Thread 38 Sunak: Soooo, square one is an option then?

[AdamRyan]

Thanks to @cornettoninja For the epic title!

New Ipsos poll for the Evening Standard

Lab 47%
Con 20%
LD 9%
Green 8%
Reform 8%

Lowest Tory % ever recorded in an Ipsos poll going back to the start of their regular polling in 1978.

If repeated at an election they would lose all but 25 seats

I really thought Rishi was going to somehow scupper the GE when the lectern came out the other day. It feels as though we are in limbo watching them peeing on the floor and setting fire to the hall before giving the keys back. I'm impatient to get things slowly back to where we were at the Olympics, which seems like a lifetime ago. I don't envy what Labour are going to be left with.

I'm still amazed at what the 20% are seeing - maybe blind loyalty?

Well I'm sure tax cuts will fix all of that.

As resident Eeyore I'm depressed at the thought those polls will just lead to the Cons & Con media leaning further into populist crap to scrabble back a few votes from Reform. Months of evermore ridiculous & incendiary opinion pieces to agitate against their own policies.

Difficult to know how much more they can lean without falling over though.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-68424070

There's still a cost of living crisis that this last budget before an election will not address.

If I was chancellor wanting desperately to hang on, not only with my seat, but also in Government, I would put sweeteners out to the most disadvantaged. Not give more money to those who already have a lot.

Just my thoughts

UK 🇬🇧 goods trade suffered steepest five-year fall on record, thanks to Brexit reducing flows both into and out of Britain.

🆘 The volume of UK goods imports and exports was 7.4% smaller in 2023 than in 2018, the largest five-year decline in goods trade since comparable records began.

The ONS reported that the volume of imports fell 7.4% compared with 2022 and was down 3.8% compared with 2018.

Meanwhile, exports fell 4.6% year on year, with substantial drops in exports to both EU and non-EU countries. Over five years, export volumes fell 12.4%.

Emily Fry, economist at the Resolution Foundation think-tank, said after years of data being affected by the pandemic and the energy price shock, the 2023 figures were a real “big sign” of the impact of Brexit.

“A clear implication of this [data] is that the new trade barriers that were put in place by Brexit are having an effect on trade,” she said.

Economists point out that the performance of the UK goods trade has been worse than that of other advanced countries.

“The UK’s weak trade performance is unusual among advanced economies,” said John Springford, deputy director of the Centre for European Reform think-tank.
He added that most countries saw an increase in goods trade after the pandemic, but “the UK did not participate in the boom thanks to the trade barriers that it imposed upon itself”.

“The obvious culprit is Brexit,” he said.

ft.com/content/6d044f…

https://x.com/lizwebstersbf/status/1764030759973576883?s=46&t=Uw4lJNwxFZFnX0Xs3doHYg

From Liz Webster of Save British Farming.

Huge shame Labour isn't ready to state its time to rejoin single market (that we were supposed to have access to according to majority of 2016 Brexiteers)

Spot on @placemats. That ipsos poll’s a real shocker - 25 seats! 😭

@Notonthestairs You have prompted me to put this on the AOB at my constituency Labour party meeting tonight. (We're not supposed to mention the B word, which I think is a mistake).

I understand why it can't be mentioned. The public might be ready for it - the media definitely aren't! And they'd get slaughtered in the name of "will of the people" (which seems to cover an awful lot these days).

But it would help business and therefore tax take.
It's so frustrating.
Understandable but frustrating.

Let's pray 25 is an over-estimate.

To add we are a rural constituency, and when I stood for local elections last year I freely talked to farmers about the impact of Brexit, which most of them voted for but had since had regrets.

Farming is a business. Posted too soon.

To add there are farmers I know who voted to Remain and thought that Brexit would be catastrophic in terms of survival in a highly competitive market with little returns.

No go areas Paul Scully is standing down at the next election

No, is the provision of an impression of acceptability for their rank views.

Can't stop laughing at this. 😂😂😂

With a majority of 8,000 I imagine he’s jumping before he’s pushed.

On a more serious note Scully's remarks were inflammatory and dangerous.

Perhaps Sunak's 'address to the Nation' was a subliminal message to the extremists within his own party. But badly performed and disastrously backfired as usual.

At this rate Westminster is going to become a no go area for Tory MPs. 25 seats lol.

The funniest thing is they keep doing exactly the wrong thing to make it better. People don’t want tax cuts. They just want everything to work properly.

😂 😂 😂

His popularity rating on that IPSOS poll is -54. Worse than Liz Truss after her ‘fiscal event’. Maybe he should join the popcons.

Word is a general election will be announced after the budget.

Current odds on a Spring election are 4/1. Might be worth a bet?

🙏

Where have you heard that placemats? I so hope true.

Just X/twitter and mostly from Conservative journalists. Too many to mention. Cut losses and go for it. Spring is best for a better outcome. So some seats saved etc.