Brexit and the waning days of the United Kingdom

[Sheilbh]

It wasn't in 1981 1981 was the nadir.

By the time of the Falklands, Thatcher's polling is already strongly recovering and after launching in 1981 with a lot of defections the momentum for the SDP has already stuttered and gone into reverse. It's there with right to buy etc in helping but the tide had already turned.

Incidentally the SDP/Alliance story is part of why I think momentum matters for parties trying to breakthrough so think this byelction matters.

Edit: But also I think the relevance of 1981 isn't that it was a mid-term government that recovered from dreadful polling - but rather that it was a new party out to break the mould that failed (for those other reasons). And I think that is the big question: are Reform and the Greens on the Labour Party trajectory or the SDP?

[mongers]

It wasn't in 1981 1981 was the nadir.

By the time of the Falklands, Thatcher's polling is already strongly recovering and after launching in 1981 with a lot of defections the momentum for the SDP has already stuttered and gone into reverse. It's there with right to buy etc in helping but the tide had already turned.

Incidentally the SDP/Alliance story is part of why I think momentum matters for parties trying to breakthrough so think this byelction matters.

Edit: But also I think the relevance of 1981 isn't that it was a mid-term government that recovered from dreadful polling - but rather that it was a new party out to break the mould that failed (for those other reasons). And I think that is the big question: are Reform and the Greens on the Labour Party trajectory or the SDP?

I'm not buying that, the war bought her the election victory.

[Richard Hakluyt]

The Labour manifesto also helped the Conservatives. Gerald Kaufman famously called it the "longest suicide note in history" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_longest_suicide_note_in_history

Given that it incorporated leaving the EEC (European Economic Community if we have any young readers present) I felt obliged, like many, to vote for a different party despite despising the Conservatives. It had other failings, principally it was too socialist for the country's taste and too isolationist for many socialists.

I also think that Reform may have shot their bolt though. Rupert Lowe and his Restore Britain party is outflanking them on the right. As a response, or possibly to keep money flowing in from right-wing American donors, Reform has gone large on anti-immigration policies that show precisely who they are https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2026/feb/22/reform-uk-ice-style-agency-end-leave-to-remain-zia-yusuf

The possibility of filthy ICE-style thugs patrolling Britain's streets will delight the true believers but maybe give the "we need a change" folks pause for for thought.

All these Reform and Restore Britain parties. I wonder if Laurence Llewelyn-Bowen could be persuaded to form a new party, Redecorate Britain, that could somehow weaken Reform's vote even further.

[HVC]

Prince Andrew guards may have disliked him

 https://www.instagram.com/reel/DVF9q6rjI9i

[Syt]

if we have any young readers present

Unless we have kids from some of our regulars lurking here I find that increasingly unlikely

[garbon]

That's fair. I think it is so difficult. If he wasn't asked to leave then he probably chose to leave halfway through the ceremony where the biopic of his life was being awarded. To me that doesn't feel like he was prioritising himself - although I suppose you could almost see it the other way in that. I think he's said he's "deeply mortified" and you can almost see from the disability perspective that that is the experience of the disease and he left.

To be clear I wasn't taking issue with him personally nor was I accusing him of prioritising himself. Rather that the BAFTAs/BBC prioritised him and his disability.

Totally agree on the people at the event although I slightly wonder the extent to which they did or should have warned people (particularly hosts) that there's someone with the type of Tourette's where they say taboo, obscene, socially unacceptable things as part of their tic. But then I don't know - I mean it doesn't feel right that you have to warn people there's someone with x disability in advance.

Why not? It is a disability that has the propensity to trigger offense, why shouldn't there be a warning on that? It isn't like you fall down a slippery slope if you warn that there is someone who is prone to involuntarily saying the n-word when they see black people that suddenly you have to warn people if someone is using a wheelchair.

On the other hand the BBC excuse that they just didn't hear it because they were working in a truck is risible.

I saw them engaging in the same behaviour again this morning on BBC Breakfast. They mentioned that Dawn Butler was asking for information on BBC on how this happened. They said that a guest at the awards had said something inappropriate while Michael B Jordan and Delroy Lindo were on stage. Maybe I missed it but I didn't even here that is was a racially abusive term and instead they quickly went to a clip of some man talking about how mortifying it must have been for the man with tourette's. No one speaking for how it would feel to be the target of such abuse.

Feels like, yeah it was bad but he didn't mean it; in fact, think how bad he feels, get over it.