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paulgriffiths77.bsky.social@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social |
6 followers 29 following 74 posts
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I'm basing my analysis off which constituencies are Tory/Libdem marginals... and which are Tory/Labour marginals with a high reform showing. I strongly suspect the latter group the 2019 tory vote wasn't driven by a belief in a small state and free markets.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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The problem for Sunak is that the former group were Remainers and think Rwanda is dumb. Meanwhile the latter group probably are more responsive to Farage dogwhistle politics than commonly admitted.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I think they are in denial about how much racism/ xenophobia there is in certain tory areas. There is a big difference between liberal rich tories on the Surrey/London border and the elderly angry tories of seaside towns/Lincolnshire.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I'm not sure Sunak is the right person to front an election campaign for right leaning boomers. Really don't see how an investment banker whose father in law is a billionaire Indian tycoon is the best placed to blow a dog whistle for the anti immigration, anti WEF/Davos crowd!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Cheers.... Also sorry for a poor joke that landed badly!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Sorry slow reply I'm @PaulGriffiths77 It was a very silly post which I subsequently deleted about Brexit being unfalsifiable. Was trying to take the mike out of their ridiculous logic (but probably ended up sounding like an unhinged Brexiteer in the process).
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Labour are clearly going to have to pivot once in office... or own the brexit disaster in 2029! Pointing this out now only helps the tories who ironically would struggle to pivot away from brexit given 50% of them are ideologically wed to it.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Why would a tory peer writing for the Murdoch press want to reopen the brexit debate pre a general election when he's been happy to ignore it up till now. .... particularly when he implicitly accepts labour's position will likely change in office anyway!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Everything he's done policy wise (excluding perhaps Windsor) has been pointless tinkering. A great example is compulsory maths to 18. Regardless of the merits of this, we don't have enough maths teachers!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Got to the end of the free bit and agree completely. Being clever and hard working whilst being bad at the retail end of politics does not make you a technocrat. To be a technocrat you need to implement successful policies that work towards a desired goal.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Lord F was a remainer but anti a second referendum. Granted I haven't read the article so perhaps he can justify his position. But in my mind the best way to solve brexit was to find a way to avoid it happening. Once it was a fait accompli any change was always going to be very difficult.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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@t0nyyates.bsky.social made a joke on X about brexiteers having an un falsifiable hypothesis because you cannot have a parallel earth and you blocked me.
For the record it wasn't an argument pro brexit. It was a lame attempt at a joke!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I know there was a degree of motivated reasoning here on my part, but I always felt that brexit and its fall out would create more of an opening for Labour than was commonly appreciated back in 2019! I didn't see how a tory government could indefinitely paper the cracks between promise and reality
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Still at least they didn't have a PM who threw it all away on a personal whim!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Ditto. Haven't been there since my ERASMUS. Remember then there was a big plan to upgrade the railway station. Sounds like it went well then!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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To what ends? A nice GB news job or to position himself for a major role in the opposition after the election.... If the latter how does he help make the party re electable without betraying his new base?
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Yeah that's my impression. A feedback cycle between tory selectorate/influencers, right wing news outlets and tory MPs. Each cajoling the others to more extreme positions. Problem is I don't see anything breaking that feedback cycle. So my base expectation is they'll go even more mad!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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He's gone on a journey from remainer to Trumpist leave the ECHRs. Wonder how much it is a real change of opinion and how much it is positioning himself with the tory selectorate.... or how much one leads the other?
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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It is simple we make our own laws and everybody else follows them when they are lucky enough to get a fantastic trade deal with us. We have such a brilliantly bigly economy that obviously everybody in the rest of the world will sign up on such terms.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Isn't Liddington one of the sainer ones? I wonder if he really believes that or is just "triangulating" with the fanatics in his party in an attempt to say relevant.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Yes which is why I lean towards a "cultural" failure rather than a political one (whilst being no fan of this government) Wouldn't be surprised if ofwat lacked the skillset to fully understand the financial engineering that Thames water were doing and the possible implications.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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It is easy to blame this all on "the tories" (and certainly they deserve all the harsh reckoning that's coming their way - plus some more) However, it cannot just have been them. So systems on a lot of levels failed... which suggests a deeper "cultural" failing to me!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Yeah. Sadly I think I would agree with that. My fear is that the UK's problem might be as much cultural as political. I mean somebody somewhere thought it was okay to hand money to shareholders rather than invest in water infrastructure. Somebody regulating it all just waived that through.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Don't worry I'm not a fan of this government. I generally support experts over politicans of any leaning. Still think there is a challenge of preventing regulators being captured and holding independent experts to account.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Still got the problem of who regulates the regulator. Experts inevitably come with biases that do need to be held to account. ("This is a key reason why I found the government's 'following the science' rhetoric in covid times was so annoying)
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I suspect some of that comes from frankly racism. He represents diversity and that's left in the eyes of the racist right.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Maybe he shouldn't have killed the big project to improve the trains. Then at least he could have taken the trains and said we want to improve them.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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From Winchester to Oxford to investment banking to MBA .... marrying into extreme wealth along the way! Honestly think losing the election might be the first real experience of failure despite trying that Sunak has ever had in his life.... weirdly it might do him a few favours in the long run!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Just genuinely don't understand what the tory pitch is and who it is to? Whereas all the other parties (even the libdems) have a clear USP and target audience(s). Genuinely keen to understand?
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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This might sound harsh but what exactly is the point of the Conservative party. Most of its electorate are old and probably don't really want the small state stuff. Meanwhile the nationalistic populist tack probably has a ceiling of 30% even if they do fully absorb reform.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Hmmm.... I'm not sure what the USP of the current tory party is any more. Small state was marketable in the 80s but doesn't really sell to anybody now. The nationalistic thing has more traction but is probably capped at about 30% (and anyway they are scared to go all in on it for obvious reasons)
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Result not really
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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BTW I don't revel in anybody losing their job.... but I do believe in professionalism and accountability. Right wing pundits would be the first people wanting to hold public sector professionals to account when they made bad calls. They shouldn't be immune from such accountability themselves.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I don't get your view on Martin. He was catastrophically wrong on brexit on every level. He came out with ridiculous motivated reasoning like "bankers will stay on London because the nightlife is better than Frankfurt". In any other profession being that wrong would really in you being fired!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Much to the annoyance of the hard left, Starmer has generally refused to play the culture way game. If he had he could have trapped himself on the wrong side of culture war arguments. The upshot is he can now sit back as the Tories create dividing lines amongst themselves.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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To some extent, but as per my additional post perceptions are very important when selling your policies. This is where super rich and super thatcherite Rishi becomes a bit unstuck. Thatcher as a daughter of a grocer didn't have this problem!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Serious comment.... I think it is hard to be both extremely rich and have small state/low tax/support the "wealth makers" politics. Whether fair or not it looks very self serving.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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It's a bit problematic if he then denies the rest of us a decent train service.... I mean we cannot all afford helicopters and most of us like to think our time is also moderately important!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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His support for brexit was a bit of a sign that he wasn't an especially deep thinker. There is a story out there I read about him backing brexit based on his own excel modelling... which (if true) suggests he is both overconfident in his abilities as well as completely naivety about the world.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Wait till they find somebody who understands Spotfire, Tableau or Power BI.... at that point they'll have truly reached Dominic Cummings level "genius"
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Agree. It was maths to 18 and saving the world from bad AI seems to be the only things he has expressed any passion for. In both cases the how's and whys don't seem to have been thought through.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Well he wants compulsory maths till 18. But he wants to do that with a maths teacher shortage and doesn't have any plans to reverse that shortage. All of which suggests (to me at least) that he is as bad at governing as he is at presentational politics!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Obviously in any case he supposed brexit based on those (presumably financial) spreadsheets (assuming the story has any truth). .... which shows that he got it all completely wrong in ways that were entirely predictable without using any spreadsheets!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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I also heard a story about him backing brexit based on some numbers he ran through excel. Dunno if that's true if it is even half true it shows appallingly bad judgement. It would take quite some chutzpah to think all the complex trade off can be reduced to a couple of tables and basic formulas!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Suspect he has no need to earn money (due to marrying well) and an over inflated view of his abilities (based on head boy and Oxbridge, City success) Politics seemed a way to do something "useful" and I suspect he probably cannot understand why we aren't more grateful for his wise oversight.
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Might have sent the front start point in the thread...
bsky.app/profile/step...
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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This is the thread:-
bsky.app/profile/step...
Agree about decency - although as discussed in the thread woke gets a bad rep from the nutter end of the liberal spectrum (who are an absolute gift to the anti woke)
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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This is a classic of this genre.
twitter.com/EdConwaySky/...
Sure economically brexit isn't as important as other things holding back productivity.
Nobody has yet explained why "other things" (which haven't yet been fixed) can be fixed more easily that brexit!
Real bugbear or mine!
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Genuinely don't get that. I get that leaving the EU isn't the biggest problem facing the UK. ... but the idea that all the other productivity problems which we've not previously managed to fix can be fixed with a lower political price seems.... curious
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@paulgriffiths77.bsky.social
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Eek. Thankfully not in my circle but guess I'm lucky to live in a liberal ish bubble
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