The British system is weird, but the bottom line is that they have to have parliamentary elections no later than January 2025. That’s five years after the previous elections. In reality, though, no one wants to campaign over the Christmas holiday, so the elections will almost certainly be held before December. And there’s a thought that the U.S. and U.K. elections shouldn’t coincide because it’s a bit of an invitation for enemies to attack. The last time the two countries had leadership elections in close proximity was 1964. The American elections cannot be moved, so now it looks like the U.K. is going to have to hold elections in October.
The Tories are basically sitting on Death Row, so they’d like to delay as much as they can. At the moment, they’re in no condition to face the voters.
LONDON, March 4 (Reuters) – Support for the governing Conservative Party has fallen to the lowest level in more than four decades as a general election draws nearer in an opinion poll published on Monday, as another former minister announced he was quitting parliament.
An Ipsos poll put support for the Conservatives, in power for 14 years, at 20% at the end of February, down seven percentage points in a month, with the opposition Labour Party on 47%.
It was the lowest support Ipsos had recorded for the Conservatives since at least 1978, when it began regularly tracking support for the main parties.
The previous low was 22% in 1994, when John Major was Conservative prime minister, three years before the party suffered its heaviest electoral defeat in almost a century.
All of this seems entirely appropriate. The United Kingdom’s decision to Brexit has going predictably badly, and even as the American economy is going gangbusters, the Brits have fallen into a recession. The Conservatives’ solution? As always, tax cuts.
Finance Minister Jeremy Hunt said there were “signs the British economy is turning a corner” and “we must stick to the plan – cutting taxes on work and business to build a stronger economy”.
Media reports said Hunt was seeking to cut billions of pounds from public spending plans to fund pre-election tax cuts in his March 6 budget, if penned in by tight finances.
“This time last year, the prime minister pledged to get the economy growing but today’s data, showing a mild technical recession, shows a stark lack of progress,” said Pranesh Narayanan, research fellow at the Institute for Public Policy Research.
He added that chronic underinvestment in hospitals, schools and infrastructure “has created a crumbling public realm and a broken economy”, calling the figures “a wake-up call” that should push the government “to prioritise public investment rather than irresponsible tax cuts”.
They’re like leopards being led to their slaughter, wholly incapable of changing their spots.
The Labour Party’s additional good fortune is simply to be out of power at a time when it’s globally unpopular to have any power whatsoever. That’s not an advantage they can share with America’s Democratic Party. But I do feel better after watching Joe Biden’s State of the Union speech, which I rate as “excellent.”
I was a little worried when he took so long to take the stage, but once he got up there he was outstanding. I think he relieved a lot of stress and doubt about his fitness to wage this campaign. By the end of his speech, I was one fired up American! What did you think?
I didn’t watch the speech but I’ve read a couple of articles and seen a few short clips.
It seems Biden did what he needed to do. And Republicans did not.
Biden’s not a great orator, but he’s better at interacting with the SOTU audience and using those interactions to his advantage than any president I can recall.
Not to get too far off topic, but this is just one example of why the panic, based on poll results 8 months before the election, among the Ezra Kleins and Jon Chaits of the world hasn’t made any sense to me.
Yes, all things being equal I’d rather have my candidate ahead in the polls by 2-5 points rather than behind by 2-5 points. But just with the 8 months of campaigning, let alone the 8 months of outside events (Ukraine, the Middle East, the economy, etc.), those numbers could easily flip a half dozen times before the election.
The whole campaign likely comes down to 10% of the electorate in about eight states. The rest of us don’t really matter, either because our electoral votes aren’t in play (e.g., VT, WY) or because we’re not changing our minds. AND, most of that 10% in 8 states hasn’t started paying attention to the election and won’t until summer at the earliest (after Labor Day more likely).
Given that, and given the fundamentals of each party and candidate, I’d rather be on our side than theirs. (And still nothing is guaranteed.)
Ezra Klein’s concern trolling has become unspeakably tedious.
Best State of the Union of my 56-year lifetime. Biden had a shit ton to accomplish and he did it while making the Repubs look even more stupid and mean than usual.
I watched SOTU last night. Joe Biden was very energetic. I don’t expect him to be a great public speaker. As long as he has he manages to avoid any really awful gaffes, he’s done his job. He went one step further and was willing to unleash some Dark Brandon energy as he called out those members of SCOTUS who were in attendance over the Dobbs decision, and he knows how to lay out a few traps for the GOP caucus members who try to heckle him. I wanted to see him acknowledge the perilous moment we face domestically and internationally, which he did very early on and with aplomb. He may not be young, but he seemed like he could have gone on for hours – not only at the podium, but simply holding conversations with everyone who was in attendance. He was on fire. He needs to keep that energy moving forward.
I think that Joe is gonna kick Trump’s ass.