Word reaches me: “Milburn planning a challenge”
May 20th, 2008
Could this bring the Brown’s leadship issue to a head?
Word reaches me that the former Health Secretary and fervent Blairite, Alan Milburn, is planning to mount a leadership bid to topple Gordon Brown in the aftermath of Labour’s likely heavy defeat in the Crewe & Nantwich by-election.
I cannot vouch for the accuracy of this but it comes from somebody I trust who has very close links within the party. Clearly something is going on out there and this weekend would be the ideal time to strike.
Milburn, of course, has never been a friend of Gordon Brown and there were rumours during 2006 and 2007 that he was going run against Gordon to force a proper leadership election.
Whether this is true or not, and I am inclined to believe that it is, there are a number of senior figures within the party who have reason to loathe Gordon. The Prime Minister will be at his weakest in the days after the loss of Crewe and Nantwich and this will be the ideal time to strike.
Andrew Grice in the Independent has also picked up the murmurings but suggests that Charles Clarke would be the stalking horse.
Mike Smithson
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Its pretty clear that Labour cannot win under brown and it is therefore better to get it over with now. I have no idea if Milburn has the required support inside the PLP but they need to depose brown now to have any chance.
Possible that Clarke will be the fall guy and Milburn will attempt to the pick up the pieces after the “civil war” has ended?
I think Charles Clarke falls into the catergory of stalking woolly mammouth !!
2 - with all their respective baggage, I can’t see either of them taking the leadership. This must surely be a stalking horse exercise.
The problem I see with someone like Milburn or Clarke raising there standard is that it would look like a personal thing.
Does Labour have any chance if they change leaders for a second time in this Parliament?
The only thing I can see giving them a chance at the next GE is Unexpected Events improving their fortunes - but if they change leaders again, I would think that would make their position worse before it could get better.
And just how do they set a challenge up?
The Labour Party mechanism looks, based on what people have indicated on here, to make a challenge go from zero to live rather ponderous. Maybe there is something we are missing.
OT Michael Barone yesterday reckoned Obama wouldnt get enough delegate numbers to allow him to declare actual numerical victory tonight. Is this correct?
4. Someone has to take the plunge. If it goes on much longer then the labour party could disappear off the radar altogether!
on C&N, amusing piece on the To-day programme (workers exiting the Bentley works)confirming that the toff rubbish has entirely failed to influence the voters it was intended to.
8 I doubt it
Milburn unlikely to get 70 MPs ?
Mr Milburn did not look all that happy on the segment shown on Channel 4 News last night of the Crewe bye-election when he was asked if he supported Gordon Brown.
I’ve lost track. Is Brown or Milburn New Labour? Or is there such an animal as Blairite New Labour. I know Clarke is Old Labour.
If Brown is New Labour, but just not very good at it, then there may be a temptation to replace him by a more effective New Labourite, though why anyone would think that Milburn would be effective is beyond me. If the problem is that New Labour is a mishmash of policies designed to get the party elected at all costs rather than a convincing political philosophy then surely the Labour Party will want to go back to “Old” Labour, albeit with a snappier title.
11 - well, I can’t see him garnering many female votes…
Still doesn’t answer the ‘how?’ question.
PfP speculates that it would be more in the line of expressing disquiet and stating an intent. Fair enough, I could see that, but it’s not the same as mounting a leadership bid. He could of course announce that he’s planning to mount one, but then people will still ask ‘when’ and ‘how’, and his answers will be - what?
For all the dislike of GB in some parts of the Labour Party, his position as leader is unassailable providing he wants to stay. I doubt that a challenge from a bitter ex-Blairite will do him much harm either - it smacks too much of sour grapes. And for all Brown’s ham-fistedness recently, there’ll be too many memories of Milburn’s less than impressive time leading Labour’s 2005 campaign to give him much positive support.
And that really is the key question - who. Because it surely won’t be Milburn or Clarke. Heseltine was a credible challenger to Thatcher in 1990, not just because he could challenge, but because he was clearly a potential PM and offered solutions to getting the Conservative Party out of the hole it was in at the time. There is no comparable figure in Labour.
I am watching the ‘leaders at the next election’ market. Brown & Cameron may well soon start to offer some value (currently about evens), though it’s an irritatingly long timescale market.
If the knife-fights are already beginning, they must be expecting a real disaster in C&N.
I doubt if Milburn can save them.
Anyone spotted the BT engineers chez Millburn ???
It seems unlikely that a leadership challenge could be mounted, and a serious effort to depose Brown mounted, without the government collapsing altogether.
16 - Didn’t Milburn get squished by Brown as election guru in 2005?
Milburn has been doing some interesting interviews in the North East about future directions for Labour and Centre/left parties in general.
I dont know the link but if Paul Linford or Hopi Sen are around they could probably point them out.
Dont forget on Inheritance tax/social mobility both Milburn and Byers have been proved very prescient , they could argue that if GB had listend to them more then some of the ‘opportunistic’ debacle’s of the last 6 months could have been avoided.
11. I think even with Milburn as leader, Labour would get more than that at the GE.
19, quite, after Milburn’s campaign was less than stellar.
Whether this is true or not, the news can only undermine Brown’s position further. BTW Mike, have you sourced this rumour from someone on PB?
Can`t see Milburn making any difference to be honest - the fact is there is a real desire to punish Nulabour for rising prices ,immigration , crime etc and a change of leader will make little difference - the real dilemna for British Politics is that this punitive urge outweighs any perceived policys that the Conservatives may have which appear also circumstantial to the plot .
Makes sense. When I saw the Tories peddling some nickel and dime story about the NHS it reminded me that Labour have a positive story to tell and also what the NHS would have looked like had the Cameron’s lot been in government. Yet no one is telling the story and this has to be down to poor leadership and communications. Nothing will focus minds like a leadership contest. Bring it on and pile your money on Miliband!
just wondered how the polls would react to a challenge to Gordon if it was made clear on the day before polling ie tomorrow). It would be helpful to Labour would it not , if only in the short term?
where do i sign up to the ’save gordon’ campaign?
Reposted (slightly adapted) from previous thread: No one has a clue how Labour can re-brand itself. Brown’s 10p fiasco has tarnished “moderate Labour” as a force for social justice for a generation and in any case there is, sadly, neither economic justification nor any widespread desire for a fairer society. The class system that created Labour is part of history, so a move to the left offers no solution either
As to the mechanism: the TUs have the power to call a special conference to pass a vote of “no confidence” and so trigger a leadership election. (Such a conference could of course suspend the Party’s constitution to return the election to MPs if that were thought desirable in the interests of an expeditious process.) A “no confidence” motion could also be tabled for a PLP meeting, of course, and I suspect this might be the route Milburn has in mind: if he, Clarke and Reid were to propose one, it would be difficult for Tony Lloyd not to place it on the agenda.
In those circumstances, I’d expect Brown “to do a Major” and resign as leader of the Party (but not as Prime Minister) and offer himself as a candidate. It did Major no good, and it won’t help Brown or his Party much either. But it’s probably the least bad option - a quarter of the 2005 vote as haemorraged since Brown took over, and they do nothing>? Doesn’t sound like human nature to me…
The best way of ensuring Labour is defeated at the coming GE is for GB to scrape home in any leadership ballot. He is already wounded and that is unlikely to heal.
A challenge that he was able to just defeat would leave him even more battered, the Labour party even more divided and with no more options left.
None of the potential leaders have the strength of purpose or personality to turn this around.
what was that song from Avenue Q…? Oh yes - Schadenfreude….
15 Brown’s position is certainly not unassailable. It is the weakest of any modern PM - much weaker even than John Major in 1995. He has not been elected by anybody, his past conduct means that he cannot appeal to the Party on grounds of loyalty, and his poll ratings (again in contrast to Major) are much weaker than Labour’s ratings as a Party. Once MPs start calling on him to go - as they surely will - who will go out there to defend him? Apart from a small and diminishing band of acolytes at Westminster he has no personal following - he has never created one as he has not submitted himself to the Party for election to anything. No one comes forward on this site to defend him and even on Labour blogs there is nothing more than a few routine and unconvincing appeals to loyalty. If Milburn or Clarke comes out publicly against him they will be followed by the McDonnells and Meachers and the Hoeys and Fields and by many ordinary party members. Brown’s premiership will collapse within days.
Brown’s campaign in Crewe clearly shows he fears his own party more than the Conservatives. His ‘Toffs’ and ‘Tories Soft’ themes are designed to appeal to Labour activists.
Labour faces a certain slow and painful death with Brown as leader. They might escape the worst if they execute him. It must be worth a try, as far as the Party is concerned. They would be mad to allow Gordon another second as he drags the party’s reputation through the floorboards.
The trouble is that Milburn and Clark will offer no real change. Labour’s polling is unlikely to recover, but it just might stop it getting any worse.
If Labour open up a real leadership election, then another leader with eurosceptic credentials might win, and send the Party in any entirely new direction. That might work. Kate Hoey?
http://hopisen.wordpress.com/2008/03/14/outriders-no-more/
This has links to some of the Milburn interviews.
Brown may not be able to win a majority at the next general election but the one way of guaranteeing that Labour will lose is by presenting itself as a divided party. These Blairites have to let Brown lose then strike….surely?
29. Indeed, the only person supporting Brown in recent days on here has been a troll from another site.
30, it’s hard to be sure whether keeping or ejecting Brown is worse.
If they try to oust him and he fights it, the situation will be drawn out with the worst sort of attention on Labour. Then there’s the issue of a replacement.
There are a few who could do better, and even some who would do worse (Balls). Plus, would they be crowned or actually elected?
I reckon if Labour don’t knife Gordon this year they shouldn’t (until they lose in 2010 obviously, but he’d probably jump then).
My Labour activist colleague (although he thinks Brown a complete disaster and always has) has received a desperate email begging for money to enable lots of leaflets to be printed overnight. Are the brothers really that hard up?
Apparently “Tasmsin Dunwoody is the only person who will work 24 hours a day for the people of Crew, just like her mother” is the soppy tag line.
Nooooo! Tories need Gordon Brown where he is! He’s our major asset!
What happened to the rumour that a ex minister was defecting I read on here.
Hope this piece of information is a bit better.
Latest C&N odds:
Tories 1.08
Labour 10.5
LDs 120
Other 270
Do the various gambling sorts see any value in there at all? The poll numbers would seem to make the Tories about a 1/25 shot, not the current 1/12, but betting at such skinny odds can be quite nerve-wracking…
My own take on it is that if Brown were to fall, Milburn would be the best option for Labour. Because he falls in between the generations, he can offer top-level experience combined with relative freshness. All the younger candidates lack gravitas and “presence,” whilst all the older alternatives are too shop-soiled. Alone among the potential contenders, Milburn has demonstrated an ability to think outside the box about the party’s future.
35 Given that his personal poll ratings are behind those of the party I suspect that the answer most MPs will come to is that it’s best to get rid of him. That is certainly the opinion of the unscientific random sample of activists that I have spoken to about it.
9 It will work when the Eton cabal are in power.
Cameron needs to widen his cabinets range or it will seem to many a throw back to the old boy network.
As they would be asked repeatedly if they were in touch.
38 Andy
To paraphrase the legendary JP McManus, ‘If you have twelve, why do you need one?’
40, I’d agree if you could wave a magic wand and have a new leader. But there’s the issue of persuading him to leave or forcing him out and the potential bloodletting of an election to consider.
39. ’shop-soiled’, what a delightful expression.
43 - If this were ancient Rome they would quite literally knife him, probably on the floor of hte Commons.
Can someone (preferably a Labour support) tell me which policies they would change and what to in order to recover?
17. Portillo could just rent him some office space. No need for engineers.
ARE YOU ASKING FOR A CHALLENGE? I expect Milburn is planning something just like this:
http://www.homestarrunner.com/20×6vs1936.html
I think I claim credit for pointing out Milburn rather than Miliband as the Blairite challenger apart from the nothing to hold him back factor he also comes across as human on TV unlike Miliband say.
48: Wouldn’t asking Gordon to leave quietly for the good of the party be better than an out right challenge?
49, I’m not so sure. True Miliband is a geeky oik, but Milburn always seems odious to me.
Straw, Denham or Cruddas or the best options for Labour, which probably guarantees they won’t get the job.
It’s not going to happen. Labour are stuck with Brown for the duration.
Interesting how quickly things move. A couple of months ago an article here about likely successors to Brown didn’t even mention Milburn as a contender, anyone know how his odds have changed?
I don’t see how Milburn (or Charles Clakre for that matter) could get the required 70 names to back him. I don’t believe the Blairites have enough support in the Parliamntery party. If they did, surely Blair wouldn’t have been forced out early in the first place?
[46] Jon, see my post [28]. The basic problem for Labour is that it has historically existed to promote social justice. However hamfistedly Labour governments in the past may have gone about it, neither their opponents of the far left or the right have suggested that they have actually reduced fairness in our society.
The basic problem is that progressive taxation is no longer doable - the rich are more mobile than ever before: “left” politics as it has been understood since at least the days of the Newcastle Programme is no longer an option. Even the idea that we can educate ourselves in staying competitive in the world of global capitalism is a busted flush - other countries have schools and academies, too. Political choice is now between more or less authoritarianism, slightly more or slightly less racism. Those of us who find such dishes equally unpalatable are out of luck.
Labour’s only hope is to operate on the assumption that the problem is personality not policy. Whether they can find anyone who will resonate in the way Blair did and Cameron does is the $64 question.
46 - Not a Labour supporter, but I’ve posted this programme before:
“My prescription for Labour (albeit under PM Straw, after Gordon Brown resigns for ‘health reasons’) was very straightforward:
1) Kill 42-days detention without charge and the ID card programme (the latter on techincal and cost grounds to save face)
2) Offer a Lisbon Treaty referendum, and a pan-UK devolution referendum if returned at the next election (more powers to Welsh Assembly, independence for Scotland, parliament for England). Cameron cannot support the final two, but will be made to look bad opposing the Scottish one in Scotland, and the English one in England.
3) Stem the expansion of postal voting, and establish a cross-party panel to look into political donations - perhaps limit donations from non-domiciled individuals in return for capping union donations as well. This would stop the Tories getting too much from the wealthy, but also rescue Labour from having to kow tow to the Unions.
4) Raise the tax-free allowance to £8,000, but raise 20% up to 22% again. Also, raise minimum wage to £7.20 in London. Unions will love you, low earners will return to you.
5) Put in temporary strictures on permanent immigration (non EU for legal reasons) until a 6-month investigation comes up with cross-party proposals. Not a permanent policy - just a halt to massive inward migration until the public has regained confidence in the system.
THEN CALL AN OCTOBER ELECTION, BEFORE THE PUBLIC ARE SICK OF THE SIGHT OF YOU.
I think this would dent the Tories’ momentum, and under Straw, they could recover to a Hung Parliament. He is associated with the war, but that will not count too strongly against him 5 1/2 years on. There are other issues to worry about, and the Tory leader was for it too.
The immigration one is the tricky one. I am generally quite in favour of immigration, though extremely concerned about the lack of controls. My point is, even if (like me) you are not exactly a member of MigrationWatch, the public’s confidence in the government’s ability to manage immigration is at a low ebb.
We need a period of strictures as tight and firm as the law allows, to restore public faith in the system. That means proper border security, and a much improved records-management system. Over time, this can be loosened again should that be the will of the people, but we need a moratorium into how we manage migration, because no one thinks what we have is working.
I think this programme would help Labour in key areas that it has been weak. Immigration, support for the low-paid, civil liberties, corruption, and referenda on constitutional issues like the EU and Scotland. Negate, or at least reduce, Labour’s negatives in these areas, and the argument is switched to Health, Education and Economic management, and I don’t think people would give the Tories significant leads on any of those issues. I think this programme would stop the next election from being a bloodbath - it just needs Gordon to go.”
My sources also indicate that Milburn is likely to be putting up a challenge. My guess is that Clarke is an alternative or maybe both will have a go, unless of course the polls are wrong and Ms Dunwoody pulls off a good result in C&N. (In this context ‘a good result’ would be anything less than a complete and utter drubbing.)
The question for all punters is how does this affect betting strategies? At present, life is blissfully easy. You just buy blue and sell red on every conceivable market and keep doing so until you have punted every last penny you possess or can borrow. It gets more complicated if we have a Leadership election.
My guess is it would put a temporary halt to the tail spin. It would therefore be a good time to realise some profits - say about half.
There is just a possibility that the Party would replace Gord with somebody a bit sensible - Denham, Straw, or possibly Cruddas would have a chance of stopping the rot. I still can’t see them pulling the Party out of it - too much damage has been done - but at least it might steady at about current levels.
It is of course equally possible that the replacement will be somebody utterly daft - Miliband (either), Milburn or (Saints preserve us) the blessed Harriet. It may seem fanciful, but a Party that was daft enough to wave Gordon through unopposed and elected Ms Harman to DL is daft enough to do anything. It is all reminiscent of the Tories in its ‘anybody but Clarke’ days and you just don’t know what it is going to do next.
At any sign that it will replace Gordon with somebody worse (difficult, but not impossible) just buy back into to blue again, and sell red of course - if you can find a buyer.
Good luck punters!
What is happening now is standard third term behaviour. As the Tories found out, things go wrong in the third term. Leaders are disposed of, in the hope of a fourth term, only to find out, the one thing worse than a third term is a fourth one.
It will be interesting to see what Labour will do in the event of a C&N disaaster. Governments have survived bad by-election results, have even gone on to win the subsequent GE, but I feel this by-election may be a catalyst.
46
Policies are not that important, voters don’t believe politicians anyway, witness Dave and his, ‘Taxcuts are our longterm objective’
‘Ah well! in the long term we’re all dead’
[55] The “70 votes rule” only applies once there is a vacancy. To create one, a “no confidence” vote must pass either the PLP or a special conference, unless Brown “does a Major” and offers himself for re-election as Party leader.
38 - dez, I think there’s a qualitative difference between Mike’s rumours and Martin Day’s. But the proof of the pudding etc.
39 - Andy, Leave well alone, I think. If there is any value it is probably in the 1.08, however.
42. Nice try, Des, but the ‘Eton Cabal’ as you call them are a figment of your imagination. The only other Old Etonian in the Shadow Cabinet is Oliver Letwin. If you want to go down the ‘public school cabal’ route, you’d have a few more options, but only as many as you have in Labour’s Cabinet. You’d also have to clamber over the ’state school cabal’ led by David Davis and William Hague, who are two of the most influential members of that Shadow Cabinet.
Labour activists are living in the wrong century. Some in the 20th, but others - like Des - in the 19th.
25
What story is there to tell about the NHS other than truck loads of cash being thrown at it to achieve lower productivity and dirtier hospitals?
Interesting, Mr Smithson, very interesting… !
I hate to say I told you so, but I told you so:
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/12/has-icm-completely-ruined-nicks-first-by-election/ (post 182)
http://politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2008/05/11/double-carpet-on-sunday-3/ (post 121)
59 What is happening now is standard third term behaviour. As the Tories found out, things go wrong in the third term. Leaders are disposed of, in the hope of a fourth term, only to find out, the one thing worse than a third term is a fourth one.
(a) There’s no such thing as “standard third term behaviour”, on account of insufficient sample size;
(b) Even if there was, isn’t the change of leader supposed to be in response to mid-term blues, rather than the cause of them?
60. Thanks. So, its even harder, then? Not only will Milburn (or whoever) have to get 70 votes to be able to run, they first have to engineer and win a no confidence vote. What chance of Labour of Milburn winning that?
The British electorate is no longer prepared to choose between lower taxes and high quality public services. It demands of its politicians the ability to deliver both
Phillip Hammond MP
That’s the epitaph that will be engraved on the gravestone of the next Conservative Government and every government that follows it.
European style public services, American taxes! Good Luck!
67. And if Brown did lose a no conficence vote, surely he would have the option open to him of calling a general election, and taking the whole party down with him? Labour MP’s should be very careful about how much they push Brown….
60 - Rule 4B/2b/i of the Labour constitution says that in a vacancy nominees must have nominations from 12.5% of the PLP
Rule 4B/2b/ii states that when no vacancy the nomination threshold is 20%.
68. We now have American style public services and European levels of taxation….
62. Indeed, and Oliver is not exactly an archetype English public schoolboy either.
Remember this abortive leadership challenge…
http://www.the2020vision.org.uk
Waybackwhen
http://web.archive.org/web/20070527223029/www.the2020vision.org.uk/index.php/home/
Roger is right in that Milliband is the leader Labour will have - I really don’t see Milburn leading the party as I tink he would be a divisive figure - anyway he belongs in the tory party he just hasn’t realised it yet.
Milliband is also not stupid enough to try and overthrow Gordon - Labour will lose the next election and Milliband will take on the role of rebuilder-in-chief.
I think he has grown in stature since becoming foreign sec; I no longer think of him as a Gap year student as he seems to be developing well as a coalition builder and effective minister.
Labour are stuck with Brown and the possible outcomes range from losing their overall majority to being completely crushed; with 2 years and 1 week to go until the next election Gordon 2.0 as seen at Google Zeitgeist can still recover some ground.
Coldstone, I refer you to Wandsworth Borough Council, celebrating 30 years of Conservative control this year, with a unique record of low taxes and consistently high levels of service. You could also take a peek at Hammersmith and Fulham over the past two years, but I suspect that will not be evidence enough for you.
Fascinating, though like many others I can’t quite see a real challenge happening: the mechanism is so opaque. The outcome so obscure.
How long would it take? Calling special conferences? Campaigning and voting? Let’s say it happenhs, and Brown is wounded and resigns. Then you have to have another election, to find a real leader (surely not Milburn - too cocky and laddish - and I should know). By the time it’s all done the General Election is six months away and Labour is polling around 15%.
But they might just do it. Because Labour really are in a kind of mentally deranged state. Brief Reactive Pscychosis is, I think, the medical term. A relatively short but intense period of hallucinations, delusions, and bizarre behaviour, induced by severe adverse experiences - that can lead to self harm and suicide.
Hospitalisation is recommended.
The 2020 Vision: towards a progressive century
Mission Statement for The 2020 Vision
The 2020 Vision
February 26th, 2007
Politics is about the future not the past. After ten years in office Labour needs a new vision and new policies if we are to successfully meet the future challenges faced by our country and the wider world. Winning future elections requires us to renew ourselves intellectually, politically and organisationally.
Renewal cannot happen behind closed doors. It requires an open participatory debate in the Party, amongst our supporters and with the wider public about the future direction for New Labour. Ten years ago we had a clear vision about direction. And in those ten years we have done much to make both Britain and the world better and fairer. We take pride in what has been achieved under Tony Blair’s leadership.
Now the world has moved on. It is the right time not just to take stock but to set out the new ideas that can give New Labour renewed momentum. A Conservative victory would be bad for Britain so we believe that we should have the courage to take the radical centre ground in British politics by setting out a compelling vision for the future rather than simply relying on what we have achieved in the past.
The 2020 Vision is about looking to the world a decade or more ahead. It is about identifying the new challenges the world faces and the new policies needed to implement progressive values. By modernising our means but staying true to our ends we can make the twenty first century a progressive one.
We believe in radical reform. For us reform is for a progressive purpose – to make for a fairer society. We look to policies that empower individual citizens, reward aspiration, spread opportunity, tackle intolerance and inequality, provide security, protect the environment and that are internationalist not isolationist. And we look to a style of politics that is based on dialogue, debate and devolved power.
The 2020 Vision is an open forum for individuals and organisations who believe in New Labour’s renewal. The 2020 Vision aims to facilitate a wide-ranging debate about the future of progressive modernisation. Through an interactive website, publications and regional and national events The 2020 Vision will seek to encourage the development of ideas and policies that can contribute to progressive reform.
Renewal cannot be about going back. It is about moving forward. That is what The 2020 Vision aims to do.
O/T
Very good paper about the gap between facts and feeling in Obama’s foreign policies toward Islamic Evil:
Obama’s Unique Appeasement Style, http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/05/obamas_unique_appeasement_styl.html
61, I would agree Aaron, however nearly a whole thread was taken up with Martin`s rumour.
58
I would think they would go with Harriet,as that would give them a leader who attended the most expensive girls public school,her Auntie is a Duchess and Dad was an Admiral,
At least they would be able to ‘out toff’ Cameron and would also have a great supporter of grammar schools.
77. I notice the 2020 Vision website is no longer available - http://www.the2020vision.org.uk/
81 It was closed just after the leadership election was concluded last year. Funny that!
The way back when machine version makes very interesting reading.
77. Is that a spoof? Surely no-one could assemble such a selection of empty slogans and hackneyed phrases and expect to be taken seriously.
75
Today Wandsworth tomorrow the world.
Is that the Wandsworth Council who when asked how they had solved their problems a Wandsworth Councillor replied, ‘Simple we exported them’
I shall watch with some delight, as Dave and his pals see their, ‘Good Intentions’ wrecked on the rocks of reality.
I shall also delight, in coming on to this site, and having a bloody good laugh, I’m sorry I have to wait, (or perhaps not) two years.
82 - Alan Milburn is possibly the most ambitious man in Parliament, which really is quite an accolade.
o/t - error in this beeb article. As far as I’m aware Nick Soames isn’t a ’sir’.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7408912.stm
77. This paragraph from the 2020 bollock-fest makes interesting reading:
“We look to policies that empower individual citizens.. And we look to a style of politics that is based on dialogue, debate and devolved power.”
Written, of course, by toad-faced arch-europhile Charles Clarke, one of the architects of Labour’s Big European Referendum Lie.
So tell us, fatty Clarke, how does denying people a vote, that you promised, on the European Constitution - how does that square with “empowering individial citizens”? Eh?
And handing over still more powers to a corrupt and unelected bureaucracy, in the imperial capital of Brussels, how does that square with your apparent yearning for “more devolved power”?
This is the problem with Labour and the left. They talk the talk, but in reality they are greasy, ugly, mendacious careerists. And after all the mighty fibs on everything from immigration to tax to the non-election to Europe, the public now knows this.
So they could kick out Brown and elect a clone of Abraham Lincoln crossed with Rupert Brooke and Charlemagne, and they’d still lose. Because of their record of lies.
84. I’d love to know where you got that quote from, but it’s easy to counter with the annual quote from the Audit Commission that ranks the Borough as No 1 in London for services across the board.
84
Seriously your not laughing already at the current clown,whatever happened to his compass?
83: ‘Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ ‘Education, education, education’ ‘Whiter than white’
86. but the driver he now has to employ calls him sir….
86. If you’re the eldest son of a Baronet (as I believe Soames is) then you are entitled to use the title “Sir”.
85 Interesting names showing their support on the 2020 site: Mandleson ,Gisela Stewart, Frank Field, Alun Michael, Nick Palmer…
91 - People who drive me call me ’sir’ but doesn’t mean I have a knighthood or a baronetcy.
A fascinating website but made amusing by the reference to 2020 - we have had this as stated government policy here in Trinidad for yonks to which some of us ask how nice 1919 would be (1919 is also a good rum )…………incidentally having left the UK 5 years ago I guess I’m out of touch but I do know what my chums……accountants, lawyers, builders, soldiers, teachers etc are saying is wrong:
1. too many immigrants
2. too much tax
3.govt waste
4. govt lies
On that basis I would hope Brown stays and takes the Nulabs to the biggest disaster ever. BTW is the BNP lady’s handle really that? What a superb name……….better get back to the 1919
88
It was reported at the time.
If you are honestly trying to convince me, that you can compare the running of two London councils, (one of them a ghetto for very rich people) and Wandsworth, (which I watched change back in the eighties, Youngs gone, sob!!!!) with running the UK, then your asking a lot.
86 - His father was not a baronet
Nick Soames as the son of a life peer is entitled to be called “The Honourable ….”.
97 I think were entitled to call Nick Soames quite a few things.
Could the reason why Gordon is going to be hiding up in Scotland around the time of the by election be so that those coming to suggest he goes don’t have to walk down Downing Street to do it?
Has anyone read Monbiot in the Guardian? Quite incredible - could have come from the Telegraph - coupled with the Toynbee column. one wonders if even they are jumping ship. Last para. for flavour - “Save this government? I would sooner give money to the Malarial Mosquito Conservation Project.Of all the causes leftist thinkers might support, New Labour must be the least deserving” Of course, this begs the question- where have you been Mr.Monbiot for the last 5 years? Perhaps Mr.Palmer (and Roger, Coldstone and Mark Senior)would like to comment.
94. I knew I was getting old when the ’sir’s from shop assistants started to outnumber the ’son’s.
Why should a coup and change of leader not be beneficial to the Labour party. History suggests otherwise.
The Tories messily despatched Mrs T and elected an unknown quantity in her place, He had two years before he had to call an election and in that time managed to find the rabbit to pull out of the hat.
63 In 1997 it was common for people to die while waiting for cancer or heart treatment - there were no 2-week referrals. Non life threatening but very painful conditions like hip replacements could easily wait 2 years for surgery (my father was told in 1998 the wait would be 18 months - he was forced to go private). That would not happen in the NHS today. No one is saying that it is perfect, or that every penny is well-spent, but to suggest that there has been no improvement is nonsense.
102 - Yes but it was a ginger bunny called Neil!
103 Too right!
100 - “Of course, this begs the question- where have you been Mr.Monbiot for the last 5 years?”
Monbiot has surely been hostile to New Labour for much longer than 5 years.
62, It seems to me we are back in the 19c in many ways in politics with no party representing hard working people.
A little fly in Conservative paradise !!!!
Now where’s Stewart Jackass MP when you need him ???
97 How do you think the LD’s stand. Yesterday ICM had them only 5 points behind Labour. Are we seeing scores of Red seats in the North come up on the LD radar screen now.
Oopppppps Link :
http://www.peterboroughtoday.co.uk/Register.aspx?ReturnURL=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.peterboroughtoday.co.uk%2Fnews%2FJailed-benefit-cheat-will-be.4095100.jp
Neil 106.Thank you - I only read the Guardian if the headline is interesting(see today’s).Has Monbiot been publishing this sort of stuff for the last 5 years? Seems unlikely.
103. Yes, the NHS has improved. But does it justify the billions spent? That’s the question.
I’m also not at all sure education has got better. Not in urban areas that have suffered the most from Labour’s Campaign of Mass Immigration.
As long as Gordon does the honourable thing “for the good of the party” a leadership contest does not have to be messy. A new leader is the only hope for a lot of Labour MPs to keep their expense accounts at the next General election
79. Dez. “I would agree Aaron, however nearly a whole thread was taken up with Martin`s rumour”
A whole thread taken up with a rumour started by Martin Day?
Now that IS funny!!!
110. Note to the committee - is it really a good idea to lower the level of posts to those coming from the more slavishly partisan posters like Mark Senior? This can’t really be squared with calling other posters ‘creatures’.
114 Roger its true, they were all discussing which ex cabinet member was about to defect last Sunday.
Stewart Jackson already gave his response Jack and he’s quite right
“City MP Stewart Jackson said: “Since his imprisonment he has twice been put forward to be elected by the people of Ravensthorpe and he has been emphatically endorsed.
“He is a hard-working, diligent and committed local councillor and has paid the price for his mistake. As far as I am concerned, he has made recompense for it and should be judged on his record as a whole.”
What’s all the sniping at Stewart… the older generation envious of the young Turks?
113 SeanT, I think the spending was justified. After all it just about brought the UK into line with other EU countries. The Tories exhaustibly proved you don’t get something for nothing.
113 - “I’m also not at all sure education has got better.”
Be honest now Sean, have you looked at any of the data from 1997 and compared it the latest results before drawing conclusions? There’s something to google for yourself for the next 5 minutes or so.
Dez I see you, too, are slipping and sliding into a more polished ‘Tory Toffs’ line. The politics of envy and class left Labour in the cold for nearly two decades.
119. Labour’s childish belief that spending the same amount of money as the EU average would somehow deliver EU-standard healthcare has certainly been tested to destruction. The world just isn’t that simple.
The tragedy is that anyone with an ounce of understanding of these things could have told you this policy would fail a decade ago - we have wasted the last ten years.
78. A good article but ultimately flawed in its conclusions. The Obama camp didn’t defend appeasement, they took issue with the labeling of direct talks as appeasement. This is the absurdity of the entire neocon position on this: anything other than limiting yourself to screaming how Muslim rogue states are evil/monstrous/Nazi is somehow weak or Chamberlainesque. This caricature of regimes as being unwilling to make concessions is as ridiculous for Iran as it was for the USSR. The sabre-rattling only wins support for the hardliners domestically, when what we need to be doing is to paint ourselves as being conciliatory, while taking a very tough position in direct negotiations. That is what led to a breakthrough with North Korea, and that’s what will lead to a breakthrough with Iran.
How ironic it is that it is now the American left which realises the strengths of pragmatic realpolitik, while the right clings to ideological naivety.
118 Test. We’ll all be looking in wonder when Stewart speaks in the Commons on penal reform !!
What is it with Peterborough MP’s ???? one awful hack - the dreadful Helen (is she now a Conservative???) replaced by an MP with all the charm and charisma of a lavatory U bend !!!
Ah well…. can’t expect all Conservative MP’s to have the fine girth and qualities of SOAMES.
119 Jonathan. Any idiot can spend loads of money - its called “keeping up with the Jones’s “.Labour has been doing it incompetently for 10 years.
121 Witan Social justice is still important.
And networks of unfair advantage are still to be fought against.
I will always be against birth rights monarchy included.
124 I see the committee had a party last night so you all have dyspepsia this morning. Usually the duty morning poster stays off the peat water, but what happened last night? Did he go AWOL?
Stewart’s great, Jack, much like yourself. Plenty of room in the big blue tent.
127 Witan. The Committee is in fine fettle but doesn’t see why the Conservatives are above critisism, the more so when it has advocates of such notable quality as the Honourable Gentleman for Peterborough.
I wonder whether MP Tom Watson will be delivering birthday presents up to Scotland this weekend?
The average lifespan of an MP these days is about 12 years, many give up after three terms - especially if they don’t have a front bench career or aren’t in Government.
At this end of the telescope it’s easy to forget that there must be quite a few Labour backbenchers, elected in ‘97, who aren’t all that fussed about the outcome of the next election as they have probably subconsciously decided they won’t be there anyway.
After ten years their pension is locked in; many have other interests and the lure of power has been replaced by the weariness of living a very public life. Also, as your Party becomes unpopular you become the target of scorn. When you have got used to being treated with respect I think this is very difficult to cope with.
These MP’s are going to be increasingly hard to whip in the last two years of the Parliament.
That is certainly the case in the end of the Major government - everyone remembers the ’shocked to lose’ moments like Portillo but forget the many Conservative MP’s who didn’t seem to be all that fussed about it, that was certainly true of Rupert Allason here in Torbay.
I think that, added to the reality hitting many Labour people that a fourth term would be *truly* disasterous for their party in the long run, means that there isn’t the hunger to have a coup.
Brown will lead Labour into the next election.
128 Test. Stewart’s great what ?????
126. ‘Networks of unfair advantage’. Such as?
How about the Crewe and Nantwich Labour Party? Best candidate? I know, how about a Welsh Assembly member who’s just lost her seat after a disastrous re-election campaign, who lives in Haverfordwest and has never lived in the constituency, but occasionally dropped in for a duty visit to her Mum? She sounds perfect.
125,122 Well it’s a lot easier to criticise than do. I’m grateful that Labour rejected the Tories starvation strategy and that people can get their hips replaced quickly.
BTW IMO The problem with the “Tory Toff”s line is this…. Everyone agrees that Cameron, Boris, Timpson, Osbourne are “toff’s”. It’s just that not many people care and fewer see it as a bar on office. “Yes they’re Toffs, so what” seems to be the response. That said, I don’t like the idea that we’re governed by an exclusive elite professional group.
129 - Indeed no-one is beyond criticism not even you!
131 Marcus. Great first sentence Marcus !!! …. no relevance to Torbay there then ?!??!
Dez The problem is the Labour party out of power was only really against power networks they did not control. Blair changed that and tries, successfully, to capture some of those for himself. Brown has lost them all in a few months.
If you are going to demand equality and justice then it has to be for all, otherwise it fails intrinsically as it is an unjust demand.
To attack one group and ignore others who control and benefit by networks of power, you must attack left wingers who abuse union power, the power networks of placemen within the Quango empire and the Labour luvvies milking the state while lecturing us all about the evils of the upper classes. Then, of course, we come to the lack of balance in the devolution settlement. Is that justice?
Its the lack of balance which did for your party before and it will again.
113. I think the NHS is a heck of a lot better for a bit of spending over the last decade or so, and the results will continue to filter through for a lot more than that (the previous decline was based on a lot more than 10 years’ underfunding). The money hasn’t all been spent 100% wisely, but money never is! At least most of the waste has just dispersed within the UK economy. Another example of this is the train network.
“I’m also not at all sure education has got better. Not in urban areas that have suffered the most from Labour’s Campaign of Mass Immigration.”
Do you mean that you think education has improved but that results have got worse in urban areas because of increased immigration? Or that education has coincidentally got worse in areas of significant immigration?
101
Im perfectly happy to comment.
To me what is happening is perfectly normal, as anyone who has any knowledge of British political history must know.
It does not matter which party you support, (or in my case prefer, anyone but the Tories) you have to concede, that events political and economic will always move against the party in office, it always has in the past, it always will in the future.
Knowing that, it amazes me, that anyone would want a third term, in fact, political parties should work hard to ensure two terms, and then work twice as hard, to ensure they, ‘Don’t’ get a third term.
When a new PM walks through the door of No10 for the first time to cheers, its a certainty, that when they walk back out for the last time, it’ll be in tears and too jeers: its when not if!
As anyone who read my posts back in October will know, I urged Brown to go, making it clear, grab a chance at a win, but even losing was preferable to this, he didn’t listen, now he’s paying the price.
OH! from the latest ICM to highlight my point about policies and belief.
The gap has changed less on the issue of which leader is the most honest - Cameron’s advantage was eight points in 2006 and six points now. Neither man does well, suggesting voters do not associate honesty with the leaders of political parties.
135 James. I might be persauded to stretch a point.
128 see 110.
That is +140+ see 110.
114 Exactly. People who think a leadership contest would necessarily be divisive are harking back to the 1990s, when the Tories were poisoned by major policy splits. This is not the case for Labour now. No one seriously supposes we can go back on the changes made under Blair. The last two Labour leadership contests were not at all divisive, and the party rapidly united under the winner. I do not detect any desire amongst party members to have a divisive contest, and there are no die-hard factions akin to the Tory Eurosceptics or Labour’s Trots who were prepared to sacrifice their party on the altar of their prejudices. A new leader is almost certain to have a positive effect on Labour’s ratings.
113 Jonathan “I think the spending was justified. After all it just about brought the UK into line with other EU countries.”
Indeed, in terms of global health spending. However no other european country ridiculously overpays its GPs and other doctors.
If there were a successful challenge and Brown was forced to resign this would mean another unelected PM. I don’t think the country would stand for it.
103 You are right, but talk to front line health professionals and they are very bitter about the massive increase in administrators and paperwork. They all feel that the extra money has largely been wasted. Also, try getting a routine problem dealt with as opposed to emergency or serious problems and you will then wonder if there has been any improvement.
144 Perhaps it will fall to Cameron to break the power of the BMA, just as Thatcher broke the power of the NUM?
131: Marcus, this isn’t about Labour winning the next election any more, we are past that. The choice is between a small Tory majority which makes the election after next winnable for Labour, or a 1997 type landslide that doesn’t.
That is certainly the case in the end of the Major government - everyone remembers the ’shocked to lose’ moments like Portillo but forget the many Conservative MP’s who didn’t seem to be all that fussed about it, that was certainly true of Rupert Allason here in Torbay.
Be fair Marcus, Allason was spending most of his time in Bermuda, shacked up with a 23 year old Norwegian bit of totty, he certainly cared about something: unfortunately for the good people of Torbay, it was shagging!!
58 Interesting PtP. Is it possible that one of your “sources” is PB.com based also?
145- Interestingly enough, a row with doctors (traditional right-wing voters) regarding payment was a major factor in the defeat of Alain Juppé’s surprise defeat in 1997.
134. “That said, I don’t like the idea that we’re governed by an exclusive elite professional group.”
What, like a claque of silly rich narcissistic politically correct Islington lawyers?
Give me the Bully Boys any day. At least with Tory toffs you know they are honestly greedy, and openly ruthless. You also know that they are already rich, so they aren’t as susceptible to corruption as your crew of Labour cockroaches. And, moreover, at least with Tory toffs you know they have an instinctive patriotism - they love their country in a way Labour never can - because the country has given them, the toffs, so much. Noblesse oblige.
Finally: toffs, in their self confidence, are unhindered by absurd nostrums of anti-racism, so they are also unafraid to say Fewer Immigrants Please.
So, yes, give us the toffs, if that is the only choice.
This is the measure of Labour’s epochal failure - you are far, far worse than a bunch of chinless nitwits.
147. Who wouldn’t ?
Why did Brown want the by election result on the day parliament has a recess?
It was the summer 06 recess that enabled Brownites to plot the PPS resignations that greeted Blair.
Another political miscalculation?
58 It gets more complicated if we have a Leadership election.
My guess is it would put a temporary halt to the tail spin. It would therefore be a good time to realise some profits - say about half.
I agree PtP, in fact I suggested as much in the last thread.
150. Plus, Tory sex scandals are a lot more fun than Labour financial ones. The entertainment value of the inevitable sleaze should be taken into consideration.
136. It’s a fact; surprising but true. We always hear about MP’s with twenty, even thirty years in the house but their average length of service is three terms.
146. If labour lose in 2010 I’d be astonished if they didn’t lose again in 2014, one term Governments are very rare.
147. Coldstone, you obviously read more Lib Dem leaflets than was good for you. Allason lost interest in Parliament because it interfered with his burgeoning hobby - a D.I.Y. barrister, or was it because of his writing career?
138. What I mean is non-rich friends of mine have had to move their kids from state schools in London, to private schools, because the state schools are patrolled by gangs of feral S0malian kids with knives.
One impeccably liberal friend of mine described his son’s state school as being “like a zoo”.
Again: Labour Failure, Labour Disaster, Labour Lies.
146 I think that’s fair. That’s esssentially the case for Jack Straw. No one seriously thinks he could actually beat Cameron.
134. “That said, I don’t like the idea that we’re governed by an exclusive elite professional group.”
What, like a claque of silly rich narcissistic politically correct Islington lawyers?
Yup, don’t go in for any clique. One of Labours greatest failures 97-08 is the closed nature of the inner circle, totally against what the people’s party is supposed to be about. Young men in ill fitting suits. Hugely self destructive IMO.
But the toffs are not the answer either. Give them a few years, wait till they age a bit, and they will look like a bunch of anachronistic old buffers.
142 Punter. Tricky for the yellow peril. Tactically they need to consolidate against the Tories in a largely defensive mode and push hard against an unpopular Labour governement where they can.
However in terms of Labour seats there are only around 20 or so that look viable as Lib Dem gains. In some ways the Lib Dems find themselves in a similiar situation as the Alliance in the 80’s, albeit with larger clusters of seats. Elsewhere their support is too thinly spread to mount an effective challenge to Labour in their heartlands. Not unlike the SNP the tipping point is very high for large numbers of Labour seats to fall.
155 - I think Rupert Allason would struggle to revive his political career now whether he was interested in it or not. He was described as “one of the most dishonest witnesses I have ever seen” by the judge in a 2001 copyright case against Random House and later received a criminal conviction (six month suspended sentence) for failing to pay costs in that case.
74. Labour are stuck with Brown and the possible outcomes range from losing their overall majority to being completely crushed; with 2 years and 1 week to go until the next election Gordon 2.0 as seen at Google Zeitgeist can still recover some ground.
Gordon 2.0?
Ive lost count of the weekly/daily ‘relaunches’ I think we’ve now had Brown Service Pack 2 and are up to Gordon 16.3
156. sounds like xenophobia in its most literal sense.
158. I’d still prefer anachronistic old buffers to lying lefty warmongers.
Your party should dissolve itself and pass voluntarily into oblivion. New Labour is a “mistake of nature”, as Stalin once said of the Aral Sea.
Jack, that would be true under normal circumstances but are we seeing those? Surely Crewe is core Labour territory. Crewe would have been prime LD target territory but for, IMO, the excellence of our candidate who is local and as you perceptively pointed out the LDs disastrous error in dumping the local guy for a slightly loopy lady from Newcastle - a mistake they have repeated in Henley.
134, Jonathon,
re: “the Tories starvation strategy”
Considering that:
- In no year has any Conservative government ever cut NHS spending or even given it a rise of less than inflation (which is something that is not true of Labour governments)
- The percentage of GDP spent on the NHS was higher when the Tories in 1997 handed over to Labour (5.3%) than when Labour in 1979 handed over to the Tories (4.5%)
… what description would you give to the Old Labour NHS strategy?
congrats to Jonathan for pointing out the vision2020 stuff, that was also my first thought when this thread came up and back then it became clear that Milburn and Clark had little support.
Has anyone thought that the Tory Toff stuff is Labour in preparation for opposition. Essentially the attack doesn’t work on opponents when they don’t have power, but say if Cameron is PM, then maybe the attack will have greater resilience. Is this way of attack just Labour realising that Cameron will be next PM and getting a first salvo of shots off.
It is not dissimilar to how Osborne targetted Brown’s character before he became PM
162. What, so he isn’t entitled to his opinion of his son’s school where his son was threatened by immigrant S0malian kids armed with daggars?
All because it doesn’t fit your “weltanschauung”. Perhaps my friend should be sent to a re-education camp where his “xenophobic” views can be whipped out of him by the Guardian letters editor armed with a flail.
151: Gordon?
Jack - and another question for you and other senior PB-ers who have seen them come and go.
Is it just me, or is this one of the most exciting political periods in the last 30 years? Every day another adrenaline rush.
156 Nonsense. I’ve got 2 kids in London state schools and I’ve never heard them mention anyone with a knife at school. And if they did I hope they wouldn’t instantly link it to their racial origin.
159 And yet thanks already to the 2005 surge they have a far higher base and number of 2nd places already giving a stronger plaform in many seats surely I would say. 2005 is a far stronger patform for them against Labour in 2010 than 1979 was in 1983 you think.
It’s only in a boom time that you can make a donkey look like a horse, and that is what Blair et. Al. managed to do over the past 10 or 11 years. More than anything else, that delusion is a work of presentation and if anybody deserves credit for this it is the presentation team around Blair as much as the man himself.
Boom times are over, and the donkey has wasted it’s time in the limelight, convincing only itself that it is the real thing and fit to govern.
Rule nothing out - whoever comes next for nuLabour the true divisions will become painfully obvious over the coming months. The question is, will the divisions be enough to take the party out of power or will we have to wait for 2010 and a lame duck government? That much may depend on a financial catastrophe coming our way.
I have allways been amazed Milburn has not been put forward as serious candidate. Charles Clarke has the charimsa of a unwashed maggot and makes the present PM look like JFK. Milburn has charimsa and working claxss appeal. But there are issues with him.
Here is an article
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/apr/11/comment.politics
“Milburn leaves a reputation as a bully, arrogant, impatient, chasing the quick fix and the eye-catching wheeze. In the all-male campaign engine room, his testosterone-driven team wanted no women up front, dismissing most of Labour’s feminist women as too posh and too old - though they devised the polices that for the first time won over a majority of women to vote Labour. Put up as a good communicator, he delivers fluent New Labour with panache, word-perfect in the mantras of modernisation that have done so much to kill public interest in politics. A non-stop politicker, he seems to be politically value-free.”
“Milburn attacked the tax credits that lift so many children and pensioners out of poverty. “
163 I doubt the old buffers will be immune from lying. But let’s hope the patricians’ hearts are in the right place. They know best after all.
Jack W should go back into retirement. After his tiresome lectures about how everyone has to be nice to the Broxtowe MP and not refer to the Labour Party using the adjectival “Zanu” he snipes at the name of another MP who posts.
If you want to take the moral high ground at least be consistent. Except, of course we can’t criticise Jack as he is a pb.com “treasure” because he might have once been famous. Well woopy doo. It’s getting quite pathetic.
Ah good, no Dirty European Socialist spam clogging up the site.
A good forum is like a good nightclub. Eventually the Dirty European Socialists find out where it is and turn it into crud.
166. I don’t think the Tory Toff attack will ever work. The country has moved on from such class tactics.
Labour will gain power again by being moderate and in the centre. Going to the left and banging on about the class war will get them nowhere.
A Man Named Bolted Horse why do you bolt your horse what do you do it . Someone phone the RSPCA. Pull you trousers up boy.
170. Again, words almost fail me. Because YOUR experience of London state schools is a blissfull vision of racial harmony, my friend’s experience is somehow “wrong” or “nonsense”, even though it happened.
And of course the idea that S0malian kids might be a little bit “difficult”, coming as they do from a culture of violent and wartorn Islamist tribalism, shouldn’t even be expressed.
Indeed, I forget, you’re not even allowed to mention race at all. I should have said this boy was threatened by “an assemblage of bipedal hominins of juvenile stature with variant levels of melanin”.
lol. Goodbye Labour, goodbye idiotic, politically correct piffle.
164 Test. From third place C&N was never likely a Lib Dem target unless the Tories, like the government, were deep in the doings.
BTW …. ARSE will be issuing its poll for C&N on Thursday !! …. can’t wait eh ??
170. precisely.
164 - What, with 12% of the vote in 1997, 13.5% in 2001, 18.5% in 2005? Not really a prime target for the Lib Dems. They would have threatened at the height of the Iraq affair when the Tories had ruled themselves out of the game but even then the demographics aren’t great (more Hartlepool than Leicester and with the Tories very much stronger as a starting position).
Lib Dems coming from third to win by-elections was mainly an Iraq innovation (with precedent from the SDP days) rather than “normal circumstances”. Throughout history, an opposition party needing a sub 10% swing to win from second would always be pretty hopeful.
177 - Oh God here we go again.
177. Its a bolt through the brain - as a DES you should be used to munching on the horse flesh with your French amis.
166,176 I think 166 has a point. Surely, it can be agreed that Labour have successfully labelled Cameron and co as Toffs. But at the moment it makes no difference, because no-one cares. As soon as they lose their fresh appeal, it might come back to haunt them especially if they get a reputation for being out of touch.
Burdett Try not to wind people uo it is not funny. You Burd brain LOL
163 - “I’d still prefer anachronistic old buffers to lying lefty warmongers”
I think you would be better characterising it as upper middle class lying lefty warmongers versus upper class lying rightly warmongers.
Flashman more like fartman LOL. What is munching on horse felsh a euphimism for you sexual appetite.
What is Milburn like as a guy. He has as much charimsa as Blair but is he a nice guy, and is he good at his job and do people care about that.
187. Are you offering ? I charge reasonable rates.
133, House of lords, Monarchy, Masons, need I go on, there is a few years work there.
184 - Possibly. But the way in which it has been done has been woefully leaden. If Labour cast David Cameron as Bertie Wooster, tying his class with ineptness, it might (might) get more traction in opposition. Simply saying “he’s posh” isn’t going to do much, because it’s obvious and he seems pretty relaxed about his class in the first place. The only voters who are automatically alienated by posh boys are voters who wouldn’t have ever voted Conservative in the first place.
187 Flashman in those bloody books was a thug a racist and a bully why do you admire the vile flashman.
184. Exactly, I think there is potential in a few years for this attack to have an impact, but only if/when Cameron and the Tories are responsible for some failure to help the poor. Very much on the line “they don’t know what it’s like for ordinary people”. This would work especially if a Tory Govt reduced Council Housing stock or something on those lines.
I don’t think it should be the main attack but it certainly could be part of an attack if deployed correctly.
184. Oh, everyone knows Cameron is a toff, but nobody cares. I don’t see that changing, either. This is all a response to Thatcher and Blair. Both have killed Socialism in their own ways and I don’t think its ever going to come back.
The general attitude to very rich people now, is; Good on them.
179 see 171 and this on tactical voting in the Locals
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2008/may/02/localelections.localgovernment2
184. This is actually a fair point.
I was reading the thread from last night, when Martin Coxall and Morus were having it out - and much as I admire Martin’s chutzpah and wit, I think Morus was right. There IS a danger of Tories being seen as braying snobs - certainly over time (as you imply).
Right now I think a little gloating is unavoidable. Tories have been under the cosh for fifteen years, they are just emerging, like emancipated naked mole rats, into the bright light of popularity. They can’t quite believe it. They are therefore effervescent.
Also many of them really HATE Labour for what Labour has done (EU, crime, immigration etc) and they are bound to feel a need for triumphant revenge.
But triumphalism from people who are already rich and priveliged looks bad. So this must be reined in soonish or it will damage Toryism all over again.
Cameron needs to appoint as many “ordinary” ministers as possible. Pickles is good. More like him please. And as few Etonians and Harrovians and Wykhemaists as poss. Because these guys really are out of touch no matter what they say.
This truth was brought home to me when Rachel Johnson said, in an article, of her brother’s wife “you can tell what sort of person she is by the fact she’s had the same nanny for fifeen years”.
WTF? They gotta cut that crap out, immediately.
159, 20th seat (for LDs from Labour) using Wells site (notional 05 result) is Swansea West 4,269 majority and swing required: 6.45 %.
6.45% swing is possible in a scenario where the Labour average vote drops 10%, providing LDs just put on 3%.
However to do it the LDs have to reallocate the majority of their resources and cash away from battles with Conservatives. I do not think they will do that and they will instead fight many lost causes. That is why they risk falling to under 40 seats.
The LDs are a party pointing in the wrong direction. “St Conservative” the patron saint of LD lost causes?
184. Yep Jonathan, only about 10-12 years to wait, then.
198 Ted Heath managed it in two years! Cameron has a lot in common with Heath.
196 WTF we agree, it’s a first. Both parties are suffering from too narrow a team at the top. When you compare the breadth of the the top teams to the Thatcher Cabinets, Blair’s first or Wilson’s, they’re remarkably narrow. I guess it’s a consequence of the general low interest the public has in politics.
194 - “The general attitude to very rich people now, is; Good on them”
Yes on earned wealth. But Cameron, Osborne et al are not successful entrepreneurs or anything like that - it’s inherited old money (and Cameron married well too).
178. your anecdote isn’t necessarily wrong but it is only an anecdote, and the xenophobic spin you apply is both over the top and really quite distasteful, seanT.
If you consider that to be overly politically correct ‘piffle’ represented by the current government, I think (and hope) you will be hugely disappointed by all future governments as well as this one.
Milburn once left the cabinet because he wanted more family time. There is nothing at all wrong with that of course, but does it really suggest the kind of politician who has the single-minded drive to get to the very top and succeed? Or would he just pack it in because it was all too much bother? He is good in PR terms but he has no real track record to run on IMO.
@196:
SeanT,
I agree. Morus was right, there is always that danger. I merely took a well-meant comment as a personal slight. I think my anger arose not from him, but the way it was latched on and mutated by Mark Senior and his dreadful hangers-on into our having been a group of top-hat wearing, poor-hunting Henries, swilling expensive champagne and being generally a walking Labour cliche of a Tory. It wasn’t like that, as you may imagine. A little celebration never did anyone any harm.
That said, we do need to learn to control the triumphalism. This could prove hard, since we now have an entire generation of activists for whom victory is a very unfamiliar concept. I imagine we’ll settle down once we get rather more used to winning.
The Channel 4 news clip from last night is interesting for those that missed it.
http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/politics/domestic_politics/crewes+byelection+countdown/2218747
Click ‘watch the report’ and about 2 mins in there’s a bit on Milburn and Byers in Crewe. When asked if Brown was an asset on the doorstep, Byers responds ‘of course, he’s the Labour Leader and Prime Minister and we’re off to explain that to more people’ followed by the pair walking off. What? Don’t people know that Brown is the PM? They looked uncomfortable and when those two are together there’s mischief.
W
57 Brilliant Morus, but it aint going to happen, any of it.
204 - Reminds me of that point in the 1983 election when the Labour party issued a statement that it was their unanimous view that Michael Foot was the leader.
201. I merely quoted my friend who said, of his son’s state school, “it’s like a zoo”. That’s what he said. And I told you the background.
If you consider my friend “over the top” and “quite distasteful” I’d be happy to introduce my friend to you so he can shove a frozen barracuda up your tight little bien pensant butt.
188. What is Milburn like as a guy?
Not as bright as Blair, but more relaxed and better at small talk I would say. Blair came over as very personable but I think it was essentially a political technique (or as some would say, an act). Milburn is much more the real deal in this respect.
There have been various unsubstantated rumours about Milburn’s private life prior to his present relationship which would, I think, pose a problem for him in any leadership election. Although most of it is probably bollux, mud tends to stick in these situations (as indeed it did in ‘94 when Mandy put it about that Gordon was gay.)
198. Please explain in what ways Cameron is similar to Heath (!)
‘A bit of money spent’…
Brown and Bliar have been responsible for one of the biggest smash and grabs in history.
Typical leftist view that efficiency and value for money are irrelevant and very minor changes in public services is worth the catastrophic waste of of all our money.
Brown’s sad and sorry reign ends as all previous Labour regimes have ended..a Golden decade of global economic growth utterly squandered with huge amounts of tax raised and wasted on insignificant improvements, with nothing left in the bank and a restless and increasingly militant public sector.
I trust know one will fall for the sort of con trick pulled by Blair again.
196
there has not been an Harrovian in government since Sir Keith Joseph
196. these guys are out of touch, correct. The main problems for them will come when they have to formulate policies on
* the NHS
* education
* public transport
* tax for the rich
at which point they will face inevitable and very damaging questions whatever they come up with (i.e. “have you ever been to an NHS hospital in your life?”/”where do you send your kids to school?”/”howcome all of your mates appear to benefit from this tax cut while ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet?”…etc.
It won’t necessarily be a problem immediately, but over time it could become a real stumbling block and amplify the mistakes.
123
Socrates,
I hope you’re right — that by ‘direct talks’, Obama does not mean ‘appeasement’.
However, the point here is that Iran does not seem to be willing to stop its nuclear program — right?
It is not about a “ridiculous caricature of regimes as being unwilling to make concessions”; it is about Islamic suprematists getting the Bomb, and about “em being much more dangerous with It, being Islamic fanatics, thus less rational and less educated than Socialist Russia…
How can the West paint itself as being conciliatory vis-à-vis the reality of this evil?
That’s the question asked in this article, as you know: does Obama recognize the reality of Islamic Evil, and if so, is he willing to use the power of the Presidency to prevent ‘em from getting the Bomb?
Who’s being pragmatic, here, and who’s being naive?
Test
213 - on the NHS, Cameron has a ready answer:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/4578440.stm
208. it isn’t his statement that is distasteful, it’s your deliberate misquoting of this sort of anecdote to try and create a xenophobic narrative where none need exist.
213 - and, for that matter, he sends his daughter to state school:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-565031/Camerons-daughter-wins-place-state-school-miles-home-Browns-son-goes-nearest-primary.html
205 [all together now]: “Your most coherent post ever!”
217 Teenage gangs in London revolve around shared religion/ethnicity. And it is a matter of fact that people who come here from violent and disfunctional societies tend to bring the norms of those societies with them.
216, 218. yep, agree he in particular has some good answers at the moment, but when they get into power they will all be judged (probably quite sceptically) on every decision in this context. In contrast, Lab politicians get a really easy ride in comparison (despite appalling hypocrisy in some cases)
The big thing in C&N is the Lib Dems. Stay with me. I am not turning into Mark Senior.
I remember some dark days in the Tory Party but some of the most chilling involved the thoughts that the LDs were catching up with up with you [shudder].
More frightening when you are in Opposition, I’ll grant you; when you no longer have your - ‘I am sure it won’t be that bad in the end/ masters of your own destiny’ Government comfort blanket.
But chiiling in any circumstances nonetheless.
If…if the Tories do very well and if the Lib Dems AND Labour do badly, the story may go that there IS enthusiasm for Cameron/Tories.
If Labour are wiped out and the Lib Dems put up a respectable preformance pushing Labour into third, then it will play more heavily against Labour and Gordon personally.
Brown IS the real deal. The problem is that only a Marxist would elect him and give him a free hand, and Marxist voters are thin on the ground these days. Until then he must either make a fool of himself pretending (Blair was happy doing that, and was chosen over Brown as a result) or preside over the disintegration of the nuLabour project.
Blaming other people comes easily to him, so this is a task for which he is particularly well suited.
>>
>>
Blair came over as very personable but I think it was essentially a political technique (or as some would say, an act). Milburn is much more the real deal in this respect.
221 - now refers to 207. Bother.
Cameron and Heath, off the top of my head.
* Leading from the left of the party, not quite in step with some grass roots.
* From a younger generation
* Based image on hugely successful Labour Leader
* Aims to bring Tories to power after long period in opposition.
* Heath designed as the answer to Wilson, Cameron self styled Blair’s heir
* Has a previous leader as (shadow) Foreign Secretary
* Oxford Educated
* Looks more or less the same
If/when Cameron comes a cropper it will be a disappointed right that get him IMO.
199. Without sounding too “distasteful”, I think it is crucial for Cameron that he has the very sobering experience of bringing up his terribly handicapped son (and I have some experience of this in my own immediate family, so I have a rough idea what Cammo’s going through).
This ordeal means he can connect with the tough and challenging experiences of ordinary people in an emotional way; it also means he can connech with people in a literal way (through using the very same NHS).
I think this makes Cammo a more rounded and empathetic person than one might expect from someone of his very priveliged background; yet he retains the smoothness and charm of the Etonian.
It’s quite a powerful combination.
Nonetheless he really does need to recruit some more “ordinary” ministers. Hopefully the next intake of Tories will give him plenty of MPs to choose from.
219. Oh Jeez: YAWN. Stop trolling ther site with your dreary, PC nonsense. I refer you to Sean Fear’s very coherent post at 222. Then, having read that, go away and think a bit harder.
222. those from the most violent and dysfunctional communities will continue to come here as genuine refugees under any goverment, even if the general immigration tap is turned off completely.
Labour MP responsible for Crewe disaster throws in towel
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1020511/We-lose-Crewe-election-says-class-war-Labour-MP.html
229 And that suggests we need to look again at who we admit.
221 LOL. You cocked up again. LOL. LOL LOL
229 questions must be asked if refugees come here in preference to other, closer Western countries where they might be equally safe.
New political betting market suggestion for Shadsy:
Over/under on how long before Dirty European Socialist is banned?
228 For some reason, an earlier comment didn’t get through. I can point to a (very good) school near where I used to live in Brent North where your friend’s experience would have rung very true.
Unless you’re very rich, much of London is just not a good place to bring children up in.
178
Sean T,you seem to forget that mass immigration was New Labour’s big idea,anyone that has the audacity to criticise it,question it or point out what a massive mistake it has been will be either be called a creature or smeared as a racist.
You are allowed to talk about most things, but please try to remember immigration,asylum are off limits as they are far to embarrassing for our leftie friends.
“Islamic suprematists getting the Bomb, and about “em being much more dangerous with It, being Islamic fanatics, thus less rational and less educated than Socialist Russia”
Ah, the greatest of all NeoConservative lies — that somehow Islamic fundamentalism is more evil and dangerous than National Socialism, Stalinism and Japan’s Shinto-inflected imperialism put together.
(See also: ‘why al-Qaida/Iran/Islamism is capable of destroying Western civilization — no, really they are! — despite the fact that the massive, continent-conquering armies of Hitler, Hirohito and Stalin signally failed.’)
231, 233. I think we will always have a duty to take genuine refugees from countries with which we have colonial ties. Any large reduction in immigration (as championed by people like Sean) would have to be at the expense of (economically motivated and economically more useful) eastern europeans, indians, etc.
200 Most wealthy people in the world inherited their wealth to some degree from their parents or families. This is the way of the world, around the world.
It doesnt mean they should be resented for it or barred from office. If they have been born into money and then inherited or continued a business, what’s wrong with that?
I know the Labour party would like no one to pass anything on to their children but most people, even those with little, want to pass on as much as they can. What’s so evil about that? Why do you have to have struggled from nothing to be able to “represent people properly”? It’s just inverted snobbery.
As for the comments about masons and monarchy, with this and the hackneyed class arguments that Labour now seeks to focus on, it seems as if Brown’s / Labour’s inferiority / persecution complex and class war chippiness have returned when under pressure.
Thankfully most people care little about people’s backgrounds now and treat each other pretty much on equal terms. Labour just appears like a throwback to a hardcore socialist past. They are the ones who are obsessed with sneering at class and money. Labour are abandoning the all the good things that appealed to a broad base which was necessary to capture to get it into power. Surely this strategy is sending them headlong into disaster?
On a lighter note!
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/39152000/jpg/_39152832_oldmiburn203.jpg
I don’t think the Labour party have ’succeeded in labeling’ Cameron as a toff. That is because he has never hidden his background.
What the Labour party are starting to do very successfully is to show that they never really changed and are still the nasty class warriors they always were. And that has never been something the electorate overall has found attractive.
Even the old working class where I was born found the attitude odious as it suggested that if the managed to improve their lot in life they would be called names. That is why many of them voted Tory.
And the problem was compounded by most of the class warriors seeming to be from well of backgrounds themselves: Cripps, Benn, Harman, Robinson, Dunwoody the Younger- its a theme which goes through the history of Labour since WWII. And it is fatal whenever it gets a grip on the party.
238 A government’s first duty is to its own citizens. Admitting people from parts of the World where violence is the norm means that a government is putting its own people at risk, in breach of that duty.
238. Bollocks. Anyway we have no ties with S0malia whatsoever. Why are they here carrying knives in London schools? We should just stop S0malians coming to Britain, unless they are in the absolute direst need.
Nor is my friend’s experience unique:
http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/4829,opinion,importing-mogadishu-to-england
235. I disagree. I think its very enriching for children to experience important aspects of other cultures such as religious extremism, honour killings, the repression of women, and tuberculosis. You would have to be bigoted in the extreme to believe otherwise.
Even better!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/olmedia/1175000/images/_1179274_byers_150.jpg
241. I’m not convinced that Cripps was either a class warrior, or an electoral liability. It’s possible to be a socialist without hating the upper class.
“I think we will always have a duty to take genuine refugees from countries with which we have colonial ties.”
I don’t agree at all; there is no point hanging on to some anachronistic, paternalistic view of Empire (a bit patronising too). If the countries are truly independent then refugees from them should be treated the same as other refugees. A preferential choice for Britain and her welfare state is not sufficient explanation for why closer countries were not chosen - if the argument is one of genuine need for asylum. Now you are not talking a motivation of fear or danger at all.
199 In Wales they hardly have to reallocate resources away from the Tories to fight Swansea West. Apart from Montgomeryshire Lib Dem majority 7,000 there is only Brecon and Radnor where they directly fight Tories, although Cardiff Central may well join the list after the election. They are not awash with targets in Wales so Swansea West may not be the best seat for you to make the point.
“Ah, the greatest of all NeoConservative lies — that somehow Islamic fundamentalism is more evil and dangerous than National Socialism, Stalinism and Japan’s Shinto-inflected imperialism put together.”
Errr? Did I imply that non-sense? No. Did any proeminent so-called Neo-Conservatives did? No.
All I wrote was that the Western Free World can not afford an Islamic regime (craving for Israel to die and entertaining suprematist fantaisies) to get the Bomb, — for Islamic Evil Doers are known to be SUICIDAL and IRRATIONAL.
Wanna know more? Go to Lebanon this summer. Or read last week Indian newspapers.
246. Only in theory.
149 PfP
Yes, PfP; of course, that doesn’t automatically make the information corect, but it does mean I can be satisfied as to its authenticity.
re 92 oh no you’re not.
238 Yes. Significant reductions in immigration would only happen if there was a major economic downturn making the UK less attractive as a destination. In any case the demographic of the native UK population is ageing. This means either that the productive capacity of the UK’s human capital will fall, or that people will have to work until they are 70+, or that we will have to import people from abroad to fill the gap. I’d be happy to take a few more Polish plumbers if it means I can still retire at 60!
245. On the same theme: http://news.bbc.co.uk/furniture/vote2001/in_depth/election_battles/1987mandelson.jpg
206. I happened to be out on the doorknock while Alan and Steve were campaigning and did that clip with channel 4.
I thought Stephen was being utterly supportive on that clip - his reply was meant as “Of course (he’s an asset), we’re just off to explain that to some more people now”
Gary Gibbons seemed very nice.
Is one of these two gentlemen really the Labour agent in Gedling? Peter Golds reported the Gedling agent was one of the mad hatters, but is he one of these.
http://img.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2008/05_04/Class1605_468×566.jpg
Gedling, which Nick Palmer called his ‘twin’ constituency and says now has a single ‘Ashcroft’ agent covering both.
Nick has never met the man apparently, so can anyone else tell me which is which?Which, if either, is Alex Norris.
re 138 and where’s the NHS going to be in 3 years time when the staff will by then have had a real terms pay cut of about 12%?
247. I think the least we can do on the international stage is take some responsibility for failed states that were once under our influence.
253 Prior to 1997, net immigration was much lower than it is today, yet growth rates were much the same. Family reunions are the main driver of net, long term, immigration, and provide almost no benefit to the host population.
243
Quite right.
The latest goings-on in the New Labour Land of Camden, Importing Mogadishu.
http://www.thecnj.co.uk/camden/2008/051508/news051508_02.html
258. Is that why we have been accepting so much immigration from France?
Labour briefing like crazy on Crewe
http://timesonline.typepad.com/politics/2008/05/crewe-expectati.html
“All I wrote was that the Western Free World can not afford an Islamic regime (craving for Israel to die and entertaining suprematist fantaisies) to get the Bomb.”
And what is America prepared to do to prevent it, given that bombing the country would do no more than delay the programme whilst stoking up resentment? An Iraq-style invasion, necesitating reinstatement of the draft?
I say bring it on — if Americans continue to insist on voting for warmongers, it’s about bloody time they did some fighting themselves.
The police are too busy with important matters to arrest knife wielding thugs…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/20/1
OK, I’m off out into the Canakkale sunshine.
Final point: we can now get all the economic migrants we need from within the EU, or from aspiring EU members.
In that light, I don’t see why we need any immigration from beyond those parameters AT ALL. We should allow no further non-EU immigration, unless those arriving bring needed wealth and provable skills.
Furthermore, as Test implies, the presumption to grant asylum should be ended, if the asylum-seeker has passed over or through other safe countries to get here: that person is by definition an economic migrant.
Finally, chain migration should be limited to only the most authentic and provable cases; and arranged marriages with foreign brides should be subject to a rigorous age and language threshold, as in other parts of Europe.
Do all that, and the people might start to trust the government, once again, on immigration.
Gule Gule!
258. Why? It was their decision to become independent, not ours.
“And what is America prepared to do to prevent it”?
That’s the question, mista.
McCain and Obama are thus debating it… offering two different approaches to American voters.
265. it would be morally indefensible to allow economic migrants but not asylum seekers.
259 Yes, unemployment was higher then and immigrants were less likely to be able to find jobs. Family reunion is a driver of non-EU immigration, but I wonder if it is politically possible to do much about this. The Party of the family can hardly tell voters (and non-EU imiigrants are generally commonwealth and therefore voters) that their families will not be allowed in.
I wonder if the campaign strategy for C & N will prove the tipping point for many Labour MPs, rather than the result itself. Whoever thought that a strategy based on class envy and personal attacks would work in 2008? Step forward, G Brown, the man who brought 1935 Clydeside tactics to England.
Apart from the unattractiveness of the Labour campaign, it implies that the Conservatives have won the policy battle.
Labour MPs fearing that they may be saddled with similarly disasterous tactics in a General Election may well give Brown the heave-ho by the end of the year.
234 I’ve an even better suggestion for Shadsy, Test.
Ladbrokes should open a market on how long it will take Sporting Index to reopen their General Election Seats market after the appearance of an opinion poll.
Btw, do you think it is wise to let people know you read the Daily Mail?
271
I phoned SPIN this a.m., they don’t even know when the mkt will be back up.
268. Stop both then.
269. Goodness the Labour spinning today is very lame and half-hearted. What’s up chaps?
248 Punter, Swansea West was just the 20th Labour target for the LDs.
Unlike the Conservatives, all regular LD membership money goes to Cowley Street. It then has some of it handed back to their local party depending on how key that seat is in their priority lists.
That is the priority setting I was talking about.
Third time’s a charm.
243 - Britain did in fact have involvement there. I can’t link to it because the spam filter seems to chew it up, but Wikipedia has an article on British S0maliland.
176 Giggler. I’ll give you the benefit of the Committees view.
Firstly I have been extremely critical of Nick Palmer in the past, most recently on the “prisioner phone card issue”. He has also in the past been the receipient of the Most Noble Order of the Cracked Chamber Pot. However Nick does come on the site to debate and explain the government position and provide the site with useful Labour Party information.
Sadly in contrast Stewart Jackson’s time here might best be described as snipe and scuttle off. He offers little insight that we might not otherwise get from any third rate hack straight from CCHQ. Really quite tiresome.
It would appear from your post that no critisism of the Conservatives should be allowed. Those that do should go into “retirement”.
Sorry old fruit but all who take part in the political game are fair game, especially those who seek to govern us, so get used to it !!
264. And this one…
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/north_east/7408877.stm
The former London mayor, Ken Livingstone, is to present his own show on the capital’s commercial talk radio station LBC 97.3.
Livingstone, who was defeated in the May 1 mayoral election by Boris Johnson after eight years in office, will present a weekly show on the London station.
He will join at the end of next month standing in for Jeni Barnett on her weekday afternoon show.
“I’m absolutely delighted to be joining LBC 97.3,” said Livingstone. “I’ll be the perfect afternoon antidote to [LBC breakfast host] Nick Ferrari. You can detox with me.”
Livingstone and Ferrari have a little history together after the LBC breakfast host came out in support of Johnson during the mayoral campaign.
The former London mayor also complained to the station after Ferrari gave out his phone number on air.
They will have a chance to bury the hatchet - or not - on Thursday morning, when Livingstone will be a guest on Ferrari’s LBC breakfast show.
Livingstone will host the three-hour afternoon show between 1pm and 4pm for the entire week beginning Monday June 30.
He will then present a regular weekly show on the Global Radio station, full details of which are still to be announced.
The LBC 97.3 programme director, Jonathan Richards, said: “Ken Livingstone brings unique insight to LBC 97.3. After eight years as Mayor of London, no one knows this city and its people better.
“He has seen London through the best and worst of times and is now sharing his views and knowledge by joining London’s biggest conversation. Love him or hate him, Ken Livingstone is never boring.”
LBC 97.3 drew a weekly audience of 701,000 listeners in the first three months of this year, according to the latest official Rajar figures.
http://therightstudent.com/2008/05/hes-still-here.html
Is he using this as a platform for 2012?
275. these guys would never let a little fact like that get in the way of their desire to slag off ethnic minorities, immigrants, foreigners living abroad, and by bizarre extension, all UK political parties except the Conservative party
234 I read all the papers online. Poiticshome.com is fantastic for links to politcal stories
280 Reading them is one thing,Test, but talking about them…
276. The pomposity gauge has just exploded.
C&N
Hoy! LOWEST ODDS EVER:
Conservative : 1.05
Labour: 16
Liberal Democrat: 200!!!
—
Looks like the majority of us will make a lot of money again on the Cons!
Ah, glad others are coming to realise how pathetic SPIN can be.
They really are useless.
I have stopped using them - if I can’t trade freely, within reason, why on earth would I want to do business with them?
Either market forces will force a change, or they’ll have to close down their political spread-markets.
Not bothered which.
271 LOL - yep, it’s absolutely pathetic, clearly the brown-trousered on is in charge today.
As regards the Daily Mail, it’s incredible just how few of its 5 million readers own up to being just that.
282 Harry com on boy ….Ahhhhhhhh …. there’s my puppy !! time for you to get wormed me thinks.
“The Party of the family can hardly tell voters (and non-EU imiigrants are generally commonwealth and therefore voters) that their families will not be allowed in.”
Both Labour and Conservatives managed it, pre 1997, so I can’t see that being a difficulty. Labour took a conscious decision to increase migration here after 1997, and the Conservatives can take a conscious decision to reduce it.
284. I further add.. I now only use Spreadfair.
Spreadfair/Betfair - all I use. And all very FAIR.
Punters betting amongst themselves, no grubby bookies, market-makers or overpaid agents.. just decent honest punters betting amongst themselves. However they want, whenever they want. A small commission for the site administrators? Fine - richly deserved.
Punter-to-punter is the future.
Harry You should remember the old adage about a camel being a horse designed by a committee.
284
I intent to begin betting with spread; i studied and understand now the mechanics of it.
Where is the best place to play: with both liquidity and availability?
279 - I was correcting a factual error, not making a point. I find this a very difficult subject. On the one hand, I dislike the idea of turning away those in need of asylum. On the other, it is quite clear that those coming from societies that have broken down struggle to fit into more ordered societies. There is the further point that the obligation to offer asylum was taken on in an age before mass intercontinental migration. I don’t have an easy solution, but I don’t think that we are best served by pretending that the current system is adequate, because it isn’t.
O/T - More C&N dirty tricks
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article3964870.ece
290
Ok don’t bother; you preemptively responded (#288); you really can act on the future, like any good gambler!
276 May I add, Jack, that I tend to rate my fellow posters according to the relevance of their posts to my betting portfolio. This is why I regard NickP’s contributions as invaluable, and regret it when people snipe at him for purposes far removed from betting. I value many other contributors of course for similar reasons, and I find it pleasing that there are contributors to the Site from all parts of the political spectrum who help to make it an invaluable source for the serious political punter.
I also enjoy, as you no doubt do Jack, the thoroughly entertaining posts of some who have no interest in betting or contribution to make to it, but who brighten out days with their sparkling wit and insights.
Then of course there are those who, like you and me Jack, come here as a refuge and to pass the time before Matron returns us to our rooms. Fortunately, the Site is big enough for all of us, and long may it remain so.
Now I must return to my cocoa. Too much typing is not good for me these days.
toodle pip.
Ed you’re crying in the wind. Labour are over.
294. You mean like when Nick Palmer backed Hain for the Deputy you lumped on Harman ?
I don’t know what to make of seat betting for the next few days. You have to consider the possibility that a big defeat in C&N causes Lab. leadership contest which pushes up labour price by 10-25 seats. But if no contest then labour prices drops another, say, 5 points.
I think the chance of a leadership bid this year are 2/1.
268
Do you mean asylum seekers or economic asylum seekers?
279. This argument, ed, could go on and on. To clear things up, shall we back to your original absurdity?
I said education in major urban centres had not necessarily benefited from Labour’s policy of mass immigration. To illustrate my point, I mentioned a friend who had had to move his son from a state school in London, which was being patrolled by knife-weilding gangs of S0mali kids. My friend’s son was actually threatened with a knife by one of these gangmembers.
My friend, being very liberal, surprised me when he said his son’s state school was “like a zoo”. I knew he must be serious when he moved his son to a private school, as the only decent school in the area. My friend ain’t rich, so his son must have been really unhappy.
Now, in response to my factual points, you claimed I was being “xenophobic” and “distasteful”.
I put it you, that this exchange proves that you are a laughable little moron with half a brain, who just spouts PC rubbish because it sounds nice and makes you feel good. I think this is clearly irrefutable.
Shall we end the argument there, to save you any more embarrassment?
290 Phillippe
You really need to open several accounts - Sporting Index, IG Sports and Spreadfair (which is really an exchange, with resulting liquidity problems, but gives some good opportunities.)
These three firms are often out of sync, sometimes so much so that you can pick up small arbitrages. You simply play with the firm offering the best value.
Good luck. (Or keep selling Labour, in which case you won’t need it.)
239 - Not sure I said people with very substantial inherited wealth should be barred from office!
But as a practical point, they are bound to be criticised for neither having personal experience (and possibly limited appreciation) of being subject to the financial and related pressures most people experience, nor having clearly demostrated the talent that we see in successful self-made people. That doesn’t strike me as an unfair criticism nor one which Osborne/Cameron etc will ever fully escape. The fact that they are able to make a career of what they enjoy doing at an early age without having to worry about money is no doubt ample consolation for having always to counter that criticism.
296 LOL Ghost! No, I won quite nicely on that election, and due in part to the infrmation provided by NickP amongst others. There’s the world of difference between supporting and backing somebody. Nick’s a punter too. He undertands that.
300
Thank you, Peta. Once again, I’ll follow your advice.
[222][229] The problem is that it’s perfectly possible for someone to be both a genuine asylum seeker (in terms of what they’ve been through) and a thoroughly nasty piece of work (in terms of what they intend to do when they get the chance).
Do we ban asylum seekers from political activity? And how do we define that? (I doubt Sean Fear would want to ban a Chinese refugee from protesting about China’s hosting the Olympics, for example…)
As for teenage gangs, I don’t see what difference their ethnic origin makes - gang culture is evidence of a failure of social policy, end of story.
Immigration and Europe are the two elephant traps awaiting the Cameron government. Business favours both; populists reject both. As and when the populist forces find a celebrity leader to unite around, we can be sure that Sean T will be among his first cheerleaders. A man who thinks that the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties is not a fascist, of course… not quite, yet.
[304] That should have read “the Labour and Liberal Democrat parties should be abolished”…
O/T -ish
May 20 (Bloomberg) — Northern Rock Plc, the British bank nationalized three months ago, would see its recovery plan “seriously” impeded if house prices decline 5 percent this year, Chairman Ron Sandler said today.
“If house price were to decline 5, 10 or 15 percent, that would seriously impede fulfilling the plan,” said Sandler, at a hearing of Parliament’s Treasury Committee in London today. “In the present housing climate, if things remain as they are, the plan can and will be delivered.”
British house prices will fall 5 percent to 10 percent this year “at best,” Housing Minister Caroline Flint told Cabinet colleagues last week.
294 PtP. Does your Matron allow pets ?? … I find my puppy rather theraputic and now Witan is recommending camels …. one lump or two ??
304. Not quite sure I understand your last line. Do think about your grammar, old boy.
However I do get this line, and see its innate incoherence:
“Business favours both; populists reject both”. You mean euroscepticism and immigration-skeptism is popular with the people, but not with business.
Right?
But surely the job of democracy is to reflect the will of the people, not the will of business. Or have I got that wrong?
Sheesh.
304
‘gang culture is evidence of a failure of social policy, end of story’.
Utter garbage. Do you have any notion of what individual responsibility means?
When that poor GMP copper was getting beaten up by Rangers fans was that a failure of social policy or just pissed-up thugs on the rampage?
Jack W All your personalities probably need more than two lumps in your cocoa.
297 Wouln’t be too worried about that, EDW. It isn’t as if a leadership contest is likely to produce some magical saviour. If there were an obvious alternative, we would all know the name by now.
As I posted earlier, I think the most a contest would do is stop the rot - but it would be a strictly temporary reprieve if another bad choice were made.
This is of course entirely possible. The LDs did as much and I seem to recall that the Tories needed a few goes before they got to Cameron. Imagine, for example, the impact on the spread markets if, say, Harriet Harman were appointed. What would be the selling price then?
I recogn that
“laughable little morons with half a brain, just spouting PC rubbish because it sounds nice and makes them feel good”
is THE main political problem we face in Quebec and Canada.
However, they are beginning to have less and less influence now — as influencial journalists are beginning to recognize them as they are: multiculti humourless bigots.
299. so you think education is worse in inner city areas [citation needed] because of immigrants [citation needed]. You back this up with an anecdote from your friend who is “very liberal” [citation needed], and interpret his statement that his son’s school is “like a zoo” into an entirely different xenophobic/racist argument. This may have been to deflect attention away from your first ridiculous point, that state education is somehow worse off for having investment ploughed into it. I believe you also stated that S0malia has no past links with Britain [citation needed].
In other words, you are Richard Littlejohn and I claim my £5.
The collapse of this government is now taking on epic proportions. its pretty obvious that this govt will poll sub 20% in the next few months. the economy is in freefall and i expect social unrest over the summer.
[308] Well, if you mean that where this Government has failed is in placing the interests of business ahead of the people then I agree with you
Cameron will have the same problem, with different parameters.
306. that guy is being paid thousands per day to come up with this garbage - a recovery plan that anyone can see depends entirely on unrealistic assumptions.
308. Cameron definitely has to answer to big business, in the same way that Brown is answerable to trade unions.
313. “that state education is somehow worse off for having investment ploughed into it”
lol. You are a stoat of a man. Find the place where I said that above “point”, in this thread, and I will indeed give you £5.
314 “Its pretty obvious that this govt will poll sub 20% in the next few months.”
It is, Tenpole? Why then you can make quite a few bob betting on such an outcome. Should you find it dificult to persuade conventional bookmakers to accommodate you, I am sure there are some on this site who can assist.
BUSINESS VS PEOPLE
My old boss tried once to convince me that ‘our’ entreprise had a ’soul’, like most people do.
It was terrifying.
Obama nets his second SD of the day - Eric Coleman of Michigan :
http://www.detnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080520/POLITICS01/805200407/1409/METRO
…………………………….
310 Witan. Not too sure how I get more than two camel lumps in my drinks …. but hey if this is a new Conservative Policy I’m all ears …. elephant ears at that !!
316. Who foots the bill ?
NR will be on Brown’s political tombstone.
319 i have the bet on thank you.
319. If someone had asked 3 months ago for odds on Labour polling 25%….
C&N
On betfair, are not down to … 20 (19/1).
313, 318. Come on ed, hurry up. Haven’t got all day. I want to go for a walk around the Hellespont.
Where did I say, on this thread “state education is somehow worse off for having investment ploughed into it”??
311
My feeling now is to keep selling labour, safer than buying cons. libdems may pick up a few marginal crumbs from lab. I would call lab bottom at 210.
On SF cons are 341.4-350, it seems punters are wary of C&N effect. A big Con win will only see a move to about 348 mid price.
If I were SPIN market maker now I would go
348-354
and then drop the price after C&N by four points to scare recent buyers in to closing out at a loss.
304, 309 There have always been gangs amongst children - there certainly were when I was a child in the 1970s. But at that time it was considered normal childhood behaviour and nobody thought of it as a “problem” to which a solution was required.
325 — Labour are at 20. The market has spoken!
324, or just before last conference season. I bet you could’ve got monumental odds then, before the Supreme Leader started having problems in the Kremlin.
328. Likewise. But we didn’t carry knives - it was literally unheard of.
CQ provides a useful guide to todays primaries in Kentucky and Oregon :
http://www.cqpolitics.com/wmspage.cfm?docID=news-000002878799
ed, where are you? coo-ee? ed? ed??? eddie baby?
Oh no, has your one remaining hemisphere of brain stopped working!?
Hurry up and answer the question. Where did I say, on this thread, “state education is somehow worse off for having investment ploughed into it”??
At 1.04 the Cons are almost worth laying, nuclear attack, hurricane, etc
306. If the rescue plan for Northern Rock fails, at least it will have given them some practice for rescuing Bradford and Bingley.
318. you most certainly did make that point
113, in response to 104
and also
157, in response to 138
323 My predictions for Labour are pretty dire, Tenpole, as you will have noticed. Not sure about sub 20% though. At levels below, say, 23%, Brown would have to go and that in itself would slow the bleeding. Of course, a poor replacement - Harman, for example - could make your prophecy come true. In fact I reckon the blessed Harriet could get them down to single figures, but the Party couldn’t be that daft…could it?
328
Things have changed since the 70’s.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/7408998.stm
335 northern rock will cost at least 10bn. if you buy the worst mortgage book on the street what do you expect………
288 - “just decent honest punters betting amongst themselves”
Casino, if you think that is an accurate description of betfair then I’m afraid you are being rather naive - though for political betting it’s probably a lot closer to the truth than for some sports markets.
I won’t say any more [having a vested interest] other than to note that nearly all my betting profits come from bookmakers, all the more so in the case of political betting.
Mike if your out there amend a comment from SeanT with the quote above. The comedy value alone demands it.
If it weas not for the 30 billion tax revnues a year from scottish oil money we would be in real stinkhole.
337 Harriet as leader …. it would make my position look a lot better. pls let it be true………
339. Good luck to Labour in the NE when entire streets are repo’d…
337. Surely the worst case scenario for Labour would be a Blairite and a left-winger both attempting to stand and neither getting 20% of the MPs?
Funny, last time I visited this site people were using terms like ‘came-and-gone’ and ‘Tory meltdown’… How things change
I can not imagine an imminent challenge, no matter how bad things get. They will just hold a leadership election just before a GE. A new leader bounce is Labour’s only chance now.
OT
Joey Barton is jailed for assault
The former England player was sentenced at Liverpool Crown Court by Judge Henry Globe QC to six months in prison.
The judge told him it was a “violent and cowardly act”
265 seanT - as it is you who are leaving think it should be “Allaha ismarladuk”. Or something like that.
331 Not so, Frederick.
I’m not proud of the fact, but the gangs I hung around with as a teenager routinely carried knives and other offensive weapons. They broke up after a fatal shooting in Mare Street, Hackney, when the police finally decided they’d had enough of them, no doubt in response to public outcry and political pressure.
I should add that these gangs were comprised almost entirely of white youths.
Incidentally, any PBer who remembers the Mod v Rockers battles will know you that you err in your assumption.
337 - Harriet Harman has a well-developed party network, which counts for a lot in the Labour party. She shouldn’t come in the top 30, but would probably come in the top 3 at least if there were a vote tomorrow.
Both major parties should look at the US experience of primaries. Machine politicians stand nowhere near as ingrained an advantage under such a system, and whether or not you like McCain and Obama (I’m not enormously enthused by either), it is heartening to see that such candidates get proper consideration by the electorate rather than be squashed by party hacks who wouldn’t give much consideration to what the electorate actually wanted if it interfered with their own personal progression.
328 In the 1970s, teenage gangs used fists, rather than knives, and guns.
304 I think that there are sections of business that are keen on both the EU, and massive immigration, and sections that aren’t. Ultimately, Cameron will go where the votes are.
In London, at least, I think ethnicity and religion are highly relevant to gang culture, since they are very often the bases on which gangs recruit their members.
336. lol. What a pathetic, mincing lie. You don’t dare actually quote me, because you know it doesn’t back up your remarks.
What you claimed I said was this: “state education is somehow worse off for having investment ploughed into it”
What I actually say, at 113, is this:
“Yes, the NHS has improved. But does it justify the billions spent? That’s the question.
I’m also not at all sure education has got better. Not in urban areas that have suffered the most from Labour’s Campaign of Mass Immigration.”
So: far from saying education has got WORSE as a result of investment, I said I wasn’t SURE education had got BETTER; furthermore, and more importantly, my remarks were centred around the problems in education caused by mass immigration, and had nothing to do with investment.
So you misquoted me twice, called me a xenophobe and a racist for merely relaying a true story, and now you try to cover it all up with a lie.
You, Sir, are a nasty little politically correct knobhead, and I claim my five S0malian dinars.
348. I think you’re right! Gule gule means farewell to the departing, right? However, after his embarrassing display on here, I trust that ed will be leaving us soon, to think things over, so maybe Gule Gule is correct.
PtP, there was no mythical golden age for us to try and return to?
You will really upset some of the posters here with loose talk like that.
351 - The use of knives had been steadily on the increase among youth gangs in the post-war period. Take the association of Teddy Boys with razors and flick-knives. A key element in the increase in gun crime is the increased ability of powerful illicit weaponry internationally, entering Britain via the same routes as drugs.
352. ok then, worse vs. not better.
There is still only one political party that echoes your views.
354 Any thoughts on how the Mayoral race may indicate London seats at the next election.
Those getting very excited about the likely best Conservative byelection performance since 1977, including Labour MPs unused to being behind in midterm (which used to be standard), might care to reflect (unlikely, I know!) on the byelection results in 1985-86:
including:
4/7/85 - C lose Brecon and Radnor to LD and drop from first to third, behind Labour as well. Swing 15.5%.
10/4/86 - C lose Fulham to Labour on a 10.8% swing.
8/5/86 - C hold W Derbyshire with a majority reduced to 100. 14.3% swing to ‘LD’.
8/5/86 - C lose Ryedale to ‘LD’ 18.8% swing.
http://www.election.demon.co.uk/by1983.html
One year later, of course the C had dumped Mrs Thatcher and still lost the election … er …
Byelections are very strange animals. Many of us no doubt remember Jon Snow or someone feeding the results into a uniform swing calculator and ending up with 1 Conservative / Labour seat left. Opinion polls are much better indicators of the mood of the country and even they are now about 2008, not 2009 or 2010.
Labour are indeed in deep trouble - but by far the biggest reason is that the economic forecasts are now looking relatively grim right up till 2010.
354 Still nothing like on the scale of today.
353 I can only talk from my own pesonal experience, Ed.
Hackney in the 60s wasn’t exactly Mogadishu, but it wasn’t Henley-upon-Thames either.
355. Thankyou, so you admit you lied. That’s all we need to know about you, and all your future comments.
And now I really am off to the Hellespont. I may swim it, like Byron. Or take the ferry.
A few points to respond to here. First is the thread. I can’t see Milburn being the first choice of many in the party but if enough Labour MPs see clamourig for him as the only way to get shot of Gordon he might win by default.
As for anyone else in the next leader stakes if Brown goes before the election you can immediately discount any long-term allies of Gordy/enemies of Blair. Unfortunately (for Tories) it rules out Ed Balls, the only person who can make Labour the 21st Century Liberals (in terms of total meltdown).
I still stand by my posts of a few weeks ago that any new Leader pre the election can only be considered a caretaker to lead Labour to a crash landing into opposition without being fatally wounded. The only sensible option in such a situation remains Jack Straw. He’s served both Blair and Brown and is a safe pair of hands as well as being a decent media and Commons performer.
Gordon staying is my preferred option. As a Tory I want him replaced by Balls, as a citizen who wants a decent PM I want him replaced by Straw and if I was a Labour MP I would also want Straw as someone who can sacrifice himself for the good of the party to arrest the decline.
I will be betting on Straw for next leader with a saving bet on whoever the stalking horse is.
If Brown stays till the election all bets are off since half the candidates might have lost their seats.
re 283 before we all get too carried away, weren’t Labour about similar odds to win Dunfermline at one point?
361 “If Brown stays till the election all bets are off since half the candidates might have lost their seats.”
the most sensible post of the day. what are you labour muppets waiting for?
I would also suggest people try refrain from calling Labour ‘Zanu-Lab’. People are still regularly being killed, raped and beaten for voting for the opposition. That doesn’t often happen in Chiswick (though it might in Glasgow judging by their footie fans).
I shall try stop writing nu-lab since that shortening seems to be how it started.
Last night just got a little bit silly. I think we may have had a few people coming on after too many sherbets.
357: Thanks Robert, that was interesting. How big do you see the swing being to the Tories?
Modern London ethnic gang
http://www.thisislocallondon.co.uk/news/topstories/display.var.622910.0.gunman_has_links_with_muslim_gang.php
Gunman has links with Muslim gang
A GUNMAN who shot a Bromley policeman is believed to be a member of feared south London criminal gang known as the Muslim Boys.
Zartash Khan, aged 20, who was jailed for 22 years for the attempted murder of PC Liam Morrow has links to the group.
…………………..
I’m loving this NuLab multiculti melting pot. Triffic!
afternoon all, its lunchtime so I have caught some of this thread. Last night watching coverage of the by-election, I was struck at the sight of alan Millburn and his pal Stephen Byers canvassing together and when asked about both the outcome of the by-election and their illustrious PM, neither were pretty forthcoming other than to repeat the mantra that they were working for a Labour victory. I heard later Gordon Brown intends to spend the weekend in Fife at home. Will he be sharpening his carving knife ready for a reshuffle and comback number 10 or is it 11?
356 I’ve not looked at them all in detail. But overall,
I think Croydon Central, Ealing Acton, Enfield North, Harrow East, Finchley & Golders Green, Battersea, Eltham, Brentford & Isleworth, and Westminster North are more or less certain Conservative gains (barring events).
I think Hendon, both Sutton seats, Richmond, Hammersmith, and Tooting are likely Conservative gains.
And I think Dagenham & Rainham, Hampstead & Kilburn, Ealing North are on a knife edge.
Poplar & Limehouse is winnable if George Galloway can really eat into Labour’s vote, but if he can’t, then it’s a Labour hold. Brent North, Dulwich, and Harrow West are, I think, just out of reach.
358 - No, but the growth has been fairly steady over this period, like most violent crime.
356 - A lot of interesting indicators, Punter, particularly when looking at the constituency results (the BJ vs Ken show distorts the Mayoralty slightly). One drawback about the Assembly results is that the LDs performed so poorly that I’m not sure whether they are understated, or a real LD collapse in London is on the cards (I incline to the former, although there will be an element of both).
But Sean F is probably well in front of me here in terms of detailed examination of the results, and will probably have a Friday article out before I get round to it.
@364:
If you were talking about be, Mr Roe, I can state that I was entirely sober. Although I am ill, and therefore in a foul mood. And Mark Senior’s continued existence can always be counted on to make a foul mood even worse.
361 Problem with Straw is that it’s essentially more of the same. If Brown goes IMO Labour have to gamble with a fresh face. Someone who looks, sounds and acts quite different. If they get lucky, they might just manage a Majoresque revival. There is no point going for Straw. He’s best working in the background.
So if Gordon goes, someone like Cruddas, Milliband, J Smith, Denham and an election within 12 months is the best bet, with Milburn cast in the Hestletine role. Other youngsters haven’t yet got the personality to make a difference.
I agree, Balls obviously is the Tory choice.
358 It’s a subjective assessment of course, SeanF, but I think Tangent (354) is right in pointing to access to weaponry. In my day, it was very hard to get hold of a gun and even knives and other vicious weapons could not easily be obtained. (That we were able to obtain them nevertheless tells you something about us.)
You might even be able to make a case for saying that in view of the ready availability of weaponry nowadays, the modern yobbo is relatively restrained compared with his counterpart from yesteryear!
368. think you are right about enfield north. Did you know Joan Ryan claimed one of the highest expenses bills in parliament last year despite doing pretty much nothing.
368 which of the lib dem london seats are out of reach and why
Both Sutton seats 368? How do you see Surbiton.
369 In SW London I think only Cable can truly regard himself as safe. Conversely I think if Labour are on the slide despite the distorting squeeze by Johnson they must have excellent chances of pickups in IS and H & St P.
David, as a fellow Tory I agree with much of what you say but please no cheap shots at Glasgow. I heard last Wednesday night reports that the thugs who chased and beat up the police officers in Manchester spoke with English not Glasgow accents! Certainly the following day the Rangers Chief Exec pointed out that those involved were apparently not members of any recognised Rangers suuporters club. Lets wait and see what the gentlemen followers of Man U and Chelsea do tomorrow evening in Moscow before throwing stones at Rangers!
372 - Kids today, eh Peter? They just don’t have to work for it … no effort required … don’t know they’re born … sherbet lemons indeed … never had it so good…
Benedict and I were discussing the chances of getting the terraces at either Westminster or the NLC for a BBQ this summer. What do you think?
368 - The constituency figures in Dulwich & WN gave Labour a 14% lead: I’ve always thought that the seat was beyond the Tories for the foreseeable future. But both Brent North and Hampstead and Kilburn look rather better: a Conservative victory in the latter is not out of the question, although unlikely, and Brent North can be cut down to super-marginal status.
357 - I think the fact that the polls seem to be getting worse and worse every month and Gordon’s response seems to be haphazard and/or sulky plus a panic budget from the chancellor is what is causing the fevered speculation.
By 1985/86 Mrs Thatcher had won two elections and the previous one by a landslide, she had proved herself a competent (if divisive) PM, Labour hadn’t yet finally healed the internal rifts caused by the SDP and the NUM and Neil Kinnock was never going to be PM.
In contrast, Gordon Brown will never win a mandate, he shows no signs that he has a clue what he’s doing and he’s facing a hungry and united opposition which is seen by most of the press as a government in waiting.
The mid-80s by-elections were against a PM who was defining the decade love her or hate her and were a protest vote. Crewe will merely be a symptom of an administration in crisis, not the cause.
374
Putting up taxes on the rich by £6 bn a year by abolishing higher rate tax relief on pension contributions (per Nick Clegg on R4 just now) is going to go down a bundle in Richmond, Twickenham and Kingston.
NOT
371, Smith?
She’d be the worst of the four you suggest by quite a margin.
376, regardless of who did it, the behaviour exhibited was as civilised as the Visigoths on a day trip to Rome.
345 Yes. The difference between now and the 1970s, or the 1950s, is mainly that gang activity then was never publicised on the scale it is now - nobody cared much about kids beating each other up on Council estates - no one outside the estate usually got to hear about it. The last thing you would do would be to call the police and if you did they would have probably come along and given you another walloping for your trouble. Journalists and media - such as it was - were not interested. If a bad lad got done over the view was that he probably had it coming and deserved all he got. Now these people are portrayed as victims and their families appear on television condemning gang culture, and politicians rush to the microphone to pretend that they can do something about it.
377 Sure, Morus, if you think it will be safe. Don’t want any PBers getting chucked off the balcony in an outbreak of PB gang violence.
I’ll get in touch with Augustus. He’s our contact at the NLC, and of course Site Consultant on gracious living.
This asylum issue is a very tricky one. I would like to add my voice to those above who disagree we should for some reason give preference to our old colonial possessions. A sensible asylum policy should be based on need, not outdated notions of empire.
It is also unfair that certain countries, particularly the UK, take far more than their fair share of asylum seekers, just because we are a more tolerant and considerate country. The common response by some to this is that we should enforce the currently ignored principle that asylum should be sought in the first safe country the refugees arrive in. However, there are clear practical problems with this: it would require cooperation from southern European countries, who would take issue with the fact they suddenly have to take virtually all asylum seekers due to accident of geography, and it would be nearly impossible to trace many of those that have been smuggled into northern Europe when they have a vested interest in staying here. What is clearly needed is some sort of formula agreed by all developed countries, where all asylum applications are divvied up according to the size of the population, economy, and living space. Negotiation of such a treaty should be a priority for any incoming government. An EU-wide agreement should at least be possible.
However, this is a problem for the future. As economic growth continues, those places with stable political systems will continue to diverge from those places facing conflict, meaning increased incentive for refugees to risk their lives coming here. Increased globalisation and improved transport will also mean it will become increasingly easier for those wishing to come to the developed world to be able to do so. And continued population growth in the developing world compared to stagnant populations at home will add pressure too. All of which will mean that, even allowing for better checks to get rid of bogus seekers, will mean a continued increase in the number of genuine refugees. This will inevitably get to the point where the numbers seeking asylum are simply going to be so high that it will be beyond the West’s capability to take them in. I guess in the longer term future China and India might reach a point in development where they could start taking in their share, but considering their problems with rural poverty it is unlikely any time in the next half century.
But on the other hand, liberal democracies sending people back to places where they will likely be killed is clearly immoral. It’s very easy for those in countries which have governments that care for them saying each nation should provide for their own, but that ignores the moral responsibility to help those in need when you have the ability to do so. What to do?
I think we’re going to accept increased spending and engagement in nation-building, and an increased willingness to intervene to setup and protect refugee camps in places like Darfur. The world is increasingly small and we can’t use past failures as an excuse to resort to a laissez-faire approach to development. Even ignoring the ethical deficiencies in such an approach, it would come back to haunt us eventually.
375 Kingston and surbiton is not as safe as it was based on the london assembly results but i agree Vince looks well entrenched and his recent performance helps him but Davey has not shone recently
368 - Simon Jones is working Dagenham and Rainham pretty hard. He’s busing in his mates on a regular basis. I will probably start helping him after the summer. Based on the way London is swinging I think he might well pull it off.
382. What utter rubbish.
371: Balls really is Mr Popular on here! But with much respect to the many informed and erudite posters on here, I think it is only the anoraks who find him such a bogeyman (no Gordon pun intended).I would have thought he has a relatively low proile among “ordinary voters” - whoever they may be, and as such could be something of a blank canvas as far as the public is concerned. If (and it’s a big “if”)he could carry the Parliamentary party, I’m sure he’s crafty enough to re-invent himself in whatever form he thought neccessary to win public support. I’ve long thought he has been dangerously underestimated by the Tories.
375 - If Davey were to fight a bad local campaign, he’d be in big trouble, but he is likely to survive on a further decline on his vote. The GLA vote confirms my own previous feelings about the Sutton seats, where I agree with Sean: both probable goners. The demographics of Carshalton & Wallington are better for the LDs and Tom Brake, but Paul Burstow is the better campaigner.
387. What a helpful contribution to the debate.
386 Then we’ll meet on the hustings, Cruddas is a good MP, who deserves to hang on, he’ll get some backing.
388. That’s what they said about Brown, and he’s far more media friendly than Balls.
389 and Lab/LD seats what’s your gut saying.
376 - I’m still a little annoyed that the initial reaction from the Scottish press was to blame the police but apologies for the dig. I’m sure you realise it was not really intended to suggest Michael Martin used to go round knee-capping people
My lil copper brother was safely hidden in Bury and they only had to deal with drunk Scotsmen who’d got lost
i think what this site needs is pb.com version 2.0 so that you can enter the names of idiot posters that you dont want to read. I am sure someone would enter my name, but hey thats fine…
I guess in the longer term future China and India might reach a point in development where they could start taking in their share, but considering their problems with rural poverty it is unlikely any time in the next half century.
The great problem is that many developing nations already are dealing with massive population inflows, which are, in terms of numbers and the infrastructure designed to cope with them, far bigger and more problematic that any Western country has to cope with. Most of them, including the UK, get the cream of migrants - and, for countries like China and India, internal migration from poorer areas is almost as much of a problem.
388, if Balls were high profile Labour would be doing even worse.
He’d be even worse than Brown.
WIth a perfect leadership change (Brown agrees, there’s an election that’s civilised and about policy and the winner gets a strong mandate) it’s possible they could turn things around to a degree.
But with Balls? You might as well start an enormous bonfire of cheddar and shouting “Death to the aristos!”
388 - He’s only not despised by the public because he isn’t well known. He’s been an odious creep every time he’s been on the TV for the past ten years, I don’t think he’s about to magically transform into Harold Wilson.
393 - Gut feeling? Conservatives winning 40-42 seats, Labour on 28-31, and the LDs on 3.
Balls’ #1 problem is that he looks personally ambitious. People can see him coming a mile. He lacks political skills 101.
Cameron is equally ambitious, but hides it well and perhaps even makes it look endearing.
Ben Brogan seems to think morale is rock bottom in the PLP
http://broganblog.dailymail.co.uk/2008/05/the-plps-morale.html
401 ‘I’d love to know the identity of the Labour minister who told a Tory chum that the best scenario would be a landslide big enough to “force the bastard out”. My astonished informant told me: “Even in the direst days of IDS we didn’t beg the voters to do our dirty work for us.”
says it all really
I felt…
It isn’t just Gordon Brown who needs to fight back; he has to inspire his MPs to show a bit more of that “death or glory” spirit
Said it all.
401, any chance of a concise summing up?
Sadly my internet connection won’t work for half the sites:(
389 The 2004 London Assembly results would not have indicated LibDems holding most of the London SW seats in 2005 either , I am sure Sean F can provide details of how the constituencues voted in 2004 compared to 2005 .
404.
The PLP’s morale crisis
The latest prognostication is a Tory majority of about 2000 in Crewe, but that’s just guessing. I know one brave Tory who has bet on a narrow Labour win (fewer switchers than the party claims); equally I know Labour folk who are braced for a Newbury-style cataclysm, with a five-figure Conservative majority. I’d love to know the identity of the Labour minister who told a Tory chum that the best scenario would be a landslide big enough to “force the bastard out”. My astonished informant told me: “Even in the direst days of IDS we didn’t beg the voters to do our dirty work for us.”
His point, one echoed to me by Cabinet ministers, special advisers, MPs and others in the past 24 hours, is that morale in the PLP has now sunk to absurd levels. Perhaps it’s a feature common among those who have never known political adversity, but to judge some of the backbench comments doing the rounds, you would think the next two general elections are lost and they might as well curl up and die. This isn’t whistling in the wind: current polls support the doomsday scenario, and those I’ve spoken to accept that defeat is now likely. But what should worry No10 is the apathy gripping the PLP. “If we are going to go down, let’s at least go down fighting,” is how one minister put it. It isn’t just Gordon Brown who needs to fight back; he has to inspire his MPs to show a bit more of that “death or glory” spirit.
The most bizarre thing about recent months (saving Nick’s presence) is the utter lack of morale in the PLP. The past few months need not have been fatal: but the party at the top seems to have been infected by a kind of weird fatalism. It’s like a football match where a team which has been composed, holding possession and demonstration good penetration suddenly find themselves conceding two goals in the space of five minutes, and fall to pieces.
I hope if the Tories win C & N they call for a vote of no confidence in the PM or Government. That could really be quite embarrasing for the Labour tribe!!!!
No hiding in the toilets you naughty Labour MP’s!!! 
391
Do you know why Cruddas needs a second home at taxpayers in Notting Hill Gate?
His constituency is only 30 minutes from Westminster or is the case that the schools are better in Notting Hill?
Guido thinks that Jack Straw will be the man in a grey suit
http://www.order-order.com/2008/05/who-will-tell-pm.html
405 - Yes - I’ve got the figures. But I’m also taking the swing, and the 2006 locals, into account: in both 2006 and 2008 there is a clear pattern of LD deterioration compared to the previous round, which would be enough to lose given the relatively narrow majorities of Brake and Burstow.
409
‘at taxpayers expense in Notting Hill Gate’
Northen Rock may miss repayment date…
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2008/may/20/northernrock.banking?gusrc=rss&feed=politics
411 My recall of the 2006 locals was that the figures in C and W showed an improved LibDem % compared to the 2005 GE .
406, thanks:)
I do hope the Tories win C&N.
398 - To be fair, for the early part of his career, Harold Wilson wasn’t the most magnetic of characters, tending to be dry and bureaucratic. He had to work, very successfully, on his wit and his “Man of the people” persona during the late 1960s. Healey, too, was also a late developer, by his own admission; not really developing a fully-rounded political persona until the 1970s. It can be done with time, although not soon enough for Balls.
406. Socialists have always preferred fighting each other to any other form of conflict. Labour is just reverting to type after a ten-year abberation.
417 Isn’t there the bus, driver, stop, get out and ask for directions analogy.
I saw Nick Clegg on the television today - his political style still reminds me of Neil Kinnock!
414 - Yes, but then the LDs have always been stronger locally than they have been in Parliamentary terms since the Alliance took the council handsomely in 1986. 2006 was, IIRC, the best result for the Conservatives locally in terms of vote share since that year - although only the worst for the LDs since 1990, because of their success in squeezing Labour in St. Helier and other areas.
418 - Yeah it rings a bell Harold Wilson I think…
407 You mean they’ve suddenly turned into the political equivalent of Manchester City? If so stand by for a whole series of leaders in a short time (Gordon Brown does remind me of Malcolm Allison’s disasterous second spell as manager). Me - I still think GB will be leader and PM in a year’s time, and Sven will still be managing City.
419. Kinnock would be lucky to have got his leg over 3 nevermind 30.
406 - This just proves my earlier point - no-one will defend Gordon when the knives come out. Even ministers want him out. He’s toast.
416 Nothing short of a brain transplant and full-body makeover could humanize Ed Balls. And then only perhaps.
Even in a Cabinet of highly dislikeable people, Balls really does stand head and shoulders above everyone.
In comparison, he makes Brown glow with humanity. He makes Blears as tempting as a seductress. He makes Harman look like the niece of a duchess.
420. Looks like the Lib Dems are sinking with Labour!
I cannot wait for the BBC election graffic come eletion 2010! There will probably be a Yellow Taxi and only the MP’s who are relected get inside! Nick Clegg will be left on the pavement as the *lucky half dozen* Mp’s waive goodbye to Nick! 
Simon Hughes and Charles Kennedy taking it in turn to drive the yellow peril! 
422
Good analogy. Man City’s defeat by Fulham 2-3 after leading 2-0 is pertinent, followed by the 8-1 hammering on the closing day of the season…… (lack of morale)?
425 - I thought Harman *was* the niece of a duchess. Was it just minor aristocracy she’s related to?
422 - Although Brown would kill for Thaksin’s popularity with his electorate….
Mean’t gut feeling 399 on Lib/Lab seats in London. You don’t reckon they’ll snaffle any then.
428 Niece of Countess of Longford.
New thread now up.
Thanks
Double Carpet
426 What happened to that defection rumour you started at the weekend , Martin , seems to have been as accurate and intelligent as all your other posts .
428 - The niece, by marriage, of Lord Longford (his wife, the biogragher, was her father’s sister) - who, in turn, are connected with several other prominent people, being a large family. One of her forebears was the Great Joe’s elder brother, tying her into the Chamberlains, and she’s also descended on her maternal side from prominent Liberal, Radical, Nonconformist types - so privileged radicalism is a pretty strong part of her background.
427 - On the day, everyone I was watching football with reckoned that the Man City players were deliberately punishing Thaksin Shinawatra for threatening to sack Sven Goran Eriksson - “you think dropping to 9th [our best ever position] is bad enough to sack the manager who won us the Manchester Derby? We’ll show you what bad *really* looks like…”
what would be interesting for a london analysis is to produce in an easily readable format/chart showing over time the total vote percentages by parliamentary seats in the London assembly , general election and local elections from 2004 onwards . Once we have the facts all in one place we can discuss and extrapolate the trend based on local issues , current polling etc . Any volunteers Sean F
430 - It comes down to Hampstead and Kilburn and Islington South, IMO. It’ll depend a lot on the local campaign, but I’d give Labour the edge in both, as the anti-Iraq vote deflates and some left-wing types come out for or back to Labour if a Conservative government appears to be a reality.
436 Totally agree though it would be more helpful to go back to 2002 locals and perhaps 2000 LA .
Rapid skim so may have missed some posts, but to reply to svejk at 112 - yes, Monbiot has been rubbishing the Labour Government for as long as I can remember. And the previous Tory government. And fellow-Greens who have different views to his own. (But he’s still an original thinker.)
While we’re quoting the media at each other, note a lengthy piece in the Economist this week, too involved to summarise here, involving the Bank of Belize, Venezuala, the Cocos Islands and a $multi-million lawsuit. I won’t say more here but the potential ramifications are interesting.
433. There has been a swirl of defection rumours, plotting and politicicking recently. I suppose you are going to say that Mike should be banned from his own site for saying there is a rumour about Milburn.
I actually think Milburn would be quite a good caretaker PM - I remember seeing him in Westminister: When he smiles at you he looks right into your eyes and looks as though he is genuine!
5.”The problem I see with someone like Milburn or Clarke raising there standard is that it would look like a personal thing.”
James in a way it is, and something tells me that any stalking horse would have to have some credibility with the backbenchers outside the usual suspects to risk them backing him. No offence but neither Clark, or any of the 40 or so MP’s to the very left would have had that credibility.
It should also be remembered that the person who puts themselves up as a stalking horse would be serious about getting the kind of backing that makes their challenge credible, and therefore could be successful at pressuring Brown to go without a contest.
It is also likely that any challenger does not seriously expect to have to fight a real contest, much less win it. No, I think that it will be a vehicle to oust Brown, thus allowing a more credible leader to take them through a much more imminent GE before then having a serious and in depth leadership contest which is as much about a new leader as a new direction.
Remember, Brown has bottled every single contest that did not indicate him as a safe winner throughout his entire career. I would assume that has been factored into any strategic planning by those (if any) seeking to oust him.
I think the plan will be to force Brown to stand down, so I don’t think that the Labour rules and procedures are that relevant in this scenario. I also think that the challengers would be hoping that a new leader will picked quickly by the cabinet before an Autumn or Spring GE.
Millburn IMHO ticks those boxes more than someone like Clark, also think that he would be the forerunner for a more serious challenge from someone else in that wing of the party in the future.
Out of curiosity, how close are Millburn and Byers to Jack Straw or Alan Johnson?
Anyway, that’s my tuppence worth.
394.David, Easterross speaks a lot of sense here. Years ago my other half took our boys to their first big match at Pittodrie, been season holders for a couple of years but he tended to avoid Rangers or Celtic.
Imagine my horror when I clicked over the TV to check how the game was going, it was suspended and the riot police were on the pitch. It turns out that it was an organised hooligans (Casuals) day out with some coming from all over the UK to take part. They had infiltrated the Rangers end, the trouble started when the Rangers fans spotted them and ejected them. Things settled down quickly after that, and the game resumed.
The Aberdeen casuals had a notorious reputation, and I worked a shift in A&E way back in the eighties when they took on one of the Edinburgh teams fans one Saturday. I still remember that day as being one of the worst shifts I ever worked.
439.
You cannot blame LA if Labour lose C & N!
439 Nick P MP - still exercised about Ashcroft eh?
You miss the bigger question, will you support a putsch from Milburn? How do you feel about your Broxtowe seat and it’s very slim majority of 2,296 being lead like lambs to the slaughter by Brown to a date with death in May 2010? Would your seat be more secure under a new leader, or would a new leader be compelled to call an immediate general election and you’d be out of a job before the summer was over?
Do you agree with the strategy to buy blue and sell red?
439. I don’t think the tories had been probing this seat for the next GE! Time to give the bitterness up about the tories campaining in your seat. If you really wanted to do something to hold on to Broxtowe, Nick - You should speak out about Brown after C & N. Brown is a cowardly B*stard!
He sends you upto crewe but will not go himself! What a shower that man Brown really is as PM. The only Balls he has are the ones with the surname in his cabinet!
214
“there has not been an Harrovian in government since Sir Keith Joseph”
645 Keith Josephs, the answer to all our problems.
443. If Nick P is telling the truth (I would hope that every parliamentarian would hold the truth to be of the upmost importance), and i have no reason to suggest otherwise, the fact that every weekend he actually canvasses a part of his constituency, something that many politicians only bother to do when an election is around the corner, would help insulate against UNS, but only a bit, when the swing comes, it rarely take many prisoners…. But, people do respect a hardworking MP.
Someone asked if a Labour activist could suggest policies to turn it around for Labour. Personally (as a Labour party activist) I think GB could abolish tax altogether and we would still lose. At least a new face might be listened to for a few weeks and only then would Labour be able to change direction on policies. They would have to be radical, spontaneous and brave - something Brown has shown himself incapable of doing. Some have suggested ditching Brown will make things worse. How can things be worse than facing the inevitable anihilation at the next GE that Brown is leading us too. People have short memories - if we change to somebody who can communicate better and is not so ’shop-soiled’ we will do better no matter how many times we change leader - the Tories were facing an electoral massacre under Thatcher in 1990 but they still won in 1992.
As for policies - we need two things - a figurehead that sounds like a Tory (they are back in vogue) and yet someone people believe is sincere. I also think the time is right to be brave on things like the council tax - widen the bands, local government - devolve proper power, and finally change the electoral system for Westminster. It can still just about be changed in the next 2 years. It might not stop us losing, but it might be enough to stop the Tories winning. The Lib Dem leadership are moving towards the Tories, but are their rank and file members? I don’t think they would be happy. Ironically, despite their support, PR will be bad for the Lib Dems - currently the dustbin party of FPTP protest votes. PR will free voters to vote for whom they like. Is any of this going to happen? Doubt it. Even removing Brown might be a step too far for the runt of a party membership we have left and most Labour MPs have had any sort of spark ground out of them during the selection process. I am sceptical Brown will be dumped despite the fact their is no enthusiasm left for him even amongst his biggest fans. He certainly couldn’t complain considering he was too scared to face the labour membership in an election in the first place. If Brown does not go, the country will be doomed to a Tory government few have enthusiasm for. If Labour MPs have any sense, they will dump Brown, sadly I doubt they do have any sense.
All at Westminster know that Milburn cannot run against Brown - even politically-correct, anti-gossip Newsnight hinted at the true reason on the night of his first resignation - though, true to form, Martha Kearney refused to tell the sordid truth and Newsnight proceeded to patronise its viewers for fifteen minutes with reasons for the resignation that the political correspondents at Westminster knew were bogus. I have not trusted its political coverage since.
If you don’t know, ask yourself why Milburn has resigned twice from senior ministerial posts with little notice or explanation. He resigns when read the Riot Act by his wife, and returns, tail between legs, to the North East to repair the damage done to his marriage by his indiscretions in London. If you are a doctor, and a member of doctors.net, do a search for Milburn to discover more. The private forum for doctors has the inside track since Milburn’s wife is a consultant psychiatrist in the NHS.