James Austin

@jamesdaustin.bsky.social

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This again. Outdoors. Politics. Sport. Not always in that order. Labour. Trade Unionist. Trying to do community things. Views entirely my own

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Got to say: the last time I felt this broken was when I'd just finished a 15 hour mountain ultra

Always love cycling coverage: 'He's a giant, a absoloute powerhouse, 6'3'' and 83 kg'. Dude, that's absurdly light. I'm 6'0'' and 70kg and am genuinely considered pretty thin

Thinking back to the time a mate asked me to be a usher at his wedding, 4 weeks out, which he'd forgotten to invite me to. And it was in LA

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Discworld QOTD, from Feet of Clay “People said that there was one law for the rich and one law for the poor, but it wasn't true. There was no law for those who made the law, and no law for the incorrigibly lawless.”

Discworld QOTD, from Maskerade “Nanny Ogg was basically a law-abiding person when she had no reason to break the law, and therefore had that kind of person’s attitude to law-enforcement officers, which was one of deep and permanent distrust.”

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This is the ball game folks, the authoritarian green light laid out in advance. Congress will not impeach Trump. And SCOTUS now blesses him with extraordinary latitude to do whatever he wants in power. A second administration will not be constrained by Congress, the courts, the bureaucracy or law.

Trump, who tried to overthrow an election, campaigned persistently for his fellow party members to grant him absolute immunity for his misdeeds in office. And they did. If you can't distinguish between "energy in the executive" and a constitutional crime spree, you've given up on US democracy.

I think this applies to all democracies tbh: If X% of your citizens are mad enough to vote for someone anti-democratic or insane, then no system can fundimentally stop them. And I'm not sure it should.

Realistically I think you should probably expect that a third of the parliament of any European country are likely to be insane people from now on. The goal is to keep that the ceiling. This may be pessimistic but this is linked to that being the proportion of our citizens which are insane

Never stops amusing me that I still get Lib Dem activist emails from a lass who I dated for a few months. (Turns out I have a type btw: Liberal Democrats.)

I think we have enough MRPs now. I'm calling a moratorium on MRPs

Sub 100 is the base case now, isn't it?

Our secret is out! In colab with @TheEconomist, we are proud to reveal our first MRP - and it’s punchy. 🔴 LAB 465 🔵 CON 76 🟠 LD 52 🟡 SNP 29 ⚪ RFM 3 ⚫ PC 3 🟢 GRN 3 18,865 online interviews done 30/5 - 21/6. Our slightly different take on the data is 👉 buff.ly/4cFxnRB

We Think | WeThink MRP: Historic low for the Tories?buff.ly WeThink and the Economist publish their first-ever MRP for the General Election 2024.

So, the pollster who called the 2015, 2017 and 2019 elections correctly *and hasn't had methodology change* is... ...saying we have a 23.5% lead. Good. Good

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With a week to go Delta, Yougov, Survation and Ipsos were closest. Putting aside yougov doing performance art with their polling... those 23/23/24% leads respectively.

IPSOS have long been a gold standard in UK polling - and Survation were closest for the last 3 elections. Both roughly showing a 23% lead, with 8 days to go. It's happening folks.

Ipsos showing a strikingly similar position. Labour 42% Conservative 19% Reform UK 15% Lib Dems 11% Greens 7% www.ipsos.com/en-uk/labour...

Labour maintains lead with Conservatives falling back to equal their lowest ever vote sharewww.ipsos.com Rishi Sunak records the worst net satisfaction rating for a Prime Minister at this stage of an election campaign going back to 1979

As cats appear to be the best way to get followers on here - we had a properly outstanding campaign cat today.

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There have been 20 polls published with fieldwork in the last 10 days from 15 different companies. Only 5 of these had the Tories on more than 21%. 3 of these were MRPs, all of which had some older fieldwork. The only conventional poll out of line with a Tory score of c20% is from More In Common.

Maybe if your polling model is throwing out increasingly implausible changes and numbers you've overcooked it?

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Hugo Rifkind made the point last night that one of Starmer’s most relatable characteristics is his profound loathing for his last three opponents and I expanded that this was the loathing of a professional faced with idiots and shysters and every instance of the betting scandal confirms that to me

Drive from Bristol to a wedding near Aylesbury and sign count thus far: Labour (!) 3, Lib Dem about 10, Greens 5.... ...Tories none. In rural oxfordshire!

Somehow there are still 2 weeks to go and the polls are still not really stabilising in terms of the Tory drop. If say there is a big change they'll totally collapse in the next few weeks... but that's already happened

When we said Canada 93 we didn't mean in the exact 3 seats sense. Jeez - has there ever been a worse day for a party in the polls?

Worth noting that is appears to the the best poll of the day for the Tories... Others show a 17% (JLL) and 25% (R&W) Lab lead. Both JLL and MiC have the most friendly methodologies for the Tories as well - and they still show disaster with less than 3 weeks to go

Latest More in Common poll - all steady: 🔵 CON 25% (-) 🔴 LAB 41% (-) 🟠 LIB DEM 11% (+1) 🟣 REF UK 14% (+1) 🟢 GRN 5% (-) 🟡 SNP 2%(- 1) Dates 14-16/6, N=2,369

Another MRP that, one the face of it, looks plausible (tho SNP/Reform high) but when you dig into it has some bizarre projections. I think this shows just how hard to election is becoming to model: too many complex dynamics for even MRPs to estimate well

MRP! LAB 456 CON 72 LD 56 SNP 37 RFM 7 PC 2 GRN 1 www.survation.com/mrp-update-f...

MRP Update: First MRP Since Farage’s Return | Survationwww.survation.com In the first MRP analysis since Nigel Farage announced he would stand for election and resume the position of party leader, Reform UK are leading...

Every time I think the polling can't get worse for the Tories... it gets worse

The begging for mercy strategy is definately unedifying but may also be the Tories best choice

Tories fighting to prevent Labour winning ‘supermajority’, says Shapps

Tories fighting to prevent Labour winning ‘supermajority’, says Shappswww.theguardian.com Defence secretary says even bigger win than 1997 landslide would be ‘very bad news’ for country

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the other day I saw someone say in earnest that “neurotypical people don’t remember their mistakes, only neurodivergent people do” and with the power vested in me I am taking these terms away from everyone for at least a month

Massive outlier and I have... doubts about the new YouGov methodology... ... but we do seem to be seeing signs of tactical sorting. This is getting quite close to worst case scenario for the Tories

Sky News / YouGov exclusive poll. Ed Davey’s antics are paying off. ** Tories joint lowest VI share in Parliament ** Reform just ONE point behind ** Lab down 3; LD up 4 LAB 38% (-3), CON 18% (-1), RefUK 17% (+1), LDEM 15% (+4), GRN 8% (+1) Fieldwork Mon/Tue (around Lib Dem manfiesto coverage)

I'll admit I didn't have 'Reform argue we shouldn't have fought Hitler' on my card for today, but there we are

The Tories are now in a position where their only national leader who can freely campaign is... ... Andrew RT Davis in Wales. The others have either resigned or have huge clouds over them

Genuinely find it amazing that Sunak has apparently take the whole weekend off to campaign locally/rest in constituency. Must be pretty much unprecedented for a major party leader to do this mid campaign.

Genuinely at the point whether I'm wondering if Sunak may be forced to resign mid campaign

Getting the impression that IPSOS today may be the last 'good' poll for the Tories for a while. And it has a 21% Labour lead. Not just the below tweet and YouGov yesterday, but also feelings from people on the ground that something has changed