UK politics

[Aimless]

Yes and he answered the question. Follow the guidance and specifically for those to whom it applies unique advice.

The ones who live with their families aren't at risk of spreading the virus from one town to another if they go home, so yes that doesn't apply to them. That's irrelevant and pathetic when it does apply to hundreds of thousands if not millions of others it is very sound advice to give.

The guidance of not changing towns if you might have the virus isn't about protecting the person who might have the virus it is about preventing them spreading it elsewhere. If they already have it and are in the home of those who already have it then yes it won't protect them but that's not the frigging point. You really aren't grasping a pretty basic point are you?

Genuinely astonished by the difficulties you're having understanding the very clear question that was asked, and the lengths to which you're going to spin Johnson's inadequate answer. To summarize, neither you nor Johnson have adequate advice to unis for protecting uni students, their families and their communities; what you have is inadequate advice to students for how they themselves can mitigate transmission. If you can't protect 1 in 5 uni students, you can't protect the people—both students and staff—they interact with on campus, just as you can't protect their families and their communities. An answer to the question that was asked might have been to urge unis to completely switch over to online-only education, foregoing in-person sessions to the greatest extent possible, to explore ways in which they can assist students who don't have sufficient means to study properly from home, to urge all unis to require face masks for all in-person education, to beef up ventilation in any enclosed area where people might gather, to offer good alternatives to eating in communal areas, to consider participating in surveillance programs, etc.

[Aimless]

Yes, we know. But it should be.

And it is. The question wasn't "what should we do for students who are already sick", it was a broad question about what recommendations the govt. has for unis that might help them protect students, staff, families and community, which can most reasonably be interpreted as a request for advice on measures that can prevent students from being infected in the first place.

[Steely Glint]

[RandBlade]

Genuinely astonished by the difficulties you're having understanding the very clear question that was asked, and the lengths to which you're going to spin Johnson's inadequate answer. To summarize, neither you nor Johnson have adequate advice to unis for protecting uni students, their families and their communities; what you have is inadequate advice to students for how they themselves can mitigate transmission. If you can't protect 1 in 5 uni students, you can't protect the people—both students and staff—they interact with on campus, just as you can't protect their families and their communities. An answer to the question that was asked might have been to urge unis to completely switch over to online-only education, foregoing in-person sessions to the greatest extent possible, to explore ways in which they can assist students who don't have sufficient means to study properly from home, to urge all unis to require face masks for all in-person education, to beef up ventilation in any enclosed area where people might gather, to offer good alternatives to eating in communal areas, to consider participating in surveillance programs, etc.

Advice for unis and advice for students are two very different things.

Unis are getting advice to offer remote learning, have social distancing etc, etc, etc which students will of course be expected to follow.

The specfic advice for the students not to then take the virus with them back home is further advice on top of that. Students don't determine the ventillation of the university, students don't determine the method of remote learning offered. Not all courses and not all modules and not all lessons are equally amenable to remote learning though and that's been worked on for months now with the universities.

If you meant a question of what advice for unis then say that. The question was for students, the answer was for students.

PS my brother is 16 years younger than me (big age gap) and is currently at university in Bath. He has no in-person lessons for the first few weeks it is all being done online. So yes that has been thought about already.

[Aimless]

Advice for unis and advice for students are two very different things.

Unis are getting advice to offer remote learning, have social distancing etc, etc, etc which students will of course be expected to follow.

The specfic advice for the students not to then take the virus with them back home is further advice on top of that. Students don't determine the ventillation of the university, students don't determine the method of remote learning offered. Not all courses and not all modules and not all lessons are equally amenable to remote learning though and that's been worked on for months now with the universities.

If you meant a question of what advice for unis then say that. The question was for students, the answer was for students.

Hey, RB, can you do me a favour and listen to the question in the clip that was in the tweet I posted? Can you do that for me mate? Listen to the first couple of seconds. I'll wait.

[Steely Glint]

If the UK had been as successful in containing the virus as the Netherlands, approximately 13,000 people of the 41,000 people who have died of the virus in this country so far would still be alive today.

If the UK had been as successful in containing the virus as Germany, approximately 37,000 people of the 41,000 people who have died of the virus in this country so far would still be alive today.

If the UK had been as successful in containing the virus as Japan, approximately 40,000 of the 41,000 people who have died of the virus so far in this country so far would still be alive today.

If the UK had been as successful in containing the virus as South Korea, approximately 40,500 of the 41,000 people who have died virus in this country so far would still be alive today.

Thus, we can establish the bounds of the cost in human life of Tory incompetence and/or malicious indifference to somewhere between 10,000 and 40,500 people.

[RandBlade]

Hey, RB, can you do me a favour and listen to the question in the clip that was in the tweet I posted? Can you do that for me mate? Listen to the first couple of seconds. I'll wait.

OK done that, I had the sound muted because was sitting with family before so not playing sound on my Laptop, I was responding to the words written that were quoted. The words written that were quoted by the BBC and you were as I said.

As far as universities are concerned there's great detailed advice and guidance that have been dealt with for months, but not really suitable for a seconds-long question and answer format like PMQs.

If you're actually interested in learning something and not petty pointscoring childishness then here is the guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...s-and-campuses

[Aimless]

OK done that, I had the sound muted because was sitting with family before so not playing sound on my Laptop, I was responding to the words written that were quoted. The words written that were quoted by the BBC and you were as I said.

As far as universities are concerned there's great detailed advice and guidance that have been dealt with for months, but not really suitable for a seconds-long question and answer format like PMQs.

If you're actually interested in learning something and not petty pointscoring childishness then here is the guidance:
https://www.gov.uk/government/public...s-and-campuses

If you're interested in learning something, I recommend you read and listen properly before responding. I have been urging you to do that for several years now, yet you seem constitutionally incapable of putting in even the barest minimum of effort. Do better.

[RandBlade]

I did read, did you?

The question that was written was "What advice for students back at university?"

If you failed to read the question that was written in your own post that's not my fault.

[Aimless]

I did read, did you?

The question that was written was "What advice for students back at university?"

If you failed to read the question that was written in your own post that's not my fault.

There is a clip in the tweet. The clip in the tweet is the subject of the discussion. The BBC's misrepresentation of the exchange is not the subject of discussion. The person who wrote the tweet posed a question to suit the answer; the PM gave an answer that did not correspond to the question that was asked. It's possible that another question—about advice for students—was also asked, and that there was an editing error at the BBC, but, such possibilities notwithstanding, the answer that was given was not an adequate response to the question that was asked. And yet, like a dumbass, you're continuing your desperate attempts to spin this. The official guidance for unis is not adequate for protecting university students who live at home with their families, and, consequently, is not adequate for protecting others on campus either.

[RandBlade]

If you have an issue with the text the BBC used then take that up with the BBC. Or with the person who quoted the BBC's text verbatim without challenge.

Oh wait, that was you.

[Aimless]

If you have an issue with the text the BBC used then take that up with the BBC. Or with the person who quoted the BBC's text verbatim without challenge.

Oh wait, that was you.

I made the mistake of presuming you would listen to the clip before responding, if not initially then at least at some point during the subsequent exchange, once you began talking about language barriers and I clearly pointed out that he wasn't answering the question that was asked. Truly astonishing to see how enthusiastically you've sacrificed your own dignity in service to Dear Leader.

[RandBlade]

Never assume. Its rude to play videos while with others so no I read the text not rudely play out videos. Thankfully the question was written down. For you it seems the wrong question was written down, but you are the one who posted the written down question I responded to. Maybe if you want to discuss a question different to the one that is written down you should say so and not expect others to by psychic mindreaders or playing videos out loud rather than reading the text you have written and quoted?

Especially since you were banging on about "students" "going home" and not the universities. Students already living at home aren't going to go home since they're already living at home. In order to "go home" you need to be away from home in the first place, which the 20% of students who don't move away from home are not.

[Aimless]

Never assume. Its rude to play videos while with others so no I read the text not rudely play out videos. Thankfully the question was written down. For you it seems the wrong question was written down, but you are the one who posted the written down question I responded to. Maybe if you want to discuss a question different to the one that is written down you should say so and not expect others to by psychic mindreaders or playing videos out loud rather than reading the text you have written and quoted?

Especially since you were banging on about "students" "going home" and not the universities. Students already living at home aren't going to go home since they're already living at home. In order to "go home" you need to be away from home in the first place, which the 20% of students who don't move away from home are not.

Given your long and by now well-established record of not properly reading things relevant to discussions—even the things you yourself have posted, I might add—I'm pretty sure your failure to watch a 30-second clip—over the course of an exchange spanning half a day—had little to do with your politeness and everything to do with your characteristic laziness. Perhaps the same kind of laziness that led Johnson to give such an inadequate answer to the question that was actually asked. As I have said before, I have no great desire to constantly keep doing your work for you—no matter what momentary satisfaction might be had from browbeating you over your functional illiteracy and your laziness. I only do it because it's impossible to have an informed discussion with a man who can't even properly go through his own preferred arguments and evidence.

Meanwhile, the Times continues its dogged pursuit of these comically corrupt grifters:



That's 60 out of 61 towns where Tories exercised greater discretion in the selection process—medium- and low-priority towns by the criteria used, with a wide range in each resp. tier, all but one Tory-held and/or marginal. Claims that nothing untoward occurred here strain credulity to say the very least. Echoes of "I'd like you to do me a favour, though" in that final paragraph of the Times article, for good measure.

[RandBlade]

Given your long and by now well-established record of not properly reading things relevant to discussions—even the things you yourself have posted, I might add—I'm pretty sure your failure to watch a 30-second clip—over the course of an exchange spanning half a day—had little to do with your politeness and everything to do with your characteristic laziness. Perhaps the same kind of laziness that led Johnson to give such an inadequate answer to the question that was actually asked. As I have said before, I have no great desire to constantly keep doing your work for you—no matter what momentary satisfaction might be had from browbeating you over your functional illiteracy and your laziness. I only do it because it's impossible to have an informed discussion with a man who can't even properly go through his own preferred arguments and evidence.

Meanwhile, the Times continues its dogged pursuit of these comically corrupt grifters:



That's 60 out of 61 towns where Tories exercised greater discretion in the selection process—medium- and low-priority towns by the criteria used, with a wide range in each resp. tier, all but one Tory-held and/or marginal. Claims that nothing untoward occurred here strain credulity to say the very least. Echoes of "I'd like you to do me a favour, though" in that final paragraph of the Times article, for good measure.

I read everything posted here but no I don't play videos. Not going to apologise for that, I keep my laptop on mute almost 24/7.

As for the towns thing you are the one obviously not paying attention. I've responded to this before. You ignored my response then, lets see if you have an answer now.

You call this corrupt, I say you must be having a laugh! The definition is so wide and vague as to be meaningless!

Lets look at the claim. 60 of 61 English towns chosen were either "Tory seats" or "Tory targets" . . . yes that is true. But what does that mean? Is it unusual or unexpected? Well lets have a look shall we. The Tories won 65% of all seats in England but where are their seats and targets distributed? Where was the campaign distributed? Where are the seats that were neither Tory seats nor Tory targets?

Virtually every town in England was either a Tory seat or a Tory target!

The seats the Tories neither won nor targeted were confined pretty much to the cities. So to say that virtually every town chosen was a Tory target or Tory seat is meaningless since nearly every town in the country was a Tory target or Tory seat in the first place! That's about as meaningful as saying that every town chosen had a Tory candidate when the Tories stand in every constituency (bar the Speakers). In 2019 the Tories weren't writing off any towns. I'd be curious if you could without Googling name even a single town that was neither a Tory seat nor a Tory target?

Here you go Aimless, to help you so you don't need to Google it, here's a map of the 2019 election results. That should help narrow it down. Identify please the excluded towns that the Tories weren't targeting or didn't hold?



I'll give you another hint, the Tories colour on that map is blue and even if a constituency isn't blue doesn't mean it wasn't a target it just means they didn't win it.

[Aimless]

You were wrong then and you are just as wrong now. You should be looking at the distribution after the 2017 election, and you should be looking at seats where the margin of victory was small. It is noteworthy that it was only among those choices from the medium- and low-priority tiers where ministers exercised their discretion that we saw the extremely skewed distribution; for decisions made according to officials' recommendations, based on clear and pre-defined criteria, the distribution was very different. It is even more noteworthy that Jenrick's own town was an outlier, wrt margin. The final paragraph of the article is, of course, a Ukraine-style smoking gun.

As for your laughable claim that you read everything posted here, you and I both know that you're not a careful reader; you typically don't read your own articles particularly closely, and you are even lazier when it comes to reading source material provided by other people. The most charitable explanation for your professed belief that you read properly is that you don't know how to read properly.

[RandBlade]

No you are the one who is wrong. Do you have a clue what percentage of seats in England were either Tory-held or a majority under 10,000 in 2017?

Do you have a clue what percentage of town seats in England were either Tory-held or a majority under 10,000 in 2017?

Can you name a single town that was neither Tory held nor a majority over 10,000 in 2017?

The final paragraph is politics. Tory party policy will only happen if Tories win the election, no shit Sherlock. If the Tories lost the election then Labour Party Policies would have happened instead

[Aimless]

No you are the one who is wrong. Do you have a clue what percentage of seats in England were either Tory-held or a majority under 10,000 in 2017?

First of all, you must concede that the results of the 2019 election are not relevant to this discussion; the towns were selected prior to the 2019 election, and the scandal was first reported before the 2019 election. It was characterized as scandalous on the basis of an appropriate comparison to the results of the 2017 election. The distribution after the 2017 election is the appropriate comparator. Using the results of the 2019 election to show that nothing strange occurred here is like saying that results of a study were not affected by selection bias during inclusion based only on a cursory look at the results in the biased sample. It's like concluding that electoral fraud didn't occur because the outcome of the election proved that the winner was overwhelmingly more popular. It's like concluding that atrial fibrillation doesn't cause stroke because most people with atrial fibrillation don't have strokes. From a logical perspective, your reasoning wrt the 2019 results are—to use the formal term—moronic.

In 2017, just over 200 constituencies were won with majorities under 10k—roughly half of those with majorities under 5k—and just over half of those ~200 were won by Tories. However, 3/4 constituencies containing towns MPs selected at their discretion had majorities < 5k. Almost all constituencies containing selected towns were either Tory-held or truly marginal; practically all selected constituencies with large margins >5k were Tory held. In other words, the discretionary selection very disproportionately favoured the electoral goals of the Conservative party.

Do you have a clue what percentage of town seats in England were either Tory-held or a majority under 10,000 in 2017?

Roughly 70% of all constituencies were either won by Tories or won with majorities under 10k. More than two thirds of those had majorities over 5k. You'll have to count the number of towns in them to get percentages at the town level.

Can you name a single town that was neither Tory held nor a majority over 10,000 in 2017?

Almost 100 constituencies with margins under 10k were won by parties other than Con, just over half with majorities under 5k. You're free to count the number of towns in those constituencies; it's a positive number. Choose any town you wish from among those to answer your uninteresting question yourself.

The final paragraph is politics. Tory party policy will only happen if Tories win the election, no shit Sherlock. If the Tories lost the election then Labour Party Policies would have happened instead

It's strange that you cannot distinguish between funding for a low-priority town being contingent on the Tories winning a majority overall, and funding for that same low-priority town being contingent on a specific MP winning in that town. It's almost as if you're not a careful reader.

[RandBlade]

First of all, you must concede that the results of the 2019 election are not relevant to this discussion; the towns were selected prior to the 2019 election, and the scandal was first reported before the 2019 election. It was characterized as scandalous on the basis of an appropriate comparison to the results of the 2017 election. The distribution after the 2017 election is the appropriate comparator. Using the results of the 2019 election to show that nothing strange occurred here is like saying that results of a study were not affected by selection bias during inclusion based only on a cursory look at the results in the biased sample. It's like concluding that electoral fraud didn't occur because the outcome of the election proved that the winner was overwhelmingly more popular. It's like concluding that atrial fibrillation doesn't cause stroke because most people with atrial fibrillation don't have strokes. From a logical perspective, your reasoning wrt the 2019 results are—to use the formal term—moronic.

The 2019 results were an example of targets coming in. You're right that the 2017 were the baseline, though 2019's picture makes clearer including many (not all) of the targets.

In 2017, just over 200 constituencies were won with majorities under 10k—roughly half of those with majorities under 5k—and just over half of those ~200 were won by Tories. However, 3/4 constituencies containing towns MPs selected at their discretion had majorities < 5k. Almost all constituencies containing selected towns were either Tory-held or truly marginal; practically all selected constituencies with large margins >5k were Tory held. In other words, the discretionary selection very disproportionately favoured the electoral goals of the Conservative party.

You haven't demonstrated disproportionality since you're jumping from "percentage of constituencies" to "percentage of towns chosen". Constituencies != towns.

Roughly 70% of all constituencies were either won by Tories or won with majorities under 10k. More than two thirds of those had majorities over 5k. You'll have to count the number of towns in them to get percentages at the town level.

Precisely, 70% is a baseline if the whole country were randomly even, so I am assuming you would accept that 70% is entirely reasonable and proportionate would you not?

But constituencies are not random. Labour are strongest in the cities: large cities like London, Manchester, Liverpool, especially as show by the map, but also smaller cities like Preston, Bradford, Sunderland, Bristol etc too

Almost 100 constituencies with margins under 10k were won by parties other than Con, just over half with majorities under 5k. You're free to count the number of towns in those constituencies; it's a positive number. Choose any town you wish from among those to answer your uninteresting question yourself.

Its a miniscule number. The Tories were competitive in almost every single town in the country.

It's strange that you cannot distinguish between funding for a low-priority town being contingent on the Tories winning a majority overall, and funding for that same low-priority town being contingent on a specific MP winning in that town. It's almost as if you're not a careful reader.

Or I'm skeptical about the snippet of quotes allegedly reported. When campaigning for a candidate it is standard practice to refer to that candidate being elected.

[Aimless]

The 2019 results were an example of targets coming in. You're right that the 2017 were the baseline, though 2019's picture makes clearer including many (not all) of the targets.

No, it literally does the exact opposite of making the issue clearer. Unless you mean to say that it suggests—circumstantially—that their corrupt scheme worked, which is probably not your intention.

You haven't demonstrated disproportionality since you're jumping from "percentage of constituencies" to "percentage of towns chosen". Constituencies != towns.

If you have evidence that the distribution of potentially eligible towns differ so greatly between Labour-held, Tory-held and various marginal seats that it would explain these disparities, that's not a compelling objection to the finding that towns that were elected at MPs' discretion—as opposed to towns that were selected on the basis of pre-defined objective criteria—were disproportionately likely to be in Tory-held or truly marginal constituencies.

Precisely, 70% is a baseline if the whole country were randomly even, so I am assuming you would accept that 70% is entirely reasonable and proportionate would you not?

But constituencies are not random. Labour are strongest in the cities: large cities like London, Manchester, Liverpool, especially as show by the map, but also smaller cities like Preston, Bradford, Sunderland, Bristol etc too

That's not particularly relevant to the scandal; the great majority of those constituencies had, as I said in the part of my post that you quoted, margins over 5k—whereas the greater majority of towns selected by MPs at their discretion were in constituencies that had margins under 5k.

Its a miniscule number. The Tories were competitive in almost every single town in the country.

The definition of the word "town" is not formally defined, but, for the purposes of this scheme, the NAO gives a number of roughly 1,000 towns that were potentially eligible, from which the pool was created and the winners eventually selected. Since almost 100 constituencies with margins under 10k—or roughly 50 with margins under 5k—were won by parties other than Con in 2017, and there is presumably at least 1 town in each constituency, your claim that it was "a miniscule number" is implausible. The point you're trying to get at is especially irrelevant because towns that were chosen by predefined, objective criteria were much more likely to be in Labour-held constituencies than were the towns selected by MPs. It is precisely the difference in distributions between the towns that were selected more objectively and the towns that were selected at MPs' discretion that is telling.

Or I'm skeptical about the snippet of quotes allegedly reported. When campaigning for a candidate it is standard practice to refer to that candidate being elected.

It is, however, not standard to say that a sought-after prize is contingent on a specific person being elected—esp. when you're the person in charge of choosing who gets the prize.

[Aimless]

Btw, Brits who read stuff—Steely, Tim, Gogo—can you help confirm or refute or nuance the specific factual claims in the latest instalment of #TheWeekInTory?

https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/s...15097216315392

[RandBlade]

If you have evidence that the distribution of potentially eligible towns differ so greatly between Labour-held, Tory-held and various marginal seats that it would explain these disparities, that's not a compelling objection to the finding that towns that were elected at MPs' discretion—as opposed to towns that were selected on the basis of pre-defined objective criteria—were disproportionately likely to be in Tory-held or truly marginal constituencies.

You keep missing the fact that almost all towns are likely to be in Tory-held or marginal (if you define marginal as sub-10k) constituencies.

That's not particularly relevant to the scandal; the great majority of those constituencies had, as I said in the part of my post that you quoted, margins over 5k—whereas the greater majority of towns selected by MPs at their discretion were in constituencies that had margins under 5k.

That's not true. You have not cited any evidence that towns, as opposed to constituencies in general, are not representative of this.

The definition of the word "town" is not formally defined, but, for the purposes of this scheme, the NAO gives a number of roughly 1,000 towns that were potentially eligible, from which the pool was created and the winners eventually selected. Since almost 100 constituencies with margins under 10k—or roughly 50 with margins under 5k—were won by parties other than Con in 2017, and there is presumably at least 1 town in each constituency, your claim that it was "a miniscule number" is implausible. The point you're trying to get at is especially irrelevant because towns that were chosen by predefined, objective criteria were much more likely to be in Labour-held constituencies than were the towns selected by MPs. It is precisely the difference in distributions between the towns that were selected more objectively and the towns that were selected at MPs' discretion that is telling.

You're wrong. Categorically 100% provably wrong. A great proportion of constituencies are in cities not towns. There is not a town in every constituency. London alone has 73 MPs.

You've not demonstrated a meaningful difference in distribution between objectively chosen and MPs discretion town or constituencies. Just simply said "look these are marginal or Tory" which applies to almost every town in the country.

You also seem to be getting confused what the issue is. The issue was the claim that towns were either Tory or marginal, you're now referring to non-Tory marginals but those were included within "Tory or marginal". It is the same (over 10k) seats that you need to look at and those are by and large not in towns. 42 non-Tory safe (over 10k) seats were in London alone.

[Timbuk2]

Btw, Brits who read stuff—Steely, Tim, Gogo—can you help confirm or refute or nuance the specific factual claims in the latest instalment of #TheWeekInTory?

https://twitter.com/RussInCheshire/s...15097216315392

Lots of dreadful stuff in there, but one stands out.

Twitter Link

I know I'm starting to sound like a broken record, but what I've maintained from the start of this Brexit joke as the biggest threat to the continued well-being of this United Kingdom, is now happening.

America's largest bank is shifting its assets out of the UK, and over to Frankfurt.

As I've mentioned in other threads, other banks are doing likewise.

An extraordinary movement of wealth out of the UK is taking place.

Any spin on this somehow being a good thing from our Brexiteer-in-chief?

[RandBlade]

No it is not a good thing. Hopefully the good outweighs the bad.

[Khendraja'aro]

Hopefully the good outweighs the bad.

Oh, for us it certainly does.

[Aimless]

You keep missing the fact that almost all towns are likely to be in Tory-held or marginal (if you define marginal as sub-10k) constituencies.

No, "almost all towns" were not likely to be in Tory-held constituencies or constituencies with margins below 10k. Just over 200 constituencies in England were either won by Tories or had margins below 10k. The only way your claim can be true is if over 300 constituencies in England contain no towns, which would be surprising given that roughly half the towns selected by the towns fund scheme using pre-defined criteria were Lab-held, and roughly half of the constituencies they were in had margins over 10k.

Half of all constituencies with majorities below 10k had margins below 5k, which is closer to what is traditionally regarded as a marginal seat (10k is not regarded as marginal and I suspect the Times only set that threshold for their analysis to make the weirdness more obvious). Half of all constituencies with margins below 10k were won by parties other than Con. In contrast, 3/4 constituencies containing towns selected at MPs' discretion had margins below 5k. In other words, towns selected at MPs' discretion were considerably more likely to be truly marginal than you'd expect. Just over half of all constituencies with margins between 5-10k were Tory-held; in contrast, practically all constituencies with margins 5-10k, containing towns selected at MPs' discretion, were Tory-held. In other words, towns that were selected at MPs' discretion were considerably more likely to be in constituencies with comfortable Tory margins than you'd expect. Taken together, MPs' decisions were very disproportionately likely to favour Tories' electoral interests.

That's not true. You have not cited any evidence that towns, as opposed to constituencies in general, are not representative of this.

I get the feeling you don't actually know what point it is you're trying to make with this objection.

You're wrong. Categorically 100% provably wrong. A great proportion of constituencies are in cities not towns. There is not a town in every constituency. London alone has 73 MPs.

What I said was:

Since almost 100 constituencies with margins under 10k—or roughly 50 with margins under 5k—were won by parties other than Con in 2017, and there is presumably at least 1 town in each constituency, your claim that it was "a miniscule number" is implausible.

I was referring to the set of 100 constituencies with margins under 10k and 5k, respectively, which you might have been able to infer from the first part of the sentence of which you emphasized the second part. Only ~10 London constituencies had majorities under 10k, so that doesn't really help your case all that much.

You've not demonstrated a meaningful difference in distribution between objectively chosen and MPs discretion town or constituencies. Just simply said "look these are marginal or Tory" which applies to almost every town in the country.

In the high-priority group, the share of con-held and lab-held constituencies was almost equal, with a slight advantage for lab. Fewer than half were truly marginal, with margins <5k. In other words, the high-priority group differed markedly from the group selected by MPs at their discretion.

You also seem to be getting confused what the issue is. The issue was the claim that towns were either Tory or marginal, you're now referring to non-Tory marginals but those were included within "Tory or marginal". It is the same (over 10k) seats that you need to look at and those are by and large not in towns. 42 non-Tory safe (over 10k) seats were in London alone.

I urge you to re-read what I've written after first reading what you yourself wrote. It will make this much, much easier.

[RandBlade]

Just over 200 constituencies in England were either won by the Tories or had margins below 10k? Are you sure about that?

If that were the case then the Tories would be in opposition. By a very long margin. You're operating under false assumptions. The Tories alone won 296 out of 533 and that's without counting any won by the opposition with margins below 10k.

I was referring to the set of 100 constituencies with margins under 10k and 5k, respectively, which you might have been able to infer from the first part of the sentence of which you emphasized the second part. Only ~10 London constituencies had majorities under 10k, so that doesn't really help your case all that much.

So 10% in London alone. Plus Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Sunderland and every other city in the country?

[Aimless]

Just over 200 constituencies in England were either won by the Tories or had margins below 10k? Are you sure about that?

If that were the case then the Tories would be in opposition. By a very long margin. You're operating under false assumptions. The Tories alone won 296 out of 533 and that's without counting any won by the opposition with margins below 10k.

Right you are, that figure and description slipped through my editing and was in reference to the seats with margins below 10k—just over 200, just under half of which were won by parties other than Con.

So 10% in London alone. Plus Liverpool, Manchester, Bristol, Newcastle, Sunderland and every other city in the country?

A number of areas falling within Liverpool, Greater Manchester and Sunderland were eligible under this scheme. All told, high-priority candidates—which were selected using objective, pre-defined criteria—represented almost 30 Labour constituencies—over half of the constituencies represented in that high-priority group. That is simply not consistent with the suggestion that there were practically no towns in Labour constituencies after the 2017 election. The discrepancies wrt marginality are even more striking—a little less than half of all constituencies represented in the high priority group had margins over 10k, with a little over half of those being below 5k. Even if you only look at Tory seats across England, only a third had margins below 10k—and only 1 in 5 had margins below 5k; in contrast, 3/4 constituencies containing towns selected at MPs' discretion had margins below 5k.

You might be able to charitably explain some of the discrepancy wrt party by arguing that, perhaps the only eligible candidates that were in Labour constituencies were all in the high-priority pool, leaving only towns in Con constituencies in the intermediate- and low-priority pools, but that doesn't explain the discrepancy wrt degree of marginality. You might be able to explain some of that by arguing that those constituencies are simply smaller, but they aren't really much smaller than constituencies with higher margins. The most charitable interpretation is that MPs selected towns that they knew a little about—either personally, or through friends, contacts or lobbying—which might be more likely to be in more Tory-leaning or Tory-held constituencies. It might have been different if MPs had listened to officials' recommendation to meet with mayors of the various towns, but they chose not to.

[RandBlade]

Liverpool, Manchester and Sunderland are cities not towns, though certainly there are towns in the suburbs of those cities. Mine is inbetween Liverpool and Manchester and it is part of the scheme.

There are of course some towns in constituencies that are neither Tory nor marginal but they are a tiny minority of towns. Plus what you seem to be overlooking is that if the high priority towns are disproportionately safe Labour towns (which makes sense because those are some of the most deprived towns) then that means there are even fewer Labour towns left over that could have been chosen by Ministers since they would have been chosen already.

It makes sense that towns chosen after the high priority towns have a different profile to the high priority towns, because if they didn't they would have been the high priority ones in the first place!

[RandBlade]

This is far, far worse than Cummings but will no doubt get a fraction of the coverage.

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