people.
After any such merger, I suppose that the idea would be that Sunak would lose the election, resign, disappear from view, and that a leadership election would then anoint Farage as leader of the Con/Reform party.
Not totally impossible, arguably, but very unlikely. Reform UK is on a roll. Brexit Party had all wind taken out of its sails by Farage’s treachery in 2019. The same would happen today. It might even help Labour more than Reform UK fighting on as at present. After all, all the Reform UK candidates are now on the ballot papers.
The only way the predicted merger would work would be if Sunak and Farage were to announce a list of which seats would be “gifted” to Reform UK, but the candidates would still have to remain nominally in place.
That prediction to me sounds like nonsense. After the election might be a different story, were Reform UK to have 5-10 MPs in the Commons, and the Cons 50-100. However, once Reform UK merged with the Cons, and after (if it were to happen) Farage were elected to lead the merged parties, then what? The surviving Con MPs would be not a good match with the new Reform UK MPs; apple and orange. What could they offer the public? Con Party policies but with more emphasis on immigration? Sounds underwhelming.
Never say never, but I cannot see it as likely. If, however, it were to happen, it might yet open the door, on the flank, to real social-national people. “Always look on the bright side of life“.
As to that Gewolb individual’s views on UK interest rates, I do not have the economic background to assess them.
Incidentally, this is Gewolb: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/my-biggest-mistake-i-was-slow-to-start-a-success-1110542.html;
https://www.gewolb.tv/?page_id=30
American merchant banker, UK resident since 1999, now aged 80.
The Conservative Party is dying on its feet right in front of us. I really cannot see Farage wanting to ally himself with a party that, in another metaphor, is sinking below the waves. Not even after the election.
I notice that the Sky News “Chief Political Correspondent”, one Jon Craig, has been wheeled out to write a piece on the Sky News website about how “vile” Farage was to speak the truth about the Ukraine situation, i.e. that NATO has steadily advanced across Eastern Europe since the 1990s, thus destabilizing the NATO-Russia status quo.
Interesting language…”vile“— reminiscent of the language used by “the usual suspects” (((them)))…
The System may be getting or feeling seriously threatened by Reform UK, and is trying to use attack propaganda to weaken Farage’s appeal.
Craig claims that most “Britons” support “Ukraine” (the Kiev regime). I doubt it. Look at the comments section of the Daily Mail.
There is something going on here, with System scribblers, talking heads, and both “Labour” and “Conservative” Friends of Israel MPs all attacking Farage.
I have just heard the news on my car radio. Farage’s comments about the Ukraine situation were prominently displayed. I wonder, though, whether the Kiev regime is as popular with the people as it is with pseudo-“elite” deadheads such as Ben Wallace (former Con MP) and the Labour Friends of Israel drones. I think not.
In any case, few if any will now decide not to vote for Reform UK just because of a few comments about NATO.
From the newspapers
Interesting Guardian analysis.
More tweets
Using, as always, Electoral Calculus, I make that a House of Commons with 468 Labour MPs —overall majority of 286, Con 67, LibDem 63, SNP 20, Reform UK 6, Plaid 4, Greens 2 (etc). https://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk/userpoll.html.
I agree, in principle, with the vast majority of that, about 90%. Only social nationalism will actually “do de job”, though. Reform UK is too finance-capitalistic, too pro-Israel, not quite what I would ever support as a destination (rather than as a means to an end).
Today is the UK msm “hit Farage” day, it seems. “Ukraine”, NHS etc etc. Anything to get the Reform UK vote down. I doubt that it will work.
Our cat friends…
I have blogged once or twice in the past about how, in the mid-1990s, I visited the biological research base at Porton Down, accompanying the then Ukrainian Ambassador. Those posts can be found via the search box on the blog. Here is one, anyway: https://ianrobertmillard.org/2022/03/06/diary-blog-6-march-2022/
Clacton
Worth reading.
Late tweets seen
Good grief. He is only 5 years older than me; looks like an extra from Lord of the Rings, perhaps (first picture) someone with an incurable affliction or someone cursed by a wizard, or (second picture) a dishonest peasant or itinerant tinker. Still moneygrasping at age 72. Part-Jew. I never liked what I saw of him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob_Geldof.
Left to itself, the world’s only Jewish state would collapse into a kind of civil war, but the money and armament provided by the Jewish “communities” both directly and indirectly (via governments) in the USA, UK, France etc keep the whole project going, so far.
Zelensky is a Jewish tyrant, who has suspended elections, banned most political parties, banned trade unions, and arrested or killed political opponents.
Perhaps a general Russian advance.
“Germany is no longer the same” – Orban chastised Berlin for the failure of migration policy.
Before his visit to Berlin, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban criticized modern Germany. He said that the country had even lost its former smell, clearly making fun of its problem with migration, writes The Daily Telegraph. “Germany no longer has the taste it used to have. She doesn’t smell like she used to anymore. This whole Germany is no longer the Germany that our grandparents and parents set as an example for us,” the politician said in an interview before a meeting with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Orbán also said that Germany was once a country of “order,” “well-organized work” and “hard-working people.” But now, he noted, citing the German newspaper Die Welt, Germany is a “colorful, changed, multicultural world” where migrants are “no longer guests.” “This is a very big change,” summed up the head of the Hungarian government.“
Late thoughts about GE 2024
If reports are to be believed, 20% of voters have either not made up their minds as to how they will vote, or have not decided whether they will vote at all.
The 20% equates to thousands of eligible voters in every constituency.
It is also reported that as many as 175 seats are in very close contest now, more than a quarter of all seats.
I have speculated previously whether there is, or is not, a bloc of “secret Reform UK voters”, people who may not admit to leaning towards Reform UK if asked. I do not know the answer to that, and neither do I know its size if it exists, but if that bloc does exist, and if it mostly votes Reform UK on the day, then all bets are off, because there just might be a political meteorite strike on the 4th of July…
Late music
Ian Robert Millard 