Will Cooling

@willcooling.bsky.social

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Posts

Writes & Hosts the It Could Be Said substack & podcast; https://itcouldbesaid.substack.com/.

Writes a fortnightly column for CityAM and has contributed to a variety of outlets on politics, sport or pop culture.

All opinions his own & not of any employer.

Posts Replies Media

Regular journeys between Edinburgh and London that took two-to-three hours would be such a shock to the system, binding Scotland much closer to England than ever before in its history. Should surely be a priority for the Government from a nation building standpoint

On a back-of-envelope calculation, about 2 hours. The fastest non-maglev trains in the world (ICE in Germany, Fuxing in China) can do 350 km/h. Edinburgh to London is roughly 640 km. Beijing to Shanghai is 4hr 18m over 1302 km.

Britain and France using tactical voting between socialists and liberals to defeat the right

Been dead 54 years and still saving his nation by defeating fascists

Lol. Genuinely thought Harry Kane had been substituted 30 minutes ago

Anyone what's going on with the rest of the ministerial appointments? No announcements since last night isn't the plan they were briefing beforehand

I can't help but think the broadcasters are gonna have to massively change their approach if they're to meet the challenge of a policy-heavy government. Questions very superficial and horseracy compared to what the press came up with

Oh this press conference is such a joy to watch. Just a completely different tone and level of detail than what we've had for the past five years. Really highlights how badging both Sunak and Starmer as technocrats was always nonsense.

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Will Cooling

Hot take: 1960s Tony Benn was the Wes Streeting of his day

Always cracks me up when people go "unlike Wes understands why some people vote Tory" as if he isn't the most passionate labour partisan you could find This is a guy who wanted to be NUS President but insisted on running as NOLS in the post-Iraq War/Top-Up Fees era

Hot take: 1960s Tony Benn was the Wes Streeting of his day

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Will Cooling

Today's Inside Politics: Keir Starmer, Ed Davey, Carla Denyer & Adrian Ramsey led their parties to historic victories - in more ways than one. Some thoughts on the good and the bad ways these results made history:

Historic UK election hauls reveal bigger voter trends Financial Timeswww.ft.com We are now in an era of increased volatility where party dominance is never guaranteed

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Will Cooling

Essentially if you see this election as “the 2005 era Labour coalition against a much much weaker Tory party and when voters are much more willing to shop around” it makes a huge amount of sense.

Dear BBC - maybe show the Gateshead Central & Whickham results rather plough on with your planned interviews

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Will Cooling

You can travel the country. You can speak to hundreds of people in 32 seats over six weeks. And then in the end, your gut feeling is completely outclassed by just getting the computer to deduct three from the Labour score and add three to the Tory one.

Yeah, it's hilarious that I came fairly close to the exit poll just by using the FT's ready reckoner and going 'fuck it, just deduct three from Labour and add to the Tory score from the poll average'.

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Will Cooling

Scenario time! CON 150+ = nirvana, massive polling miss. 120-149 = better than expected, some pollsters get bragging rights. 90-119 = conventional wisdom, three figures is the symbolic number. 60-89 = worse than expected. <60 is wipeout, mass hysteria, dogs and cats living together.

Nothing underlines the mess the Tories have got themselves into, that whereas A Very British Coup (which yes I'm rewatching) imagined the deep state recoiling from the news Labour is being swept into power, modern bureacracy eagerly anticipates the amplication of its power & renewal of purpose!

I don't want to be harsh but I do think the great unsaid thing about the Trans debate is the complete lack of accountability from activists who pushed the movement down the rabbit hole of self-ID seemingly in ignorance of how the Equality Act actuall works and so lumbered us with this quagmire

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Will Cooling

I don’t like first past the post and in general prefer minority governments or coalitions. But I think it would be very bad for everyone if Sunak’s Conservative party didn’t get a notably worse result than Major’s, because the cynical and lazy approach of the last two years would appear validated.

One of the great benefits of First Past The Post is that it enables voters to kick out the bums. Tomorrow should be cathartic for a lot of people. There will be a lot of talk about disproportionality, but that will overlook a central desire of much of the electorate to punish the incumbents.

The more I think about people advocating for an Open Convention, the angrier I get. It is so disingenious because its designed to trick people into thinking that this is how things used to work. But it didn't. Candidates would campaign state convention by state convention to secure delegates

Sigh....we used to be a proper country

The great what-if of recent British electoral politics is not the Tories knowing what to do with their 2019 majoriy but them not screwing up the 2017 election. An election called to coincide with the May local elections, and a more risk adverse manifesto, would have seen a huge Tory majority

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Will Cooling

Reply to

Philip Bump

this is my fundamental issue with all of these guys. baseless confidence bordering on arrogance. something also tells me that a person of different demographic characteristics with the exact same political record would not be dismissed so easily

Loving Jamelle Bouie opening up a second front in his "common sense vs centrist liberals hurt feelings" war

I would greatly enjoy this ticket

the most diabolical suggestion i have heard given this reality is Harris/Manchin

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Will Cooling

Was just chatting to someone I went for a drink with a while back: public sector, on the left, political enough to want the Tories to lose... and she had no idea the result was looking like a Labour landslide. None. Hard to underestimate how little people follow this stuff.

Arrrrrghhhhhh! Ezra Klein literally intros "what happens if Joe Biden has a health emergency..." to peddle his stupid open convention fantasy. If Biden has a health emergency, then *Kamala Harris becomes President*. End of. That's the alternative

I just keeping asking; what is the role of the Vice-President? Is it not to assume the role of President if the principal is unable to? Biden facilitating anyone other than Harris being his successor would be setting fire to what is left of his personal reputation & the legacy of his administration

there is no world in which biden drops out and the nominee isn’t kamala harris. and i think it is very interesting that the loudest calls for biden to drop out do not acknowledge this fact.

Starmer's answer on trans equality, very much supports my take that he is "The Director of HR about to become PM" as both analysis and as why I am surprisingly enthused about voting for him

@stephenkb.bsky.social reading through your (very fun) Q&A. If no station takes you, there's always doing a Suzerain playthrough as a livestream. Think of the super chat money you could make! Btw my best one of its forced choices - i go for full police purge, police can't/won't stop me getting shot

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Will Cooling

I know that everything Kemi Badenoch does demonstrates a rare kind of insulated stupidity, but thinking she can get into public beef with David Tennant, one of the most liked people in the country, someone whose popularity cuts across pretty much all demographics is *phenomenally* delusional.

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Will Cooling

Reply to

Al Kennedy

It’s so depressing how a single-issue crank billionaire can shape coverage of an entire general election campaign for days, basically just by confirming she’s a single issue crank. Longing for someone to stand up and say “your vote’s no better than anyone else’s, jog on”