Qassändra

I'm kind of glad it won't be Labour testing whether the public actually does want lower immigration in practice though. There's a good reason why despite Theresa May having the power to take non-EU net migration to near-zero it hasn't happened - if people think the UK's social care system is falling apart now...

Which is a separate point from ending freedom of movement, and is actually the next big problem that the whole political sphere is going to have to deal with - its perpetual dishonesty in hiding behind EU freedom of movement as the reason immigration is so high. Non-EU net immigration alone - i.e., the bit we already have control over - has never once been lower than 100,000 a year since Cameron made the pledge for total net immigration to be less than 100,000. The tell is that chief Brexiteers such as David Davis et al have made the same point as Keir Starmer that they don't see immigration necessarily being any lower after Brexit.

Keir Starmer was the one who inserted the pledge that leaving the EU means ending freedom of movement, and has been fervent about that in every public appearance he's done. There's the tone mattering as much as the substance, and then there's completely ignoring the substance because of the tone. I wonder how much we'd get away with if we just had a parody working class bruiser saying Labour should shove it up their Juncker while committing to nothing much at all.

Their manifesto this time literally calls for black and Asian sex offenders to receive harsher punishment than white sex offenders.

ARTPOP LIVES *.*

Belgium has been shot so, so badly. What a waste.

WANT in bold, PREDICT in italics 01 Sweden: Robin Bengtsson - I Can't Go On 02 Georgia: Tamara Gachechiladze - Keep The Faith 03 Australia: Isaiah - Don't Come Easy 04 Albania: Lindita - World 05 Belgium: Blanche - City Lights 06 Montenegro: Slavko Kalezić - Space 07 Finland: Norma John - Blackbird 08 Azerbaijan: Dihaj - Skeletons 09 Portugal: Salvador Sobral - Amar Pelos Dois 10 Greece: Demy - This Is Love 11 Poland: Kasia Moś - Flashlight 12 Moldova: Sunstroke Project - Hey Mamma 13 Iceland: Svala - Paper 14 Czech Republic: Martina Bárta - My Turn 15 Cyprus: Hovig - Gravity 16 Armenia: Artsvik - Fly With Me 17 Slovenia: Omar Naber - On My Way 18 Latvia: Triana Park - Line It's going to be an actual fucking hate crime if Montenegro doesn't qualify but I FEAR THE WORST.

There's a huge difference between backsliding on Brexit and opposing a Brexit that would have us leave all trade arrangements with the EU. Would a Labour Party that committed to staying in the customs union and doing everything possible to avoid leaving on WTO terms (which would immediately make most goods bought and sold with the EU 10% more expensive) be that unelectable? Because that's the substance of Keir Starmer's position. Certainly he's not someone who's pushing for Labour to oppose Brexit full stop. It's a spectrum though - people aren't sheep, but plenty of party supporters that are undecided do take a lead. A majority of Scottish Tory voters voted Leave, but without Ruth Davidson being so active in favour of Remain the majority would likely have been bigger. We already know from previous referendums that big news events such as joint events can make a difference, and we already know that about two thirds of Labour voters didn't know what the Labour Party's position was. 70% voted Remain, but more could have done so if, say, Corbyn had agreed to do a joint event with all Labour leaders (something he refused to do), even if he considered doing a joint event with Cameron beyond the pale. We already know from the AV referendum that the turning point in the polls for Labour voters was John Reid doing a joint appearance with Cameron, so it's not beyond imagining that it could have made a difference if Corbyn had been more explicit and co-operative with the Remain campaign, considering a swing of 600,000 voters would have swung the result.

There is next to no chance that would be Yvette Cooper's platform. The bigger risk is that on June 9th they all start saying "legitimate concerns" in sync.

Hmmmm. I'm not comfortable with this at all.

Saying 'no worse than Foot' isn't a particularly great metric considering it was our worst election defeat since 1935 - and just slipping us out of the fact we don't have Scotland anymore is a fairly big caveat.

No, you just never read properly before.

The Tories just won the Tees Valley mayoralty. Christ.

I don't think it will be a high profile MP, but I think the Tories winning Sedgefield would be an equivalent 'oh shit' moment.

I'm really looking forward to the post hoc justification this time.

£44 out of every £100 that comes into the UK economy is bought with their money. Are you quite sure we don't at all need it?

Definitely seems like a great reason to whack up great barriers with our biggest trading partner - something something bananas.

You're at the level of arguing using points even a GCSE History student could tell you are complete bollocks. Aside from the resolution to the First World War famously not being all that concerned with rebuilding and bringing all Europe back to its feet again, the UK was cap in hand for Marshall Plan Aid from the US just as much as the rest of Europe was at the end of the Second World War. Nothing was given to countries at the end of the Cold War - they had a manual to capitalism shoved in their hands and were told to get on with it.

*White grassroots level. Literally every time you say all of this, you say that black votes do not matter and that black Democrats were duped by the party and white Democrats weren't. Because that is what this boils down to. Black votes were the bedrock of Hillary's support and her three million vote lead. They would not have changed their mind because of process concerns. They didn't vote for Bernie because they felt lectured by someone who hadn't put in the time in their communities, as Hillary incontestably had for the last 20 years. If the left thinks the only reason Bernie didn't win was because of conspiracy and that it has nothing to learn on how it speaks to Southern black Democrats, it's going to have a hard time winning the nomination in 2020.

It's probably more of a salutary lesson that anything within five points probably isn't a 99% chance.

They're completely incomparable on public opinion. Clinton had net negative opinion poll ratings for most of the year leading up to the election. Macron has the most positive net approval ratings of all the candidates and consistently polls as the candidate the French believe most embodies change. I doubt it'll last once he wins and has to cohabit with the Republicaines in the Assembly, but beyond ideology he doesn't resemble Hillary at all.

Prosecco dear, champagne's too gauche.

Four paid days. As it goes, it's pretty much the only policy I've ever seen Labour announce that has had remotely any attention from apolitical friends of mine.

It did happen - or rather, the mechanics that would've led to a collapse if nothing had been done about it happened. Mark Carney went out the morning after the result and announced he'd pump £70bn into the British economy to halt a collapse - the fact you didn't notice a big burst in money supply-driven inflation in the six months after is the hint that it was plugging a hole rather than being applied to something that had no economic effects. Have you not noticed the increase in the price of the weekly shop? One argument is that Theresa May's gone for it now because that's the kind of thing that's really going to start biting over the next year.

Loyalty amongst the traditional Labour core vote was infinitely higher in 1983 - the dynamics are completely different now. Aside from union membership being a shadow of what it used to be 30 years ago, plenty of lifelong (former union!) voters who voted Leave and despise Corbyn will be open to Theresa May in a way they never were to Thatcher.