(Obviously, offers are offers. I wouldn’t expect a deal to last forever, or even necessarily for any renewal. But that kind of thing should be explicit at the outset, like it was on your Striking 13, which was £X for first year and then £Y thereafter.)

What would be interesting: the renewal. Last time I did one of these, the receipt inferred a rolling sub. When I got twitchy and asked support, they confirmed a hike. So: subbed (again, because I want to support journalism), but @theipaper.com really needs to be more upfront about what happens next.

Happy birthday, Six Colors Podcast!

Three things stand out from those graphs to me:

1. How closely tied Lab/LD/Green voters are across the board
2. That there is space between Con and Ref
3. That *even many Ref voters* are (somewhat) reasonable vs all going for 5–10 or worse

(I’m obvs Team Five Years. + voting rights, actually.)

Notably, they are also typically the most pragmatic sets of voters who each hate the other party least. That said, while I suspect the Greens haven’t hit their ceiling, it’s hard to see where the Libs could pick up more than another dozen seats. And keeping hold of their existing ones will be tough.

It will never happen, but Green/Lib could be interesting too. The parties would balance out each other’s economic excesses. And both are profoundly liberal, globalist and progressive.

Oh, I’m not saying Labour isn’t gutless. SMEs and micro businesses also got fucked with the dividends thing. But more broadly with policy as a whole, Labour still isn’t (IMO) fiscally right, even if it’s tracking that way. Probably now sits roughy where the current Libs are.

Also, I’d argue that even with Labour, things aren’t so simple. It’s easier if we use a cross/compass rather than a line. Economically, Labour is arguably very soft left. But in terms of auth/lib, it’s gone very auth. (Labour is an auth party anyway but not usually to this degree.)

I don’t see Plaid, SNP and Libs doing that. The nats aren’t as fiscally left as the Greens but aren’t heading right. Libs are more complex: some soft right and some soft left economic policy but also progressive, globalist and liberal in key areas that overlaps with the Greens.

If only Labour had a massive majority and could be braver with policy. Etc.

I’m not saying don’t do more exercise rather than less. It’s just people get obsessed with a number, vs just eat a bit less and move a bit more. And if you’re a certain personality type, you can get knocked quite badly for the ‘failure’ of not meeting 10k per day eg.

“even more ambitious” is being rather kind to Labour, I’d say! :D

“actually remotely ambitious” would be more like it.

(The obsession some folks have with 10k steps per day is also a bit hmm. The entire thing originates from a marketing slogan. Exercise is good, but folks fretting about 10k steps isn’t really helping anyone, yet 10k has somehow become truth.)

I remember reading something about basically every pro female rugby player having a ‘bad’ (scare quotes used very intentionally) BMI, despite in a great many cases being insanely fit and healthy. As ever, blunt instruments aren’t a great idea.

And Labour will write two speeches:

1. In the event it gets a majority, where it can talk about its “overwhelming mandate” (from 19% of the vote).

2. In the event it can’t form a govt, in which case it will blame Green and LD voters.

(It won’t have a response to coalition, because heaven forbid.)

I hope they stick the landing. I… wasn’t overly keen on the previous season. But I’d still like to see how everything turns out.