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No idea if what you're saying has any statistical backing, it's probably difficult to find out. But I do think there's something about what you're saying about attacks by ethnic minorities looming 'large in the public memory'. The attack in Plymouth a couple of years ago where a 22 year old white guy inspired by incel culture shot and killed 5 people didn't spark any public protests and has largely faded from memory. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plymouth_shooting. Similarly the killing of three women with a crossbow only last month didn't lead to anyone smashing up a town centre or assaulting police officers. The murder of Sarah Everard did lead to protests, but these were largely peaceful. That's an incident that certainly looms large in the minds of many women I know. Perhaps it's just easier for to people to target their aggression when there's an obvious 'other' to go at.

England unchanged for the third test tomorrow. Thought the whole point of retiring Jimmy was to try out potential replacements for next summer against India and Australia the following winter. So what's the point in playing Woakes and Wood every game, with Pennington and Potts not getting a sniff?

A good summary here: https://www.espncricinfo.com/story/the-hundred-2024-ecb-shop-window-for-private-investment-1444241

My fear is the Blast gets eaten up by this new iteration of the Hundred with franchises linked to IPL clubs. The Blast is a fantastic competition, I live in Manchester so go and watch Lancashire pretty regularly. It's popular with kids, affordable, fun, great quality, and all the counties are involved. The Roses game between Lancs and Yorkshire is a real spectacle (when it's not rained off). Would be an absolute travesty if it ends up being sacrificed at the behest of international investors. For the future of the game I feel it's really important that a 10 year old in Worcester, Canterbury or Leicester can go watch a game of cricket on a Friday night and their parents not have to pay through the nose for it.

I like Cooper, seems a good bloke and I’ll back him. But with the points deduction and off the pitch shenanigans he’s being set up for failure.

Really hope I’m wrong. But everything about this season, from the departure of our player of the season and manager to this absolutely honking kit, screams 03-04 style comedy relegation.

Can see it being Lee Carsley. Not the most exciting appointment and I'm sure the press will be on his back straight away. The fact he's an Irish international complicates things somewhat given that's England's first game in the Nations League in September. But he's done very well with the U21s and promoting from within has worked out pretty well for Spain and Argentina. As others have said here, of the elite managers available only Tuchel woud realistically take the job, and he'd inevitably end up nutting a member of the royal family or something. Not that I'm against that.

Only the opposition and third largest party are allocated a set number of questions at PMQs. Beyond that there isn't a specific allocation by party. If you look at the Lib Dems in the last Parliament who were the fourth largest party they only occassionally had MPs selected to ask questions. So you'd expect to hear from Farage at PMQs maybe 3 or 4 times a year at most.

I don't know what they're for but it's clear what they're against - hemming trousers.

A welcome return to naming government departments based on their functions rather than political slogans.

I am somewhat torn. Clearly FPTP leads to lots of people feeling disenfranchised and disengaged from politics. On the other hand it allows the electorate to punish bad governments very effectively. If voters want to hand out a beating, as they have in this election, FPTP provides the opportunity to do that in a way more representative systems don't.

I had a feeling something was going on in Leicester East but Leicester South has come completely out the blue. Anyone here got any info on what's gone on?

A new dawn has broken, has it not?

Mordaunt is centre right, campaigned for Leave but fairly sensible. Think she’d rule out any pact with Reform and try to avoid too much culture war stuff. Badenoch is much further to the right, more like an American Conservative than a British one. I think she’d be much more amenable to some kind of alliance with Reform. She’d go big on culture wars and try to attack Labour on LGBT issues, immigration etc. As a Labour supporter I’d be more fearful of Mordaunt from an electoral perspective. But I really don’t like the idea of a culture warrior like Badenoch having even more of a platform to corrode our political discourse.

It would be a major surprise if she loses her seat. Not totally out of the question but only one MRP from the many published in the last few weeks has her losing. If she does lose then we are looking at the Conservatives being sub-60 seats I think.

The future of the Conservative Party could rest on whether Penny Mordaunt retains her Portsmouth North seat. Win it and she's odds on to be the next Tory leader. Lose and Kemi Badenoch is probably favourite. Two very different trajectories and there's probably only going to be a few hundred votes in it.

I'm still at "Claudio Ranieri promises to take Leicester players for pizza if they keep a clean sheet". The jump to Andrea Bocelli singing Nessun Dorma at the King Power is going to be quite something at 4am on Friday.

Spot on. This is the third general election I've canvassed in and 'don't be scary' is the biggest advice I could give for any Labour candidate. England is a conservative (small c) country. We might not like it but that's the reality, and you only win elections by addressing the electorate as it is rather than what you'd like it to be.

I went back to read some of the pre-election coverage from 1997 recently. The consensus was that Blair would get a big majority despite little enthusiasm for him or his policies. He was very popular AFTER the 1997 election, particularly following Princess Diana's death that summer. Starmer isn't particularly popular, but he's also not unpopular. His ratings are about the same as Boris Johnson's were before the 2019 election and a bit lower than Cameron in 2010. "I don't think every Labour voter is behind Starmer or any of the policies" - this is the same in every election. In 2017 and 2019 I voted Labour despite disliking Jeremy Corbyn and lots of the policies he put forward. I did that because I disliked Labour less than the Conservatives. Every vote counts the same.

I live in the North so as many Northern away days as possible. Arsenal Aston Villa Birmingham Blackburn Blackpool Bolton Burnley Chelsea Everton Hull Leeds Leicester Liverpool Man City Man Utd Newcastle Sheffield Wednesday Sunderland Spurs Wigan Edit: Just spotted the big six caveat. Replace those with their nearest non PL club: Man City = Stockport Man Utd = Salford City Chelsea = QPR Spurs = Leyton Orient Arsenal = Barnet Liverpool = Tranmere

I find it quite funny that the Guardian have taken at face value his campaign's claims that resources are being withdrawn because he's "too popular" rather than the more obvious explanation that Clacton is not and has never been a winnable seat for Labour. Resource reallocation is an absolutely standard part of campaign management. You collect data from canvassing returns in the early part of the campaign and that enables you to direct campaigners to seats where they can have the biggest impact.

Thought that question was rude, weird and a waste of time to be honest. What was he referring to when talking about Starmer having his "strings pulled by senior people in the Labour Party"? Sunak is a useless Prime Minister but had a successful private sector career before entering politics. Starmer entered politics in his 50s after about as stellar a career in public service as it's possible to imagine. That's exactly the kind of outside politics experience many people say they want from their politicians.

Any of you guys in Leicester East? Would be interested to hear how it's going on the ground. Surely one of the maddest seats in this election. https://www.theguardian.com/politics/article/2024/jun/25/labour-silence-on-disgraced-keith-vazs-record-could-see-him-re-elected-mayor-warns

I've not had a single f*** off yet. Quite the contrast to previous elections. Even the guy who told me off about Labour's VAT on private schools policy was very polite about it.

I'm in the North West so only getting a snapshot really. But yes - going to places I never went canvassing in 2015 and 2017 (was out of the country in 2019, which was probably for the best). I've been to three seats in south Manchester and Cheshire that have been mostly or entirely Tory since the dawn of time. These are reasonably well off areas, lots of middle class people doing quite nicely. Traditional Tory voters are abandoning them, I've got no doubt the polls are right about that. I am cautious about that translating to the kind of enormous Labour victory that some of the polls are suggesting, mainly because I am still coming across a lot of undecideds. But whereas in the past you'd assume a lot of those undecideds would ultimately go Tory I really don't think that's the case this time. The electorate wants to give the Tories a kicking. I'm not just not sure whether they'll kick them to death or just rough them up a bit.