Rolling Brexit Links/UK politics in the neo-Weimar era

He started as a Tory and switched, though.

there's a lad you could never accuse of being a Tory entryist

dammit xp

xxp I know, I lived in that constituency at the time

his Wikipedia entry makes for interesting reading: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaun_Woodward

In March 2001, he was said to be the only Labour MP with a butler.

Oh I forgot that happened twice, Oxfordshire Tory MPs defecting to New Labour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Jackson_%28Wantage_MP%29

SW did so at a slightly more defensible point in the timeline i.e. pre-Iraq though

He was a contemporary of figures including Christopher Hitchens, John Redwood, William Waldegrave, Edwina Currie, Stephen Milligan, John Scarlett, William Blair, Bill Clinton and Gyles Brandreth

Great bunch of lads

May is now pledging that the net migration target will include foreign students. Of all the stupid, obviously self-defeating shit her government is doing, this is right up there. A massive financial hit to the UK's entire higher education sector, economy and a lot of people's future life chances to further mollify a load of miserable fucking bigots.

What on earth?

Is happening?

That has always been the policy.

Yep, it *is* fucking stupid, but she's been doing this for years

That has always been the policy.

Yeah, at the CLP meeting last month people seemed fairly sure it would include foreign students. Which is interesting here because St Andrews is obviously fairly sensitive to foreign student levels.

May had the opportunity to exclude foreign students when she was Home Secretary (which was the preferred policy of the Treasury) but chose to fight against it, despite knowing it would make the pledge impossible and the failure to meet it politically embarrassing for her. She is a firm believer in restricting numbers no matter the cost.

If anyone has a few million quid lying about, invest in student accommodation in Toronto, Victoria and Vancouver.

Tories hold Witney, combined Lib Dem and Labour vote *just* higher than the Tory vote (by 0.1%!)

CON: 45.1% (-15.1)
LDEM: 30.2% (+23.5)
LAB: 15.0% (-2.2)
GRN: 3.5% (-1.5)
UKIP: 3.5% (-5.6)

Ha. I was wrong, then - didn't expect the Lib Dem vote to treble. Not really sure what's happened there: in absolute terms (rather than percentages) the Lib Dems have climbed back up to 2010 levels from a very low base, while Labour and the Tories have both lost half their support. You'd expect the latter given the lower turnout, but why have the Lib Dems surged like that (when nationally nothing like that is happening at all)? Are these people who were determined to vote in the by-election to protest about Brexit?

I'm still not convinced a single opposition candidate could have won. For one thing, I don't see how the Lib Dems could have convinced Labour not to stand seeing as Labour got more than twice as many votes as them in 2015 (and the Lib Dems were a very distant fourth place). Also, if there was any danger of the Tories losing the seat, I imagine more of their supporters would have bothered to vote.

The Tory response isn't terribly convincing: "Home Office minister Brandon Lewis said it was a "great result" for the party, despite the reduced majority. "You have to really look at what David Cameron got in 2002, when he first stood, which was 45%," he told the BBC." Obviously it was 2001, not 2002, and at that time Labour were about 14 percentage points ahead of the Tories nationally, instead of about 18 behind.

The Lib Dems are the only explicitly pro-European party left and the wider area voted Remain. People have short memories but the reason for the surge isn't exactly mystifying.

Also Tory voters voting Lib Dem, and vice versa, no great surprise there.

I don't think you can separate the Tory majority in previous years from the fact it was David Cameron's former seat. Replacing the PM with a largely unknown personal injury lawyer is going to have an impact.

If Labour or Lib Dems stood down a few of those would've voted Tory. Anne Perkins is just terrible.

I think there was a case for Labour to stand aside and let a Lib Dem try to beat the Con -- because it would further reduce the small Con majority.

This would conceivably also have the benefit of putting the LDs in Lab's debt as it were, or generating good will.

But such calculations are difficult -- it is quite possible that the Con would still have won even against a united opposition, as things would have shaken out differently; and many in Labour would have accused Mr Corbyn of incompetently giving up on a Labour battle, etc (as they will always accuse him of anything they can think of). Even some on the Labour left would have been angry 9as they may despise the LDs)- though probably not the Neal Lawson progressive coalition types. I wonder what Paul Mason would have done.

Still, if it had been up to me? I think I would have stood aside and let them LD take on the Con, and tried to build the ever elusive progressive coalition we have talked about for 30 years.

I wonder what Paul Mason would have done.

Driven big red tanks up to the polling station probably.

blasting techno or gtfo

The Batley & Spen by-election meanwhile suggests that perhaps there aren't as many frothing racists in the North of England as the political establishment thinks?

it seems there were a few fringe nutters heckling Tracy yesterday, but only a few people making a lot of noise - as per...

I saw a picture this morning and realised it was her out of Coronation Street for the first time

I used to often see her on the trans-Pennine express, it seems ridiculous that in this country in 2016 she would probably consider public transport a major h+s risk now she's an MP.

Mr Juncker, how did the evening go with Theres May? um...

lol

lol, what a clown: https://twitter.com/DavidTCDavies/status/789489639182704640

#Conservative MP for #Monmouth

A report from the Home Affairs Committee showed Monmouthshire was one of 17 Welsh local authorities that failed to take in a single refugee from the UK government’s Syrian vulnerable persons resettlement scheme.
...
An official from MCC said the figures were ‘misleading’ and the council had every intention of honouring its commitment, with three families set to arrive later this summer.

(This Brexit era is very weird, to find myself agreeing with Piers Morgan)

tbf davies has a point about treating piers moron as a serious journalist

https://mobile.twitter.com/britainelects/status/789483101466558464

Scottish Westminster voting intention:

SNP: 49% (-1)
CON: 20% (+5)
LAB: 17% (-7)
LDEM: 8% (-)
(via BMG / 28 Sep - 04 Oct)
Chgs. vs. GE2015

if those numbers held, does anyone know if the distribution is likely to lead to the Tories gaining any more seats in Scotland? when was the last time the Tories had more MPs representing Scottish constituencies than Labour? (the Tories already have more MSPs than Labour, right?) is there any plausible way back for Scottish Labour?

if Scotland did gain independence, would the SNP be likely to split without that issue to hold them together? which I guess could lead to a wholesale realignment of parties in the country?

No, because the SNP aren't Tartan UKIP (sorry) - they're an actual political party with a broad range of policies who've held power in Holyrood for some time now.

SNP are a big tent party, and definitely a part of their success owes to the fact that a lot of independence supporters of different political hues have latched onto the party as "the best vehicle for independence". post-independence they would be a major party, but there would definitely be some realignment. The swing from Labour to Tories in Scotland that that poll would seem to suggest I think stems from a few factors: the fact that many of Labour's left-wing supporters in Scotland have already decamped to the SNP and therefore the rump of Labour voters is more likely to be nearer the centre and more likely to be enticed by the Tories; the predominance of the constitutional question in people's political identity in contemporary Scotland and the perception that Labour are not as hardline Unionist as the Tories; and the real similarity of the social justice rhetoric of the SNP and Labour in Scotland which makes Labour seem like less of an alternative to the status quo.

Also Ruth Davidson.

Do people really like Ruth Davidson? This is something that I read in the papers but I've yet to see any polling regarding the popularity of the Scottish leaders - it definitely exists I've just not seen it. Definitely a more effective leader than Dugdale mind you.

I think a lot of people do and she certainly has a less toxic personality than most Tories. She's certainly given the impression of distancing herself from the worst aspects of Westminster.

morons answering polls love personalities tbf

most overrated politician in the UK.

Oh I agree. I'm not saying she's good in any sense but she has had a huge effect on the growth of the Tory vote in Scotland, which was the question being addressed.

she has the rare ability to be both scottish and a tory without overtly visible swivel-eyed-loon tendencies, which has definitely contributed to her appeal, yeah - especially when she's up against the most piss-weak scottish labour party in living memory

jim's analysis v much otm

She seems to have moved the Scottish Tories back towards the old Unionist Party trick of being simultaneously more pro-Union but more Scottish than the Labour Party.

... or less identified with Westminster and That London.

As a non UK person, what i see of her makes her seem like someone able to recognise the boorish stupidity of the English tories and recognise its ridiculousness. Of course, she is hardly repudiating them, and she aligns with them, and broadly supports their agenda.

Can anyone check my Brexit maths here? Given that the estimated cost of Britain leaving the Single Market is £66bn a year, and the government is apparently willing to pay that in exchange for reducing net migration to the tens of thousands.

Current net migration sits at 327,000, so if the govt were to reduce it to 99,000 that's a gap of 228,000 people. Or (and this is rounding down), a cool £289,473 per migrant.

In other words, it would be cheaper to buy each of them a house than to make this particular trade-off.

ah but you fail to price in the boom effects we'll have when a) the jobs are no longer being stolen and b) plucky Brits pick up the call to be innovative, and c) can succeed without red tape on their backs.