Ian Boucher

Another poll that screams ‘election’ if you were Burnham or Labour. Yes they will lose a lot of seats BUT hard to see how things don’t get worse from here on in given fiscal and global outlooks.

Politics! A Prime Minister making an argument. Trying to persuade people of something. Again.

And again. ‘Starmer with better TikTok’ is such a bad take.

Yes and as I understand it that is what they are doing - pegged to earnings over time but can't fall in real terms in any year. Think David's being unfair here -this has been set out cleat enough and DWP produced a costing note

Whereas a lot of left wing people seem to want industrial policy to fix regional inequality by employing low skilled people who can’t get a good job in professional services and that isn’t possible. Manufacturing is a job for Cambridge Engineering PHDs now.

A big tension in left wing industrial policy is that a successful industrial policy looks like labs training PhDs to design better semiconductor manufacturing processes and none of that does anything for Blackpool or other left behind places. Modern manufacturing is incredibly high skill.

So the premier league’s plan is to make Man City the championship’s problem. Football is broken but it’s not Man City’s fault they are just a symptom of the broken state the game is in.

My personal view is that anyone found using "holibobs" should be immediately stripped of their UK nationality and made stateless.

Seemingly unpopular opinion: The phone speakers thing is actually good politics and probably will have an impact on the number of people who do this on public transport

This is the first by-election I’ve seen which is ‘Labour pick up a seat which is a considerable stretch’ (even if assisted by a divided right wing vote) rather than recovering normally good territory lost because the party has been at a low ebb.

He’s in your heaaaaadddd, in your heaaadddddd, Dalby, Dalby! Love that big blonde bloke.

There’s a certain glib response to warnings of harm from powerful AI that is “they’ll only do that if you tell them to do it”. Which - yes. That’s my concern. Have you seen people?

The 2016 Brexit vote was targeted by Russian “state-sponsored interference”, Andy Burnham has said, as he warned voters in France and Germany about Kremlin-backed attempts to influence their countries’ politics.  www.ft.com/content/4fcb...

This is M&S is a clear sign that civilisation is coming to an end. There is no dignity anymore.

It would seem the Home Office has now acquired the ability to impose, without visibility or accountability, shadow bans on students coming to British universities from particular countries. How? Because of the interaction between indiv visa decisions (made by HO alone) and visa rules for unis 1/?

We see a bit of this here in net favourables - Burnham and local candidate had strong favourables; even Green/Polanski voters like Burnham while strongly disliking Starmer. Polanski not necessarily unpopular just not preferred.

NEW: What happened in Holborn? Some constituency polling to help us understand a bit more. TLDR: loyalty to Burnham + a local candidate won the day; no real sign of tactical voting; Greens never convinced ppl they could win but Polanski not toxic necessarily. @persuasionuk.bsky.social

Couple of thoughts on Holborn & St Pancras Big winner for me is Andy Burnham. Lab hold the seat with 45% of the vote. Not down that much on 2024 GE 49%. So Burnham has beat Reform 55-35 in Makerfield &seen off the Green leader in London. More evidence of upturn in labours fortunes post Starmer.

I’ve watched two minutes of Badenoch and that’s enough. About as good as Starmer at this. Which is not a good bar.

Lot of people will reveal who they really are today. Whether it's attending a march specifically designed to insult and belittle Jews or posting something online that, really, today ? Or face to face with people saying what they really think. They are not the 'good people' they think they are.

This is going to be a massive barrier to “highlighting all the good stuff” and is for many voters, and with good reason, seen as unacceptably extreme. It is incredibly naive to imagine otherwise.

Fighting this flith is going to be agony for the Greens, much worse than it was for Labour, because there's no tradition or mechanisms for fighting entryism. And the way politics is evolving, you're not going to keep your seats as Greens anyway. You swerve the pain & may keep your seats as LibDems

Post Burnham speech focus group of wavering Labour voters from @luketryl.bsky.social I think sums it up. They like Burnham. A lot. They like his arguments till they hear opposing views. They don’t want to pay more tax at all! www.theguardian.com/politics/202...

I think Man City should have the book thrown at them for breaking the rules and cheating over such an extended period. At the same time I also think the rules are rotten and designed to protect vested interests of the big established clubs. A flat Europe wide spending cap is needed imo.

NEW: How does Burnham’s conference speech land with voters when they see it it? In short, very well it seems. A thread on some new video testing of the PM’s speech among voters by @persuasionuk.bsky.social Top line findings and some caveats below! 🧵👇

"He speaks of freedom and heartbreak and a nation lost. And of the joy and pain of the authentic soul." All while looking at a still of Dylan performing at Newport '64. Of course, the ensuing time meddling that inevitably occurs erases Dylan from the timeline. D'oh.

Someone wishes for the good old days and the monkeys paw has decided we should do: (1) a 1970s oil crisis (2) a 1990s tech cycle (3) a 2010s eurozone debt crisis All at once.

Westminster Voting Intention: LAB: 29% (+2) RFM: 23% (-1) CON: 19% (-2) LDM: 9% (-2) GRN: 9% (+2) SNP: 3% (=) RES: 2% (=) Via @survation.bsky.social, 29 Sep. Changes w/ 22-23 Sep.

Imagine Starmer having the political courage to announce what Burnham has (🤣). Now imagine the stuttering, wooden follow-up interviews in which he looks totally panic stricken as he tries to slot in his pre-rehearsed talking points regardless of what he's asked. Burnham is on another level. Sorry!

Yeah this. I’ve never really thought that criticism made sense. He wants to do stuff. He has a mission.

The actually refreshing bit about the Burnham speech is that he seems up for an argument, making a case and trying to convince people of something. Even acknowledged that trade-offs are a thing.

First part of that speech I found incredibly cringe inducing. Second half was electric. And finishes with the farm. All together now? Somehow I doubt it.

This is like Steve Jobs mashed up with David Brent - not in a good way either.

If I never hear from Sharon Graham, ever again, it will be several months too soon. She is typical of the intellectual dishonesty plaguing this country, which demands radical change, but objects to anything actually changing.

Curtice identifies a key red flashing light in the MRPs - Labour are falling furthest in seats where Labour are first and con, ref or Nat are second. Labour therefore do a lot *worse* than uniform swing would predict (having done much better than uniform swing in 2024)

@marciles.bsky.social Bazunu standing up like this has seriously impressed me. Hopefully he sees the outpouring of support he is receiving.

will say it again: the most effective way to curb far right agitators like Lowe, "Tommo" et. al. would be to stop their ability to earn money for it from social media or live streaming. So much of it is grifting for revenue, not attention.

Not a huge fan of letting fans drink in their seats mainly because it will make away games even less attractive because I don’t want to be showered in beer. But posts like this sure could change my mind.

The yougov MRP is both encouraging - Tories and Reform combines would only be ten seats above Labour and well short of gov. But also a result like that is the exact sort of breeding ground for a far right party winning the next time. A very weak multi party centre left coalition to scrape tiny maj!

In addition - the sketches are not racist, and it is a sign of a broader malaise that we now treat “jokes about racists and racism” as indistinguishable from “racist jokes”.

If you think we are in the majority when it comes to views on immigration you're deluded imv (sadly!)

@reluctantnicko.bsky.social Bolton starting to look capable of surprising a few this season would you say? Didn’t have us down for any sort of a result today. New ones taking a while to settle in but one or two starting to look like players….

Whites away, a-ha, a-ha... youtube.com/shorts/4r_NG... #bwfc

So I can safely love football for the next three weeks now!

Next week I’m interviewing someone who was at Bob Dylan’s Royal Festival Hall show in 1964. He sent me this photo of his programme from the night - now framed and looking great.