[mattomac]

I think it’s probably due to where the party is, no one wants to be associated with it, no one likeable anyhow. You could be a Tory and palpable at one time, all that lot kicked out when “big dog” didn’t take kindly to people who disagreed with him. A position that is perfectly ok in a democracy but not in a dictatorship.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Yeah you wonder who wants to stick their neck out for the Tories now. I had a few friends from university, very able, typical Tory young professionals. One did some legwork for them in Battersea, which was a good area for them till Brexit, which got the sane Jane Ellison booted out on a 10% swing. The other lost interest in them after Michael Howard's godawful campaign in 2005 (though he may have voted for Cameron). Be very surprised if either of them bother now.

[Youngian]

Tories had a slight lead among those with degree level education until 2017. So not lefties in Che t-shirts as Reform would have you believe but high earners in the Home counties who like rational stable government. Now the Tories can't even hold Tonbridge Wells and could easily lose a dozen more seats if Jenrick leads them into the next GE.

[Tubby Isaacs]

They couldn't even hold South Cotswolds, and probably only held the North Cotswolds because Ed Davey didn't have the resources to target it. Or rather he did, but didn't know it- he romped home in Tewkesbury next door by 6,000.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Good list of Lib Dem target seats here.

https://liberalengland.blogspot.com/202 ... neral.html

Those seats in Hampshire look tempting, not a Home County, but like one outside of Southampton and Portsmouth. I note that Caroline Nokes held on in Romsey and Southampton North, adopting the unusual Tory tactic of sounding personally sympathetic and sane.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Hall, who is still the Tory leader in the London Assembly, has signed up with Rupert Lowe's "worse than Farage" group. Apparently you don't lose the whip for this stuff nowadays.

[Killer Whale]

Do they have a source for the 'Millions of foreign nationals who..." claim?

[Tubby Isaacs]

Don't know what the numbers are, but it's sort of true if completely disingenuous. There are lots of people who have indefinite leave to remain, but have never taken up the citizenship to which they'd be entitled. The result of theirfavored crackdown would of course be that those people applied for citizenship and carried on as they were before.

[Killer Whale]

It's not millions. Unless they're going to use a measure of 'entirely fail to integrate' that I would fail.

[Tubby Isaacs]

Goodwin has come out with this stuff. I think the numbers are fairly large, but as you say, not "millions". Like Rupert Lowe, Goodwin didn't feel the need to tell anyone they had indefinite leave to remain.